Wild Man John
- Fr. Terry Miller
- Dec 7, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Sep 18
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
(Mark 1:1-8)
Wild the Man
Wild the man and wild the place,
Wild his dress and wild his face,
Wilder still his wounds that trace
Paths that lead from sin to grace.
“Knock down every proud-backed hill!
Every canyon, valley fill!
Plane the soul and pray
Until all its raucous rumbling still.
“Throw yourself in Jordan's streams,
Plunge beneath each way that gleams.
Wash away what only seems,
Rise and float on heaven's dreams.
“Leave onshore unneeded weight,
Fear and doubt, the skeptic’s freight.
Toss them off and do not wait.
Time is short, the hour is late.
“One now comes whose very name
Makes my words seem mild and tame.
I use water to reclaim
Lives that he will cleanse with flame.
“You will see him soon appear
One who step through prayer you hear.
Christ is drawing, drawing near,
Christ is coming, coming here!”
Thomas H. Troeger
Painting in the latter half of the 1500s, a time when the Reformation of the Church was having great effect throughout Christendom, the artist Franz Pourbus, the Elder reflects the northern, Flemish interest in each person's experience of faith. Using a rich range of blended colors, he reflects the gospel references that suggest the wide range of people who responded to John's preaching. The scene of persons gathered around John include children, adolescents, young adults, couples of varying ages, and older persons. They seem to come from various locations as well. Even a soldier is included. They seem engrossed in their own way with what he has to say. One younger man (upper right corner) looks out at us and draws us into the activity of the moment. In the foreground, at far left, a very tall man who fills the entire height of the picture stares at John with a studied and skeptical expression on his face. On the band of his hat are Hebrew characters that may suggest that he is a scholar who has some questions about the subject of John's teaching. In the center of the painting, the figure of John the Baptist exhibits a powerful presence. His posture is active, his gestures ardently expressive, and his facial features suggest the deep conviction with which he speaks.
This tryptic is dedicated to the whole of life and ministry of St. John. The center is devoted to his preaching, calling his fellow Jews to repentance in light of the coming Christ. The left panel depicts John baptizing Jesus in the Jordan. His martyrdom is depicted on the right panel: a gruesome beheading on the orders of King Herod. The reverse sides show the figures of John the Baptist with a sheep jumping up on him (!) and the holy Bishop Ambrose respectively. Note the wide-brimmed hats made of feathers on the women in the bottom left.
The crowd John addresses in Cranach’s painting includes teachers, church leaders, magistrates, and not a few knights. Beneath him in the first row to the right of the center a man dressed in princely attire is particularly conspicuous. He points with his finger to the right where beside him a white-haired man in a fur-lined black cloak stands. He holds two documents in his hand. The text indicates that the recipient is a duke. According to Luke 3, there were soldiers in the crowd, as well as tax-collectors. But the number of knights in this painting suggest that this depiction is specifically focused on the soldiers of his day, a class whom John admonished. Note also that John stands atop a tree stump, reminiscent of his warning “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt 3:10, Luke 3:9)
Note that the response of the crowd in Sequiera’s painting include a woman in tears. Are they tears of relief, or of conviction?
In Brangwyn’s painting, John stands at the center of a crowd that presses in on him. It is not enough for them to hear his message, they crowd him in, encircling him. Not everyone is as eager to be there, as three figures in the bottom left appear to be sleeping or perhaps deep in thought. The crowd also includes mothers and their infants, several children, the sick and lame, even a small dog. The presence of the sick and lame is unusual, as none of the accounts of John’s ministry mention any miraculous healings, which suggests that the artist intended them to represent the “spiritually sick.”
With this painting, viewers are reminded of the point of John’s ministry—to prepare God’s people for One who was to come after him. In the Orthodox tradition, John is known as ‘the Forerunner,’ the one who ran ahead to announce the coming of the Christ. John is clear in all four Gospels that the One to come after him is far greater than he is, and that he is not worthy to untie his sandals, not worthy even to be his slave. Here, John addresses the crowd (a rather wealthy bunch here); even though he is at the center, he points away from himself, towards Jesus who stands at the very edge of the canvas.
The image of John as “pointer” is echoed by Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. At Christ's left, John the Baptist is accompanied by a lamb, symbolizing the sacrifice of Jesus (“Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world,” John 1:29). The presence of John the Baptist at the cross is anachronistic, however. Beheaded by order of Herod in 29 AD, he could not possibly have witnessed the death of Christ years later. The inclusion of John the Baptist in this scene is thus symbolic: he is the last of the prophets to announce the coming of the Messiah/ About him, John says: "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30).
The great theologian, Karl Barth said that this piece was the greatest Christian painting of all time. In its rendition of Christ on the cross, the piece is a work of excruciating (which means “from the cross”) detail, as the flayed, tortured, dead body of Christ hangs limp from the cross. It was the figure of John the Baptist that most interested Barth. John the Baptist he stands at the foot of the cross, holding an open the Bible and pointing with a long boney finger toward Christ on the cross.
Barth said that this was not only a deeply Christian painting but also a painting that illustrated the task of preaching. John the Baptist, said Barth, is the model for all Christian preachers. Preachers are at our best when we point toward Christ, when we witness to the mystery of the cross, when we point away from ourselves and toward Jesus.
And the sermon? The sermon, said Barth, is merely that long, boney finger of John the Baptist, pointing away from the preacher and toward the crucified Christ.
Comments