• Email Link
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Digg

This article appears in the Wilderness issue of Trinity News , the magazine of Trinity Church-St. Paul's Chapel.

By Timothy E. Schenck

The Baptist is hard to miss. A hulk of a man standing on the bank of the River Jordan, wearing camel hair and leather with locusts and wild honey matted into his beard In modern terms, he’s the anti-metrosexual. Personal hygiene doesn’t top his list of priorities and reverent dignity is not a hallmark of his ministry. There’s good reason he’s not known as John the Episcopalian.

And let’s face it. John the Baptist would never have made it on Madison Avenue. A silver-tongued, smooth speaker he’s not. He doesn’t tell people what they want to hear; he doesn’t tailor his message to fit his audience. Referring to the religious elite as a “brood of vipers” isn’t endearing. But with John, what you hear is what you get.

There’s nothing at all warm and fuzzy about this wilderness man, and yet he triggers the prophetic conscience of our spirituality. He calls us back to the basic tenets of our faith in a radical way, taking us out of our comfort zones, and leading us into the wilderness of spiritual clarity.

If you take those first tentative steps into the wilderness, you can’t help but be drawn to John the Baptist. His is a magnetic personality — a larger-than-life figure. You also can't help but hear him. The Baptist is loud. And he's loud because he needs to be. To speak the truth to a skeptical world takes both courage and volume. When you have a compelling message of salvation, you tend to get loud. And have I mentioned that he is not known as John the Episcopalian?

Perhaps we ought to relish this man a little more, this wild man, full of zeal for the Lord. His message of a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” brings us back to the essentials of our faith. Albeit in a loud, street-preacher kind of way. But perhaps we should all cultivate our inner street preacher — even if he or she only speaks to us in prayer. Because John the Baptist offers what we all seek: comfort. Not in the La-Z-Boy sense; but in the “Comfort, comfort ye my people” sense. A comfort that comes through the knowledge that the Kingdom of God is approaching. The comfort of forgiveness and grace and absolution. In other words, the comfort of Christ. Which, like John the Baptist himself, is not always comfortable but is always comforting. Even when he’s yelling at you.

John the Baptist as wilderness man still speaks to us today as one who cuts straight to the heart of our spiritual lives. His message is urgent, it’s radical, it calls us to repentance that “makes straight” the way of renewed relationship with Jesus Christ. John’s voice cries out in the wilderness and we can’t help but “gather at the river” to listen and respond.

The Rev. Timothy E. Schenck is rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

Who is John the Baptist to you? Click on "send us your comments" at the top of the page and share your thoughts, ideas and inspirations with us.

To receive a free subscription to the print edition of Trinity News , send your mailing address to news@trinitywallstreet.org.

Return to:
Wilderness
A Trinity News Companion