Conception of St John the Baptist

The holy prophet of God, Malachi, wrote: ‘Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me.’ And the great prophet Isaiah spoke of ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness “Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight the paths of our God. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill humbled; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places into plains. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God; for the Lord has spoken”.’ These prophets of old pointed to the one whose conception we celebrate today – the holy prophet, forerunner, and Baptist of our Lord, St John.

            The faithful people of Israel who heeded the prophets knew of and awaited the promised Messiah Who would come from the line of King David… but they also were aware of a coming messenger who would announce His imminent arrival. As we heard in the Holy Gospel appointed for this day, in a city of the hills of Judea in the land of Palestine lived the righteous priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, zealously observing the commandments of the Lord. The couple, however, had a misfortune: they remained childless in their old age, and they prayed unceasingly to God to grant them a child. One day, when Zachariah took his turn as priest at the Temple of Jerusalem, he went into the Sanctuary to offer incense. Going behind the veil of the Sanctuary, he beheld an angel of God, the Archangel Gabriel, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. Zachariah was astonished and halted in fear, but the angel said to him, ‘Fear not, Zachariah, for your prayer is heard; and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.’ Zachariah feared and doubted and, because of this doubt, bore the penance of being unable to speak until the child was born. The prophecy of the Archangel was fulfilled, and Righteous Elizabeth was delivered from her barrenness, and gave birth to John, the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord. After the child was born, the lips of Zachariah were loosened and he spoke… being filled with the Holy Spirit, Zachariah prophesied saying the following:

‘Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets,
…

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
To give knowledge of salvation to His people
By the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God,
With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;
To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

            This is the great person whose conception we celebrate today! And take note that in celebrating the conception of St John, in celebrating the conception of Christ Himself, our Church clearly teaches us that life, that the sanctity of personhood, begins at our conception. Our Lord Jesus Christ said of him: ‘among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist’.

            St John is the bridge linking the world from the Old Testament to the New. He is the last in the line of those prophets who pointed to the coming of Jesus Christ… and, indeed, St John lived in the time where he could literally point to the Man Himself, declaring ‘behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.’

            St John was that voice crying in the wilderness – prepare the way of the Lord. His message was clear, his message was one of repentance – to turn from the way of error to the way of truth.

            In the Gospel of St John the Theologian he writes of St John the Baptist: ‘There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.’

            Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as Orthodox Christians you and I are also called to bear witness to the Light of Christ. Let us take the shining example of St John the Baptist as an inspiration… his whole life pointed toward Jesus Christ. Can we say the same for ourselves? Does our life point toward Christ?

Through the intercessions of the holy prophet and forerunner and Baptist of our Lord, may each one of our lives indeed point to Christ. May we be like the moon in the darkness of night - the moon does not radiate light of itself, but it stands as a beacon, reflecting forth the light of the sun and illumining the darkness of night. God grant that, in the midst of the darkness in this world, we might be those who shine forth the Light of Christ our Lord.