Coffee with Sr. Vassa Ep.37 (John the Baptist)

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Coffee-mugs are available at www.vassamugs.com. A weekly, brief reflection on the church calendar, hosted by Dr. Sr. Vassa Larin of the University of Vienna, Austria. This episode is on St. John the Baptist.
Today we will be talking about some-one very important in the Gospel. He‘s called the holy, great and glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord, St. John. The geat saint, of whom Christ Himself said, “among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Bap-
tist,“ (Mt 11:11) – this great saint might strike some of us as very distant and difficult to relate to. The Gospels describe John living in the wilderness, wearing clothes of camel‘s hair, and living on locusts and honey.


But, as exotic as his life may sound, John the Baptist is extremely popular in the Byzantine liturgical tradition, which is filled with prayers, hymns, and feasts dedicated to him. In January, the day after Theophany or the Baptism of the Lord celebrates John the Bap-
tist (Jan 7), on June 24 his birthday is celebrated; on August 29 – his beheading; on Septem-ber 23 – his conception, and there are several other feasts in his honor. Beside those feasts, we remember John the Baptist every Tuesday. Yes, every Tuesday is actually dedicated to John the Baptist,

St. John was born to the elderly Zechariah, a Jewish priest, and Elizabeth, who was barren. You can read the story about John‘s miraculous birth in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke.St. John is called the “Forerunner“ (Prodromos in Greek), because it was his special mission to prepare people for Jesus Christ, right be-fore Christ Himself be-gan to preach. As I men-tioned before, John was living a severe, ascetical life in the desert, and received a command from God to go preach repentance to people and baptise them in the river Jordan, for the forgiveness of sins. So John began to preach, saying, “Metanoeite!“, meaning „Repent“! In Greek this word means Change your focus! Change your direction! Or Change your mind! Because change was coming, something and some-one was coming, as John announced, „the kingdom of heaven is at hand.“ (Mt 3:2) John himself did not yet know exactly who was coming, but he did know that someone much greater is coming, greater than John him-self: „After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.“ (Mk 1:7-8). So the people came to John at the River Jordan – people of all walks of life, because John commanded great respect among the people, and they confessed their sins and were taught and admonished by him, to lead virtuous lives and have charity for one another. Finally, Christ Himself came to be baptised by John – not because He was in need of repentance, but because He became one of us, and so He was baptised like one of us. At Jesus‘s baptism, John saw the Holy Spirit come down as a dove and rest upon Christ, and John recognized that He was, indeed, the long-awaited Messiah, and the one he himself, John, had been prophesying about. So John says about Jesus: „Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!“ (Jn 1:29) Thus John announces to his own followers that Jesus is the One for whom he had been preparing them. We need to cut our story short here, and we‘ll leave the story of John‘s beheading, of his death, for another episode.

Видео Coffee with Sr. Vassa Ep.37 (John the Baptist) канала Coffee with Sr. Vassa