Every year at about this time, I meditate deeply on what I can say about John the Baptizer that will present him in a new light, or, at least, a different light than I presented him in last year! But we have so little information about John that it is difficult to find a great deal about him that will seem new. Then again, maybe that should not be my task. So, this year, I am going in a bit of a different direction.
What is behind the name "John?" Well, from the Hebrews we got y'hohanan, the Greeks pronounced it Ioannes, and both mean, loosely, "Yahweh has favored and is gracious." Of course, to fulfill the tenets of full disclosure, the name John also has a meaning derived from jakes, from the sixteenth century which means toilet. Then, of course, there is the name for the customer of a prostitute. So, let's stick with the biblical John, specifically, John the Baptizer. When reading the gospel accounts of John, it is not difficult to agree with the traditional definition of the name that expresses God's favor. Even Jesus commented that, of mortal men, no one was better than John. And John, who had a following all his own in those days, asked from prison if Jesus was the one for whom they had been waiting. Frederick Beuchner tries to imagine what John must have felt when the word came back that Jesus was, in fact, the one who had been foretold. Beuchner muses that "maybe he remembered how he had felt that day when he'd first seen him heading towards him through the tall grass along the river bank and how his heart skipped a beat when he heard himself say, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Peculiar Treasures, p. 71. John was an old-style prophet, a strange sort of fellow, but a man who gave his life for the kingdom that Jesus came to bring forth.
So, it is a bit daunting to possess such a name as John. So many expectations come with such a name, and how can one even hope to live up to its meaning? Perhaps the best that people with the name, John, and people of the faith, can do, is to live up to the inspiration that Jesus' cousin John brought to the name. If one looks in baby name books, John is defined as "God's gracious gift." John the Baptizer was such a gift. Why can't we be as well, regardless of our name? God breaks into our world during Advent, and perhaps God looks for people, male and female, who call to mind the John of the desert, the river and the prison. God looks again for people who bear the likeness of one known, so long ago, as God's gracious gift.
