The Crucial Role of St. John the Baptist

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

JUNE 24 is the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and the gospel of the day talks about his circumcision (cfr. Lk 1,57-66.80) which, at that time, meant his entry into the covenant between God and the people of Israel.

He plays the very significant role of being the link between the previous covenants, mainly that of the Mosaic law, and the new covenant that is mediated by the most perfect mediator who is Christ, since he is both God and man. The previous covenants were mediated by not so perfect agents, since they were only men, albeit holy men, but not yet God themselves. St. John the Baptist serves as the bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

That is why St. John the Baptist is often called the forerunner or precursor of Christ. He prepared the way to Christ’s perfect redemptive mission by preaching repentance and baptizing the people, including Christ himself.

As such, he was endowed with some special privileges from God, such as being miraculously born from an old, childless and barren couple, Zachary and Elizabeth. He had a great capacity for sacrifice and was also given the gift of prophecy by pointing to Christ as the “Lamb of God” and telling the people to follow Christ.

St. John the Baptist should remind us of the importance of the sacrament of baptism and the necessity for repentance if we are to receive Christ properly. He shows us how to prepare ourselves to welcome Christ into our lives.

Like him and following his teaching, we should go through the process of making sacrifices and of overcoming our tendency to hypocrisy and inconsistency. He is asking us for real conversion. In short, he is asking us for a proper spiritual preparation for the coming of Christ into our lives.

With what St. John the Baptist reminds us, we should do our best to prepare ourselves to welcome Christ into our lives. This can mean that we should acknowledge our need for salvation, expressing repentance for our sins. We should recognize our sinfulness, and exert the effort to turn away from our old ways, and accept Christ as truly our Lord and Savior.

In this regard, we need to express our willingness to follow Christ’s teachings and example, especially accepting that Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again, offering us salvation.

As a consequence, we should feel the need to invite Christ into our life through prayer, letting him to guide us through the Holy Spirit. We should be sharply aware that Christ actually is always intervening in our lives and it would just depend on us whether to accept and respond to his guidance or not.

And if we are thoroughly consistent with the example of St. John the Baptist and of Christ himself, we would always feel the need to share our Christian faith and way of life with others, helping them prepare to welcome Christ into their lives.

We should teach them that by following St. John the Baptist and Christ, we should also expect suffering and death itself, but regarding death not only as the final deterioration of our natural human life but also and more importantly as death to sin. In that way, our death would be some sort of martyrdom also, like those of St. John and Christ, even if we die in the best of human conditions.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com