THE WORD THIS WEEK

By Bishop David McGough
The birth of John the Baptist Isaiah 49:1-6; Acts 13:22-26; Luke 1:57-66 & 80 The celebration of every saint is a reminder both of the holiness to which we are called and the bond that unites us in the communion of saints. The saints watch over the Church and respond to our prayers. What, then, is owprayer? What do we seek for the Church and ourselves as we celebrate the birth of St John the Baptist?
Jesus pointed to John the Baptist as the greatest of the prophets to announce his coming. While John showed the way, we live in the fullness of the kingdom whose coming he proclaimed. John pointed to the Christ who was to come; we live in the fullness of Christ's life. It was in this sense that Jesus described us as more blessed than John the Baptist himself. This extraordinary blessing, addressed to all who have been baptised in the name of Jesus, invites us to reflect upon the calling of our baptism. We, like John, are invited to be prophets, to point to Christ's presence in our world.
The scriptures that described the ministry of John the Baptist are equally a description of our own calling. The words of the prophet Isaiah described John as one who was called before he was born, whose name was pronounced from his mother's womb. The same words describe the deepest reality of our own life from God. There is a meaning in life that reaches far deeper than the accident of our birth. Our very existence has been named and called into being so that we might give glory to the God who gives meaning and purpose to our lives.
Our thoughts inevitably focus on the great events in which John fulfilled his ministry as a prophet. We remember his words to the penitents who came for his baptism in the waters of the Jordan. We remember the ultimate witness of his martyrdom. We should also remember the manner in which John was prepared for this ministry. The words of the prophet Isaiah hint at this hidden preparation by describing John as a sharp sword hidden in the shadow of God's hand, a sharpened arrow concealed in the quiver of the Lord.
People listened to John because his words had the authenticity of a life that had been hidden in God. His words found their mark not because of their eloquence, but from the experience of God in which those words were rooted. If we are to become the bearers of Christ's presence, that presence must first be rooted in our own prayer. It is only in reflective prayer that we can glimpse the true significance of our lives. We are tempted to dismiss much in our lives as insignificant or even futile. The words of the prophet Isaiah judge our lives from a different perspective. "I was thinking, I have toiled in vain, I have exhausted myself for nothing, and all the while my cause was with the Lord, my reward with my God."
St John the Baptist was consistently associated with the wilderness. The wilderness is a powerful image of the emptiness that God longs to fill. John the Baptist embraced that wilderness, allowing God to fill it.
What then, is our prayer at this celebration of the birth of St John the Baptist? We pray that our lives might witness to the presence of the Lord, that in the wilderness of our lives we might experience the Lord that we proclaim.