I Did Not Know Him

Twice in the Gospel reading today, we hear John the Baptist say, “I did not know him.” That is kind of amazing. John spent his whole life studying and learning the teachings of the prophets. He was steeped in their message. He was the herald announcing the coming Messiah.

Additionally, he was the cousin of Jesus, and we know that Mary and Elizabeth were close family members. Mary went to be with Elizabeth when she was pregnant. The baby in her womb leaped for joy when the women met. So you would think that John would have recognized Jesus as the Messiah.

But he clearly says, “I did not know Him.” What an important truth John spoke. It is a truth that we often forget and a truth that we would be wise to remember.

The Israelite people expected the Messiah to be one thing. They expected a strong and powerful ruler who would free them from the rule of the Romans and set them as rulers of the world. With his Jewish roots, John the Baptist undoubtedly expected the same thing. So he looked at Jesus and questioned if He was the Messiah. We heard the story in Advent about John in prison and his advocates going to find out if Jesus was actually the one they were waiting for. In this passage, John announces that Jesus is the Lamb of God. He does not use the word, Messiah. The Lamb of God refers to the Paschal lamb whose blood was put on the lentils of the house during Passover. John identified Jesus as one who came from God and would suffer. But John still is questioning in this reading who this man Jesus is in the plan of God.

There is something essential for us to learn from John the Baptist about God. John could not see who and what Jesus was because he had the Jewish vision of who the Messiah would be. He trusted that the one the Spirit rested on would be sent from God, but even to his death, he did not understand it.

We do the very same thing in our lives. We try to capture our limited understanding of who God is. We put God in a box that is comfortable for us.

Sometimes we do that with the words or concepts of fear of God’s Judgement. In our God box, God is angry and exacting. God wants His pound of flesh for when we have failed to live up to the Commandments. We pay the price in purgatory to appease our angry God. Our angry God punishes us with sickness, tragedy, and death.

Others of us have put God in a wimpy Kumbaya box. If you grew up in the ’60s, like I did, you learned that the answer to every question about God was peace, love, joy, or Jesus. In that box, God expects nothing and is waiting with open arms for us to come to Him. Nothing is too much, and indeed there is no such thing as Hell because God forgives everyone, of everything, all the time.

Some contemporary believers see God as more of a cosmic reality that permeates life and all of being. God is all that is, all that ever was, and we are one with God. Even as expansive as this cosmic box is, it is too limiting. 

Faith is not about whose box is correct and whose is wrong. Rather anytime we put God in a box of our own creation, we limit the power of God. And whatever the box we fancy, it is not big enough to contain the truth of God.

The truth is I don’t have an answer. I don’t know who, what, and how God is. If I allow myself to limit my understanding, I also limit how God is revealed. With John the Baptist, we need to be able to say, “I do not know Him, and yet I believe.” My faith is not caught in the image I have in my head. My belief is beyond the limits of my understanding. I will leave my box open so that God can continue to reveal God’s self to me – to us.

In God’s Unending Love,

Gwen