RECOGNIZING JESUS

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"I baptize with water, but there is one among you whom you do not recognize"(Jn 1:26).

John the Baptist said the above words to the representatives of Jewish authority when they came to ask him who he was and what he was doing (Jn 1: 25 ff). He must have had an inkling of what was on their minds, because he starts off the dialogue without being prompted: "No, I am not the messiah." 

The expectation of the imminent coming of the messiah seems to have been at a fever pitch at the time, so John starts out by answering the unasked question, denying that he's "the one who is to come."

What caught my eye was a phrase a bit later on, "there is one among you whom you do not recognize." I applied the verse to myself:Why don't I recognize Him? Should I be looking harder? What will he look like? Then came the zinger: Why don't I recognize Him? I went to a commentary on the Gospel of John (F.J. Moloney in the Sacra Pagina series, p. 52) and found some helpful suggestions as to why I find it hard to see Jesus in others. Here are some of the thoughts I put together thanks to the commentary.

"Behold the Lamb of God!"

The Baptist explains his mission in terms of Isaiah 40:3, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way. He doesn't refer to any other of the messianic prophecies that fill our Advent lectionary. He concentrates on being a witness to a future coming of the Lord. "The expected messianic criteria are being eclipsed as the Baptist points forward to 'the Lord'."  Hmm. That got me thinking about my own "expected criteria" for what Jesus should look like. First Century Palestinian Jews were looking for a Messiah who would be a military leader who would throw off the Roman yoke and establish God's victorious reign on earth.  Verses 24 and 25 show the Jewish investigators asking if John is Elijah or the prophet. This shows where their heads are: filled with the typical Jewish messianic expectations of the day. And they are determined not to move from their criteria.

This is the context of the discussion, and explains why John says "there is one among you whom you do not recognize." The coming of Jesus lies in the future beyond the criteria of Jewish messianic expectation,

So, there's a pretty good explanation of why I'm so much like those scribes and pharisees who didn't recognize the Messiah in their midst: I have my own criteria of what Christ should look like in the world, and am not on the lookout for anyone who doesn't fit those criteria. I don't expect Jesus to come to me as a short-tempered person who insults me, I don't recognize him in a student who disrupts my class by acting out his psychological difficulties. I don't recognize him very easily in someone who comes to the monastery door  and interrupts my plans. 

The Jewish representatives have a good lesson to teach me: Be critical of your messianic criteria. Jesus is probably not going to meet them, but is nevertheless standing right in front of you. Let's give John the last word, a repeat of his warning that "there is one among you whom you do not recognize."