There’s a Hippie on the Advent Highway to Christmas
by Jules Gomes, Church Militant:
Christmas is just around the corner. I’m thinking of stuffed turkey, cranberry sauce, roast potatoes and Christmas pudding. Suddenly, without warning, I have a plateful of locusts and wild honey shoved under my nose.
Christmas is just around the corner. Sleigh bells ring — are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. It’s a beautiful sight. I’m happy tonight. I’m walking in a winter wonderland. I’m skating on an ice rink and taking my kids to see Santa with his bagful of goodies.
Suddenly, without warning, the winter wonderland disappears, and a voice rises from a desert wasteland. It’s not Santa I hear hollering “ho, ho, ho,” but John the Baptist shouting “woe, woe, woe!”
Christmas is party time, but John the Baptist is the ultimate Advent party pooper. Before he is through, our heads are pounding with vipers, wrath, axes and unquenchable fire, when all we really wanted was a chance to join carolers in singing “silent night, holy night.”
The countdown to Christmas comes to a grinding halt. There is a screech of brakes as I’m driving down the highway to Christmas. I see a hippie on the highway yelling and waving and pointing wildly in the opposite direction. “Turn around. Not this way. That way!”
The Hippie Who Needs a Haircut
John the Baptist is the archetypal hippie. He is a Nazirite, like Samson (Delilah’s boyfriend), and so he has never had a haircut (Luke 1:15) to prove his total dedication to God. He has never touched booze. He wears a designer shirt made of camel’s hair. He eats locusts and wild honey — Palestinian sushi! He lives in the desert. His fire-and-brimstone preaching is as severe as his lifestyle and as prickly as his shirt. He preaches justice for the oppressed. He leads a protest movement. You can almost hear him sing Bob Dylan’s anthem, “Everybody Must Get Stoned.” And he sure doesn’t mean getting stoned on dope.
So why is it that every single gospel writer introduces Jesus by talking about John? And why is it that in Luke’s Gospel he is twinned with Jesus even before birth, when in his mother’s womb he “leaps with joy” when Jesus’ expectant mother walks into the room? Why John before Jesus? Why the party pooper before the party?
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