Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year 4, NL)

Can Christianity make universal claims without being exclusivist?

Like John the Baptist, progressive Christians tend to define ourselves in the negative.

When this woman heard what she thought to be true about the movement of God among us, she testified.

We don't need to explain logos theology; we need to bear witness to Jesus coming into our world.

In John's prologue, the incarnate Word is the God of creative address.

The story of Jesus, at least the way John tells it, begins unspectacularly. “There was a man sent by God, and his name was John.” What does John do for a living? He is a preacher. We can’t get to Jesus without going through a witness, no epiphany without preaching.

I returned to seminary a few years back to hear a professor teach John’s gospel as a remake of the Genesis narrative. The parallel between Genesis 1 and John 1 is obvious, but if you press forward, the connections run throughout.

Is John 1 a midrash on the creation story and the song of creative Wisdom? If so, its writer has infused it with profoundest joy.

It is not enough for the prophet to declare God’s consolation—it is framed in visions of loud singing and dancing.

John the Baptist baptized Jesus of Nazareth. The synoptic Gospels all say so, and the kerygma in Acts connects the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with that baptism. But although Mark seems to find it quite right that Jesus should have been among those who heeded John’s preaching, all the other evangelists seem discomfited by the suggestion that Jesus was somehow a disciple of this other preacher.

Straight paths, deep consolation, and special care for the most vulnerable suggest a road home shaped by generous welcome and tender care.

Some 50 years ago, Merton warned us about what can happen when “all words have become alike.”

John is trying to describe an event, an advent, an epiphany without parallel.