JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST

The first character presented in John's Gospel is of course John the Baptist. He is known from the Synoptic Gospels as the cousin or relative of Christ. John is chiefly characterized in the Fourth Gospel by statements about what he is not. There is little personal contact indicated between Jesus and John. Only the baptismal scene in other versions indicates direct meetings. Despite the absence of direct dialogue, there is a relationship between the two men, if only in the interchange of their apostles. If Jesus was gifted with the spiritual knowledge of others, then John also had some power of knowledge with his divine mission. "His baptizing and preaching in the desert was opening up the hearts of men, leveling their pride, filling their emptiness and thus preparing them for God's intervention."(13) John's claim to identity is also interesting; he is by his own admission the 'Isaian voice in the wilderness', the one who takes the angelic role in preparing a way through the desert for the Israelites to return to Palestine. "John the Baptist is to prepare a road, not for God. God's people to return to the promised land, but for God to come to His people."(14) In the preparation John's basic ministry is a call to self-assessment, to personal honesty. How neatly this dovetails with the call of Jesus to 'come and see '. John's own integrity is shown in his denial of the prophetic or kingly roles that are wished on him and the maintenance of his secondary status to the 'one who is to come'. John's relationship with Jesus is heavily circumscribed the strict character with which the author of the Gospel sets him up: "The character in which the Baptist is to be presented is defined in advance by a statement in the Prologue (i. 6-8): the man named John, who was sent from God, (a) was not the Light, but (b) came to bear witness to the Light, (c) in order that through his agency all might become believers. This threefold schema controls subsequent sections dealing with the Baptist."(15)

It seems clear that, in the long term relationship of Jesus and John, with the possibility that they both had some connection with the Qumran community, and the strong possibility that Jesus had been an earlier follower of the Baptist, Jesus was able to 'know' John for who he was, while John was less sure of Jesus. The ability of Jesus to know in the divine sense as well as the human begins to emerge in his public ministry, after he left John and moved into his teaching ministry. John says twice, "And I myself never recognized him' (Jn. 1:31,33). His role in hindsight was the recognition of Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic figure" raised up by God to destroy evil in the world."(16)

When Jesus began his teaching ministry, his behaviour no longer fitted the expected pattern for John, of the judgemental prophet or priestly king, and thus, from prison, John sends his disciples to question the change in direction.

"It is precisely that change in the way Jesus was conducting himself (a change that took place after John the Baptist was imprisoned) which led John the Baptist to send from prison to inquire if, after all, Jesus was really the one to come" (Lk. 7:20).(17) The relationship illustrates a strong point in the personal psychology of Jesus Christ－he rarely behaved in the way others expected him to. In the relationship with John, this misunderstanding, and John's persistence in clinging to his former patterns of expectation, caused a break in trust with Jesus. It also indicated a clinging to Christ, John giving all his own glory to the 'one who is to come' but somehow expecting that this figure would fit his own image, that he would have some control. When he found that he could not control the Messiah figure he had trouble dealing with the relationship.

"If John the Baptist actually did expect an Elijah-like figure we have at last the explanation of why he sent his disciples to see if Jesus really was the one to come－Jesus was not acting in the way John the Baptist expected! And Jesus answered him in terms of Isaiah: His was not the role of a destroying judge; but that of a gentle healer and preacher predicted by Is. 35:5-6 and 66:1."(18) Looking at the evidence from the Dead Sea scrolls, Dodd postulates that "it is by no means unlikely that the Baptist should have deliberately set himself to fill the role of the voice "If the man of Qumran believed themselves to have been called (or believed that they might in future be called, according to the interpretation adopted) to fill the role of the Voice in the Wilderness, so may John the Baptist have believed himself called, though his conception of the role went somewhat beyond the 'study of the law'."(19)

St. Paul, in a speech to Jews at Pisidian Antioch, states: "Before his coming John had preached a baptism for the repentence……and as John was finishing his course he said, what do you suppose I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie."(20)

With the elaborate preconception of the 'glorious one' to come it may well have been difficult for John to recognize, or be reconciled with, the existence of Jesus. When he did, he seems to have gone to the furthest extreme in denying himself－in the bridegroom speech and other disclaimers. This suggests to me that he was never comfortable with the day to day reality of Jesus in visibly human form and activity.

13)Brown, Jn., 50.

14)Ibid.

15)Dodd, 248.

16)Brown, Jn., 60.

17)Id, 155.

18)Brown, N. T. E., 139.

19)Dodd, 253.

20)Acts 13:24-25.