{"id":3067,"date":"2013-12-07T22:21:05","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T03:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/?p=3067"},"modified":"2013-12-07T22:21:05","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T03:21:05","slug":"forerunners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/biteintheapple\/forerunners\/","title":{"rendered":"Forerunners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Advent<\/a><\/strong>We are all called to be mothers of God,<\/em><\/p>\n

for God is always waiting to be born.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

-Meister Eckhart, medieval German mystic.<\/p>\n

John, the Forerunner. \u00a0<\/strong>How was Christ born? One of the ways, all four gospels tell, was through his baptism by John in the wilderness. \u00a0Another was through the visions of the prophets. \u00a0Still another was through the spirit and body of Mary. \u00a0According to the Gospel of John, he was present from the beginning of time. \u00a0Each Advent, the cycle of readings lifts up all these ways.<\/p>\n

Matthew and Luke tell of John\u2019s prophetic speech in the wilderness, yet they portray him differently. \u00a0Matthew recalls his fire as white hot and directed toward some who came to hear him.\u00a0 Luke recalls him as steely firm, but tender as he cleansed them by his touch, with cool water; his fury was reserved for the king in distant Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Matthew recalls John zealously hurried, knowing what must be done.\u00a0 Luke recalls John amazed and awed that Jesus is before him.\u00a0 Both write that, in the wilderness, John knew Jesus as the One.\u00a0 But, in prison, alone, with death drawing near, Matthew writes that the shadow of doubt came into John, and he wrote to Jesus, asking:\u00a0 Are you the one?\u00a0 Or shall we wait for another?<\/em><\/p>\n

Nelson Mandela, whose life was much like John\u2019s, has died in Advent time. Mandela, too, was a Forerunner, of powerful life that has come and is coming. \u00a0Like John, he left a number of safer paths \u2013 tribal kingship, choices for life in other countries, work as a black lawyer in South Africa, for the work of preaching that the Time for freedom was coming to his subjugated people. \u00a0 His speech became a threat to the powerful, who found a pretext to put him in jail as a criminal.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Replace<\/a>That the police and the politicians did not kill him was:\u00a0 a fluke; \u00a0a triumph of the people who cherished his name and his teachings; an act of God; his own\u00a0monumental spiritual survival.\u00a0The same factors defined John\u2019s life \u2013 and death.<\/p>\n

Those who recall Mandela now are remembering his joy, his warmth. \u00a0Also his steely focus.\u00a0 And I believe the throngs who were baptized by John would remember him that way, for it must have been his warmth that drew them to his touch in the river, and there must have been joy for each of them, rising from the water named brothers and sisters by him.<\/p>\n

\"Advent<\/a>It\u2019s been a joy in my life to have known South African Methodist pastor Theo Kotze, who was briefly Mandela\u2019s chaplain on Robben Island.\u00a0 Theo often told of approaching Mandela\u2019s cell, of Mandela asking him for prayer, of reaching his hand through the bars to take Mandela\u2019s, and praying for him, hand in hand.\u00a0 But then a guard came and roughly shoved Kotze away, saying No Touching!<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 And after that, Kotze was fired for disobeying the rules about touching prisoners. Kotze\u2019s own life was changed by this encounter.\u00a0 He became the Co-Director, with Beyers Naude, of the Christian Institute, which brought blacks and whites together to reflect on apartheid.\u00a0 Kotze eventually was banned, as was Naude.\u00a0 Kotze escaped and lived in exile so that he could tell the story to the world, while Naude stayed to bear witness at home.\u00a0 When Mandela became President, he invited Theo Kotze to return.\u00a0 Mandela\u2019s touch baptized many to new life.<\/p>\n

Jesus sent John a message full of joy and warmth in the world, to comfort a man in a cell. Then Jesus spoke to the crowd about John, in questions that seem to address their consternation at John\u2019s arrest.\u00a0 What drew you to him?\u00a0 Fine clothes, or the fire of a prophet?\u00a0 A prophet, I tell you.\u00a0 And there is no finer one than he.\u00a0 Yet, the least in the kingdom is greater than he.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Advent<\/a>In John\u2019s note there is some despair. Mandela has spoken about this in his 27 years in a cell, the constant work of resisting it, and the ways in which his jailers tormented him with doubts.\u00a0 Mandela names this anguish, this hell of the soul that was his in prison.\u00a0 Yet from that prison he emerged with a huge capacity for joy, not for being delighted by others, which is easy for all of us, but for finding delight in others, which is a spiritual practice not easy to master, for it means ruling yourself so that you can find the better part in everyone.<\/p>\n

Mandela included his jailers in his presidential inauguration. \u00a0President Clinton asked him, Didn\u2019t you hate them?<\/em>,\u00a0 Mandela said, Yes, but I realized if I hated them I was still their prisoner, and I wanted to be free.<\/em><\/p>\n

This was the freedom John the Baptist offered at the river \u2013 the freedom to break down barriers, in a baptism that makes family of \u00a0Jew and Greek, male and female, rich and poor, slave and free.<\/em>\u00a0 This freedom is an experience of the kingdom, not a permanent state of life but a break through in time. \u00a0W. H. Auden described Kingdom time as existing not in our present and not in our future, but in the Fullness of Time.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Replace<\/a>Jesus knew that any of us, in Kingdom time, has greatness in us.\u00a0 Somehow Nelson Mandela learned to live in this time always, perhaps through the Holy Spirit, perhaps through the prayers of people during all those years.<\/p>\n

Mandela and John had confidence enough to seek that light in everyone they met and never to doubt that it was coming. \u00a0Mary has the strength to find it in a rather sinister angel, and in rebel motherhood. \u00a0Jesus, too, lived in this Time.\u00a0 And so they are all Forerunners, waiting for us, the river of spirit-filled people to come flowing to them, soon, soon.<\/p>\n

Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.<\/em><\/p>\n

-Albert Schweitzer<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Illustrations<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Altar of the Mystical Lamb, detail: John the Baptist<\/strong><\/em>, by Jan van Eyck, 1837, Ghent, Belgium, Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition<\/li>\n
  2. Nelson Mandela Prison Poster<\/strong><\/em>.<\/li>\n
  3. Child Demands Release of Mandela<\/strong><\/em>, Herb Ritts photo, ANC archives, Gallery for Nelson Mandela Pictures website.<\/li>\n
  4. John the Baptist<\/strong><\/em>, by Ivanov, Aleksandr, 1837-1857, Moscow, Russia \u00a0Vanderbilt Divinity School Library, Art in the Christian Tradition.<\/li>\n
  5. Nelson Mandela<\/strong><\/em>, photo by Herb Ritts. \u00a0Public Domain Image.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    We are all called to be mothers of God, for God is always waiting to be born. -Meister Eckhart, medieval German mystic. John, the Forerunner. \u00a0How was Christ born? One of the ways, all four gospels tell, was through his baptism by John in the wilderness. \u00a0Another was through the visions of the prophets. \u00a0Still […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2483,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bites"],"yoast_head":"\nForerunners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are all called to be mothers of God, for God is always waiting to be born. -Meister Eckhart, medieval German mystic. 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