The Preaching of the Forerunner

A Sermon for the Sunday before Theophany

And (John) preached, saying: There comes One mightier than I, One coming after me, the strap of Whose sandal I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Mk 1:7-8)

With a new year of the Lord’s goodness I greet you all, and I wish everyone, from a sincere heart, renewal in spirit, in faith, in hope, in love, and in your whole way of life, so that all may be a new creation, according to the apostle: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation[1]. The bright feast of the Nativity of Christ has passed; another bright feast is drawing near—Theophany, the Baptism of Christ, which took place thirty years after the Nativity of Christ. From that time it was fitting for Jesus Christ to enter upon His open, glorious ministry for the salvation of the human race.

To prepare people to receive so glorious a King of heaven and earth, the Creator of the ages, the Only-begotten, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit—the Son of God—there was sent the great herald and prophet, the Forerunner of the Lord and Baptist John, a man whose life was strict, righteous, and holy in the highest degree. God commanded him, from the wilderness in which he lived, to go to the banks of the Jordan and there preach to the people who came flocking to him the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Of this great Forerunner and angel in the flesh it was foretold by the prophet Malachi, whose memory was commemorated the day before yesterday: See, I send My angel before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You. And John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole land of Judea and the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and all were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins[2]. It was sinful people, like ourselves, who were baptized by John; but why, you may ask, was the sinless, most holy Lord baptized by John? — For this reason, my brothers: to sanctify the waters for us by His own baptism, and to establish and ordain for us the Mystery of holy baptism, through which we are all cleansed from the defilement of sin and born anew into a new spiritual, grace-filled life—are sanctified and made children of God, a holy people, a royal priesthood, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Do you see of how many and what great gifts we become partakers through baptism! Remember this, and treasure—treasure firmly—the fact that you are a baptized people, a people of God and of Christ, and conduct yourselves worthily of the high calling of Christians, living in virtue and turning away from every sin.

So, then, this is why the sinless Christ Jesus was baptized by John; this is what a gift, and how great a gift, has been bestowed upon us all by God in baptism, and how we ought to treasure it, and how worthy of it we ought to be! John the Baptist preached to the people who came to him a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and the people confessed their sins to him. From this, brethren, our own confession of repentance takes its beginning. It was commanded by God that John receive the confession of sinners. Priests as well have been given authority by the Lord Jesus Christ to hear the confession and absolve repentant sinners, or to bind them. St. Luke the Evangelist relates that John the Forerunner spoke to the people who came to be baptized by him sternly, with forceful denunciation and sharply: You offspring of vipers! Who put it into your minds to flee from the wrath that is coming? Bear, then, fruit worthy of repentance; and do not think of saying within yourselves: our father is Abraham; for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham out of these stones. Even now the axe,that is, the deadly axe,lies at the root of the trees(by the root of the tree is understood the life of a person):every tree that produces no good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire[3]. Why did John the Forerunner rebuke the people so sternly and sharply, though with great love, and press them toward repentance? First, because he himself was the greatest of righteous men; he firmly loved God and God’s truth and hated unrighteousness, being zealous for righteousness; and second, because the people, in their deep moral corruption and their extreme unrighteousness and lawlessness, had need of a stern and sharp word, just as those afflicted with St. Anthony’s fire require cauterization and cutting, or even slashing.

Here we should note as well that John was a man of spiritual insight and saw the depths of the hearts of the people who came to him, all their loathsome unrighteousness and cunning; and therefore he could not speak with the unrighteous in any way but sternly, so as to frighten them and correct them through fear. That is why he made nothing of their descent from Abraham, saying that God Almighty could raise up children for Abraham even from stones; and he brought before their memory the deadly axe, ready to strike down the days of their life even as barren trees are cut down. Now I put a question to myself and to those who are like me: why is it that we, the preachers of repentance, are so weak and indulgent, to the point of extremity, toward sinners who repent—almost to the point of indulging every kind of sin? It is because we ourselves are sinners, because we have not loved righteousness with all our heart and have not hated unrighteousness, and we do not possess a divine zeal for righteousness. We are quick to lay our hands, bearing the grace of absolution and forgiveness, on the heads of sinners, and we often become partakers of others’ sins, contrary to the apostolic instruction: lay hands hastily on no one[4]. My brothers, be strict with yourselves, with your own weaknesses and sins; examine yourselves more strictly and more precisely, and demand of yourselves a strict confession, so that you may be set right the sooner, and so that we may not, for the weakness of our confession, be condemned by God as careless about repentance. – And how did the preaching of the sublime preacher John the Baptist act upon the people? It acted most savingly: the people came to their senses, roused themselves out of their sinful slumber, and asked him: what, then, are we to do? John pointed them to works of love and mercy, which serve as the finest fruit of repentance: whoever has two coats, – he says, – let him give to the one who has none; and whoever has food, let him do the same[5]. To the tax collectors, the extortioners, and the soldiers, who also demanded of him directions concerning the works of repentance, he replied – to the first: demand nothing more than what is appointed you – and to the second: oppress no one, do not slander anyone, and be content with your wages[6]. Thus John required fruits of repentance of everyone, and, calling those who truly repent the wheat of God, and the unrepentant the straw or the chaff upon God’s worldwide threshing floor, he threatened the latter with unquenchable fire, while of the former he said that the Lord would gather them into His eternal granary after His worldwide Dread Judgment, which he calls, by way of similitude, the winnowing of the grain with the shovel at the threshing floor. In this way John prepared the people to receive the Deliverer of the whole world, Jesus Christ. For us Jesus Christ came long ago, and we only commemorate each year His wondrous, saving appearance and the miraculous, saving events of His life. But, brothers, of us who have tasted the ineffable blessings of Christ, who have been baptized in the holy font and have become children of God, fruits of repentance are required all the more—fruits of love and mercy for one another. The Spirit of the grace of Christ is mutual love: This I command you, that you love one another. Amen.