The Great Baptizer, smaller than the Least
(Mt 11:11-15)
Throughout the history of Redemption, the Baptist has been a crossroads of radical, unexpected, diriment proposals.
But he did not reveal - like the Son - the depth of the Father's heart.
He believed that the work of the new prophets should do immediate, summary justice.
He dreamed of being able to recover the pristine nature and strength of antiquity, mending the ingredients of the religion of the fathers.
Everything, purifying and updating the great Temple - not supplanting it in its juridical-theological configuration.
According to Jesus, however, it remained radically deviant, because it was inclined to strength and incapable of appreciating fragility and insecurity.
The God of archaic beliefs disdained contradictions. He came to judge and chastise according to a cold code, as ideal as it was distant from each [even his own believers].
But a High Ruler who does not care about weak people or things he does not like, does not seem lovable.
The constant mortification of eccentricities that would make one great, demotivates.
Locked in armour that does not belong to us, we become sullen, enemies of life, instead of exceptional, unique, flourishing.
This is why Jesus announces the novelty of a Kingdom to be 'welcomed'.
Not to be set up in a sweat and prepared with effort, according to cultural, legalistic, external dictates, but precisely to be accommodated and included; because it disorients, oversteps the mark, astounds.
In this sense, John is inferior to any of the last of the last and burdenless (v.11) who comes to the threshold of communities to enjoy fraternal life.
Even the Baptizer's idea of the Messiah was not that of the Christ willing to embrace, reclaim, value and favour even the voiceless, or those distant considered unclean.
Our Master and Brother is a proponent of works of life [uniquely] with fullness of Happiness (vv.2-6), not of mortification or accusation.
For Jesus, the mikròi (v.11) - that is, the least, strangers and pitocchios - carry in their hearts and in the Kingdom the seed of the newness of the heavens ripped open forever.
Despite having little energy, they carry the dove of peace [Mt 3:16; Mk 1:10; Lk 3:22].
Icon of an energy that is no longer aggressive, although they suffer it (v.12) [cf. Lk 16:16].
And as Paul VI emphasised, at the price of a sons’ style, open to self-rethinking, crucifying - in the intimate virtue of reversal [Evangelii Nuntiandi 10].
The man of Faith will never be a belligerent prevaricator.
For this reason, to the distinct personality of the great and famous Saint of the desert and the Jordan, the Son of God can place before any inexperienced, new, limping, sinner, set free because regenerated.
This is the new era, where no longer is anyone pointed at and under siege.
The creative states of any ‘infant’ - out of the loop, but sensitive - are welcomed and awakened, rather than pulled to one side and silenced.
The real engine of the story is in a dedicated but open and quiet spontaneous, natural, innate power.
Whether in setbacks (even epochal ones) or in the pursuit of integral human development, or in the relentless search for peace, such a baptismal attitude knows how to start again from scratch.
It dissolves the real knots, it does not deprive existence of space, it does not impoverish situations.
[Thursday 2nd wk. in Advent, December 12, 2024]
