Simpatico: On the Friendship Between John the Baptist and Jesus
By Paulette Oke
I haven’t heard many sermons on Jesus and His friendship with John the Baptist, except, maybe, a while ago, when in my twenties, I sat at the far back of a church in Brooklyn listening to a pastor described what, to me, sounded like betrayal. Jesus hadn’t seen about his friend, John the Baptist, who had been imprisoned for having called out the sin of Herod, who married his brother Phillip’s ex-wife. With childlike ears, I heard it on the surface. I thought it the meanest thing.
I didn’t think as I do now, that, perhaps, there is a reason why Jesus hadn’t visited. I was only anguished for John, wondering what it might have been like for someone to know Jesus as savior, friend, and kin, and have Him not show up at a significant hour. Even while the pastor went on to explain Jesus’s absence from John — highlighting Jesus’s reply to the disciples who report back to Him John’s words of wonder if Jesus is the Christ or should there be another, and Jesus’s calm answer, “Go and shew John again those things which you do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (King James Version, Matt. 11. 4–5), I still felt Jesus far removed, and that His scolding upheld purpose over pain. I had only known Jesus as promise keeper, savior, someone whom undoubtedly comes close to the despaired, and the soul, broken, and contrite. I wasn’t astute in friendships limned by the divine — those lived for the purpose of Yahweh. I had no knowledge of its sting. I had school friends, church friends, friends out of habit, friends “just because,” but never those requiring suffering because it is what God inscribed. It is precisely what connects John the Baptist and Jesus: John resigns to a life in the wilderness, dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and honey, where he calls sinners to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, proclaims a savior, preferred before him, whose shoe’s latchet, he says, he is not worthy to untie. Jesus comes to His own, but His own does not know Him. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and is crucified” (King James Version, Jn. 11:25).
Remarkable is the story of their meeting; both are conceived by a miracle, the favor of God seen as the making of a purple bellflower or parting of the Red Sea. John’s father, Zacharias, a priest in the temple in Jerusalem, has been told by the angel, Gabriel, who appears on the right side of the altar of incense, that his aged and barren wife, Elizabeth, will conceive a son named John, whom, from the womb, will be filled with the Holy Spirit and turn back the wayward hearts of Israel to the Lord. Understandably, Zacharias is filled with doubt, and is struck dumb by the angel, until the birth of the child. Contrastingly, Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, is visited by the angel, Gabriel, and told that she, too, will conceive a child by way of a virgin birth, and His name shall be called Jesus. He also tells her that Elizabeth is expecting, so she pays a visit to her cousin, and as soon as Elizabeth hears her greeting, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps (King James Bible, Lk. 1:41). It is strange joy, utterly ineffable, but proves that John is not only witness to Jesus’s coming, but His coming as King. It is the role John is to play for the bulk of his life: he clears the pathway for Jesus. It is, as Isaiah declares, ‘to make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (King James Version, Isa. 40:3). It is the work of Holy Spirit to defy the impossible to bring about the possible.
So what is divine friendship? What is its meaning? According to the bible, there are no sit-downs between John and Jesus; there is no talk of sleepovers, children’s games, or the walks of close friends on the sand. What we know is that John baptizes Jesus, though he feels he shouldn’t; it should be the other way around, and when Jesus is baptized, He goes straightway out of the water, sees the heavens open, and the Spirit of God descending on Him like a dove (King James Version, Matt. 3:16). What is clear is the friendship between John and Jesus is absolute; it is irretractable. It cannot be seized. It cannot be taken back; there is no refund. It matters not how often they meet or when. It is a friendship empowered by God that meets only God’s standards, not ours, which is why Jesus when hearing of John’s slight, replies, “And blessed is he, whosever shall not be offended in me” (King James Version, Matt. 11: 6). Possibly divine friendship offends. Possibly it feels unjust. It may seem unfair to the human eye, but absolute to God, meaning absolutely what He wants of human souls curiously wrought by Him. What does this teach about friendship chosen by God? It is that a friend is a divine inheritance purposed by God in earth. A friend is ministry. It is not how often I scratch your back or when; it is that we build together for God. It means that our friendships should be dressed for ministry.
In the end, Satan beheads John; he carries his head on a platter to the king’s wife, Herodias, per her request. One cannot help but read this as Shakespearean; though there is no inherent fatal flaw, John falls victim to evil, supernatural evil, when seen from Holy Spirit. But when Jesus hears about John the Baptist’s beheading, He responds with this, “… Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist notwithstanding: he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (King James Version, Matt. 11:11). A divine friend leaves behind and they follow, and because He is risen, He makes John the greater friend.
