Of all the friends who helped Jesus when He lived among us, John the Baptist alone looms large on the pages of prophecy. Isaiah, brooding over the too familiar spectacle of a Babylonian despot, crossing the desert by a prepared highway, asked himself how the glory of the Lord is to be revealed amidst this wilderness of barren ideals, unless some forerunner--some faithful pioneer--levels up the ravines of low impulses, humbles the mountains of pride, straightens the crooked places of deceit, and smooths the rough places of anger and malice and all uncharitableness. The path of the Messiah must be as even as justice, as direct as sincerity, and as gentle as mercy. So must a voice cry--not a voice with a sword added, which, as Mohammed thought, might conquer the soul through the body; but a voice alone,--the appeal of man to man's undying spirit, which demands of us all, by universal suffrage, to vote what Carlyle called the everlasting Yea or No. For behind the voice lies the mouth of the Lord, speaking; and if our ears be closed, other messages, not of persuasion and warning, but of thunder and battle, will, as Jerusalem discovered, enforce our attention, however unwillingly. One way or the other, men must learn that without justice, sincerity, and mercy there can be no Princedom of Peace.
This was Isaiah's message to a captive Israel, and years later, with Jerusalem restored, there came another prophet, who caught a nearer glimpse of the forerunner. Watching, as he did, that once-holy city, Malachi--"the messenger"--was himself disillusioned. The man who would bring these people to their senses, so he thought, must be no less than another Elijah, untainted by temple and marketplace, cut off from home itself. Only such a man could turn the hearts of the children back to the wisdom of their fathers, and so avert from mankind the smiting curse of God. In our Bibles we read these words; turn the page, and find ourselves at once in the New Testament. But, in fact, it was not so. For generations Malachi's prophecy remained unfulfilled, yet unforgotten. It was as if Wycliffe in the fourteenth century had foretold a Wesley in the eighteenth, and had, in the long interval, maintained England in a state of expectancy. The people knew that they needed one who should deal faithfully with their shortcomings, and this was why, despite John's severity, there were many who rejoiced at his birth. Now, at last, so they said to themselves, the wrongs will be righted.
The Last of the Ascetics
The outline of a man, which Malachi descried on the horizon of his hopes, assumed, under Gabriel's still nearer vision, both body and shape. From his birth, John must be a Nazarite. His solution for all life's problems was to be total abstinence. He would avoid the social grape. Yet where Elijah had been a mere Tishbite, John was to be born a priest, with a right to a priest's portion of the people's offerings. But he was to disendow himself, and subsist on food which--be it bitter as the locust or sweet as the honeycomb--was to be won by his own hard hands. Independent of commerce, he made his clothing of camel's hair and was content with a girdle of skin, traveling barefoot, and not even conceding to civilization the use of the razor. John was thus the last and the greatest of the ascetics; and if self-suppression, if monasticism and the anchorite's cell, could have saved the world, John would have done it. Where he failed was that his life was a rebuke to men, not an example that they could follow. In him, the vows of monk and nun were for ever fulfilled; and when he died, Jesus founded no religious order to perpetuate his lonely heroism. Evil as is the world, He prayed not that His disciples should be removed from the world, but that, remaining in the world, as lights and cities of refuge, they should be kept from the evil. He loved John the Baptist, defended him, and mourned for him, but He never held him up to us for imitation.
John's father, Zacharias, was priest of the order of Abiah, and his mother, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Aaron. Sacerdotal succession could be carried no further. His parents are the type for all time of that godliness which prays and hopes and yearns, but remains childless, as if unable to hand on to others the tradition of their own piety. Zacharias would have disapproved of any new theologian who denied the existence of angels. But when Gabriel appeared to him, he was not glad, like Stephen who saw the heavens opened; or calm, like Peter who was delivered by an angel from prison. The old priest loved his religion as tenderly as he loved his wife, yet felt that both were past the age of bearing fruit. And the idea that his child should be the revolutionary herald of a new era filled him with a doubt which, possibly, he mistook for reverence, yet it left him dumb before the people who needed his blessing. A punishment was inflicted on him. The angel commanded him to give his boy a new name, not Zacharias, nor yet a name reminiscent of the family, but John, meaning a gift fresh from the heart of God. What it cost the parents to accept this trial, only a Jew, bred in an intensely hereditary atmosphere, can appreciate; but Zacharias, unable to speak, resisted the pressure of his friends, and put his obedience into writing. And I like to think that what saved him at this crisis was the firmness of Elizabeth, to whom the hope that her boy might announce the Christ was everything now left to her in this world.
Temple and Synagogue
When he had written on the tablet, the tongue of the aged priest was unloosed, and he uttered the blessing for which the people had waited in vain--a blessing, not from the Temple built by Herod, but from the eternal hills of faith and obedience. Great was the multitude that assembled to hear the formal benediction of Zacharias the priest in his vestments, and went away disappointed. But a million times greater have been the generations of every clime who, not content with hearing, have themselves blessed God in the words of Zacharias the father--the priest, not of Temple, but of home. It was not as a celibate, but as a husband, that Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and sang of deliverance from the fear which had been his weakness.
The neighbors and cousins were astounded, but we do not again hear of them. John grew up an orphan and alone, and it seems as if his change of name cut him off from his kindred. As there was no room for Jesus in the inn, so there was no room for John in the Temple, which edifice, so far as we know, he did not enter. Thousands of clergy thronged the place, where they alone could minister; and it was only by casting lots that, after long years of idleness, they could secure, if at all, an opportunity of highest service. Amid a world ignorant of God these good men huddled together, cherishing each other's faith and privileges, but hearing no missionary call from the nations scattered abroad. Already, in other cities than Jerusalem, the synagogue had displaced the priesthood, since it was nearer to the homes of the people and less under the domination of ecclesiastics. The reading of the Bible supplanted ritual, and, as we find when Jesus and Paul worshiped on the Sabbath, there was free speech for the laity. The Rabbis had not then become a caste like the priests, for Jesus was regarded as a Rabbi; and when John spoke in the wilderness he voiced a movement that made for spiritual and intellectual liberty. His position was like that of George Fox or Whitefield or Dwight L. Moody.
The Temple had been, and was still, a witness of truth. The cattle, tethered near the brazen altar, spoke of atonement for sin. Unlike our churches and chapels, the shrine lacked nothing of clergy, worshipers, or collection. It was thronged with people. Money poured into its coffers. The State patronized the services. The hierarchy enjoyed temporal power. There was education. There was liberty of discussion. The Pharisee could wear his phylactery; the Sadducee could argue against eternal life; and the Herodians could defend the tribute to Cæsar. Our Lord could teach in the Temple, and His disciples constantly made it their resort. But while Herod was adding stone to stone, John preferred the Jordan, and Jesus realized that not one stone would remain on another. For, as we shall see, the New Temple was to be built in men's hearts.
Priests and Rabbis
The courts were, doubtless, crowded with Jew and Gentile, as if here was in very truth a world-wide religion. But, as Paul found, within were selfishness and exclusion. Priests alone could minister. Once only in the year could the high priest enter the very presence of God. Women were separated from men. The tabernacle in the wilderness, which when first established had gathered the tribes into one brotherhood, had fulfilled its purpose, and was now a citadel of privilege.
And the Holy of Holies, once radiant with God's Presence, was empty. When the veil was rent by a Divine hand--that is, from top to bottom--behold, there was nothing within. Gone was the manna from heaven that fed the nation. Gone were the tables of law that protected the poor and the weak. Gone was Aaron's rod of discipline that blossomed into beauty. Only a free people could preserve the ark of such a covenant, and in captivity the ark disappeared. Yet the priests and the Rabbis still taught' the people that God is to be worshiped in the gloom and in the darkness of a silent loneliness. was not the belief of Moses and the Prophets. To them, God was ever where the brightness burns. In the cleft of the rock, in the cloud by day, in the flame by night, in the glow of Urim and Thummim, in the fiery bush; the glory of the Shekinah is not darkness amid light, but light amid darkness; it is wisdom amid folly, science amid superstition, knowledge amid ignorance, hope amid fears. It was not the incense, nor the smoke of sacrifices, nor the feeble glimmer of the seven lamps on the golden candlestick, nor the tinkle of bells and pomegranates on the robes of Caiaphas, the high priest, that drew the angel Gabriel to earth; but the prayers of Zacharias, uttered not once within this costly shrine. Man himself is the temple of God, and within him must be built the altar of incense where he worships, the table of shewbread which sustains him, the sevenfold candlestick which illuminates his judgment, and the ark of the covenant over which, like cherubim, God's Spirit hovers, with wings that could wander, but with a reverence that enthralls. To cleanse that temple was John's task; to dwell in it is the birthright of Jesus; and to welcome Him is the inestimable privilege of all mankind.