The Arrow of Christ

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St. John the Baptist is a very important character in Advent. He prepares the way for the Lord.

St. John the Baptist was one of the greatest saints of all time. Perhaps no one gets greater praise from Jesus than he does, since the Lord says “Of all men born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”

What was John’s secret? How did he attain such heights of sanctity, how could he become the representative of all the prophets, all the good that God had done up to the coming of the Christ? And how can we imitate his virtue?

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John’s Detachment from Pleasure

The first thing we see in St. John the Baptist is his physical self-mastery.

John lives out in the desert. John eats wild locusts. John wears camel hair, have you ever worn camel hair straight on the skin? Why does John do this?

Why does preparation for Christ require discipline of the body? Of the flesh?

Because there’s only room for one God in our life. If our main goal in life is pleasure and entertainment or comfort and security then Jesus can’t be Our Lord.

That’s why we have to fast, we have to mortify ourselves. We don’t have to do it publicly, or in big dramatic ways, but we have to routinely say to the desires of the flesh, “I belong to Jesus, not to you.”

Purple is the color of Advent because it’s a little Lent; a time to make room for the Lord to come by self-discipline and sacrifice.

So are you making little sacrifices of food, or other pleasures, this Advent? If not, how are you going to get the freedom from pleasure which is a prerequisite for becoming a hero for Christ, the way John the Baptist was?

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John’s Detachment from the Opinions of Others

John the Baptist is able to speak the truth and speak it plainly. He is absolutely fearless. He speaks truth to the priests, the Pharisees, and the soldiers. He speaks truth to Herod himself. He has no fear. How does he do that?

He does it by the discipline of solitude.

He goes out into the desert. He doesn’t thrust himself into society, he doesn’t rush out in public to promote himself and his views. He doesn’t constantly think about what other people think, which makes him free to recognize and articulate the truth.

So, do you surround yourself with solitude? Or do you thrust yourself into the public arena constantly?

Are you constantly posting about yourself and your views? Do you rush out and give your opinion without being asked? Is your whole life one big “look at me?”

If so, you’ll always be dominated by an anxiety about what people are thinking about you.

Instead, cultivate the discipline of solitude. Go out into the desert, or at least go into your room. Shut the door. Pray in secret. Reflect in secret. Love to be alone with God.

Then you might be able to give this lost world the truth when they come asking for it.

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John’s Detachment from Success

There’s a certain point in John’s life where his influence starts to fade. It fades because Jesus takes His place.

Jesus starts baptizing more people than John does. Jesus starts attracting all of John’s followers. And John’s disciples are upset. They say, “Hey, tell that Jesus Guy to stop destroying this ministry you’ve worked so hard to build up.” And John the Baptist says that he is content, that he rejoices, at Jesus taking over. He says, “He must increase, and I must decrease.”

See, John doesn’t care about success, about his legacy or his impact factor. All He cares about is whether Christ is loved, and whether God’s will is done. As long as it is, John doesn’t care whether the spotlight is on him or not.

We have to remember that our projects, the things we build, are not important in themselves. All that matters is that people come closer to Christ.

If that happens better by our work being dismantled or ignored or updated by someone else, so be it. He must increase, we must decrease.

We spend so much time trying to carve our names into the face of the earth. But this earth will pass away. All that matters is that our names, and as many names as possible, be written in the book of Heaven.

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John as an Arrow to Christ

The Church has always taught that John the Baptist is the last of the great Old Testament prophets.

The whole Old Testament is an arrow to Christ, it’s the promise and foretelling of the Messiah. Well, one day, John the Baptist saw Jesus, and he chose that day to take the whole Old Testament into Himself. He became the embodiment of the Old Testament. He became the arrow, he pointed to Christ, and he said, “Behold! There is the Lamb of God who takes away the Sins of the World.”

This is the most important way we’re called to imitate John the Baptist. We are called to let our whole humanity, our entire selves, be arrows to Christ.

When people look at us, we want the next thing they think about to be Jesus.

So often, because of our sins and selfishness, because of our intemperance, our vanity and ambition, we try to point to ourselves. That’s all we want people to think about, us.

In those cases, our humanity becomes a distraction from Christ, not an arrow to him.

So let’s pray to St. John the Baptist, the greatest man born of woman, to intercede for us so that our humanity can become a bridge, an arrow, not an obstacle, to the Lord.