What happens when what you need to say cannot be expressed in words? Like, for instance, when you try to say how much gratitude, compassion, faith, and joy you have for the person you live with. When you say “I love you,” does that really cut it? What if that is all you’ve got to work with? Words may be the substance of our expression, but they are in so many ways its end as well. What happens when you have no more words, but you have something left to say?
I’ve been thinking about that and about John the Baptist, in no small part because of a conversation I had with the SubDude this week. Keeping in mind that a) this is advent and b) the readings for this week are all about John the Baptist. (There is, not coincidentally, also my favorite biblical grammar controversy in the coming week. To wit: Isiah says, “The voice of one crying out ‘In the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord!” versus the Gospel rendering of John the Baptizer as a voice crying out in the wilderness “Prepare a way for the Lord!” Get it? That’s probably a subject for another discussion.)
The thing that’s interesting to me right now is what is being cried out: “baptism with fire and the holy spirit,” and “One is coming whose sandals I am not fit to untie.” What the hell does this mean? Especially coming from a prophet? Prophets are supposed to tell it like it is. Prophets say, “Israel, you’re screwed! Now, get your act together before you are smitten.” (And by smitten, we mean the future tense of smite, as in “God will smite the Amorites and give all their crap to Israel.” [That’s in the first book of Erronius. Look it up, hater.]) So if prophets are always so straight forward about Israel’s departure from the covenant and what needs to be done to correct the situation, why is John beating around the bush.
Maybe because John knows what is coming, but he doesn’t really know how to get it out in a way that people can understand. He jumps for joy in his mother’s womb when she meets her cousin Mary, in who’s is the little baby Jesus. John seems like a bright enough guy in so many ways, so why is he roaming around in the dessert eating locusts and growing dreads? Probably because he has this thing inside him, this thing that needs expression but lacks words. It’s a blessing for the world, perhaps, but it’s got to be hell on a guy,
he should have sent a sculpturegram.
They didn’t have grams back then. It was all cubits and stuff.