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From the Associate:
THE OLD AND THE NEW
This past Thursday was the memorial of the martyrdom of St. John the Baptist. A few words about our noble patron.
Jesus made an astonishing statement about his cousin John. "No man born of woman," he said, "is greater than John the Baptist." This is not just family praise; Jesus says nothing without meaning a great deal. Here we see the eternal Word of God made flesh, the one who will one day judge every man and woman, who sees into hearts and understands our very depths, who knows motives and actions and God's purpose in the world, someone who knows what he is talking about, making the solemn pronouncement that John the Baptist is the greatest man who ever lived. Greater than Moses the Lawgiver, greater than David the conquering King, greater than prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Miriam and Daniel, greater than others outside the Chosen People, whether sages or warriors or quiet people living in hidden heroism. Simply the greatest.
Surprising enough. But the next thing Jesus says is even more astonishing. "And yet I tell you, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." What can he possibly mean? The least of the Christians, greater than the greatest man who ever lived? This sounds either like crass triumphalism or just plain silliness, a seeming flight from reality. We've all known Christians, people of the Kingdom, who were not especially impressive. Like, to take an example near at hand, me. I'm doing my best over here, but put me head to head with someone like St. John, and, well, the less said the better. And yet Jesus' words still stand.
As it happens, Jesus is talking here, not so much about his cousin John, but rather about the extraordinary gift of the Holy Spirit. John, great though he is, is still a man under the Old Covenant. The Holy Spirit worked among the Chosen People, but in an external way. With the coming of Christ and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit has taken up residence within our hearts in a new way, so that we become the new Temple, the place where God dwells. Nothing will ever be the same for the human race, and the least of those who have become temples of the Holy Spirit are greater than the greatest of those who have not received this gift, not because of their own excellence, but because of the awesome power and beauty of what has been given them. It is the luster of God himself that makes those in the Kingdom great.
St. John is the hinge between the two Covenants: born under the old, preparing the way for the new. And he himself understood the extraordinary change that was taking place in human history: "One is coming whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie." This untying of the sandal strap was the duty of the slave; John is saying that he is not worthy even to be Christ's slave. This was a metaphorical way of acknowledging the greatness of the gift Christ was bringing to a fallen humanity. Once that gift had arrived, his business was over. "He must increase, and I must decrease."
This is why Christianity has never meant just "being good." Lots of people in all times and places have tried to make the world a better place, tried to be just and fair and loving, tried to be "good people." Some of them have been very impressive at it. Christianity has no monopoly on the business of doing good. What makes Christ unique, what makes him the only hope for a darkened world, is this gift he brings of new and regenerating life. "He holds the keys of hell and death." He conquers both our guilt and our mortality. He implants in us with baptism a new principle of life, his very Self, a gift that will spring forth into eternal perfection if we let him have his way with us.
"Behold," says the Risen Christ, "I make all things new!"
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