Name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. Here again, John the Baptist, or John the Baptizer, or whatever you want to call him, comes into the scene again. And very much so. John the Baptist is a, in a sense, a very mysterious figure.
He is plays a dominant role in our Lord's life. He crops up in at least one of the epistles. The movement that he started or that he participated in was certainly widespread, vigorous, and long lasting. But Saint Paul picks it up later on. Now, who was Saint John the Baptist?
What did he do? There are so many questions about him, and we don't have all the answers. We have a few, and on what we know he comes forth as a very vigorous man, probably one of the Essenes down on the Jordan near the Dead Sea. This seems to be very sure. What was the baptism that he performed?
Remember, just Sunday we read where the whole of Judea went out to him. And this was the capital, this is a southern part. So, that his influence must have been tremendous. Now, here he's sending some emissaries to Jesus Christ. So, apparently, our Lord was was also becoming pretty well known.
And remember, this is in the southern part. This is near Jerusalem. It's in the capital area, where all the culture and prestige and wealth, honor, seat of government, that's where we're operating. We're not up by the lake area. So, John sends some delegates to ask Jesus, who you are you?
And notice the answer Jesus gives. He says, look at my works. That's what that's how Saint Luke gives it. Look at what I've done. This is what you see.
Go back and tell John what you've seen. Unless he doesn't answer according to this text. He our Lord does not answer the question in words. All he says is go back and tell John what you have seen me do. In other words, our Lord rests his case on the facts of the case, not on testimony, of words.
Now, today, at this time of the year especially when the first chapters of Luke come up, you hear so much, at least depending on what you read, or what you hear, or the circles you move in. You hear so much about this form criticism. You hear so much about what is all this about? How much of it is history? And of course, so many of these great scripture scholars throw it all out as being unhistorical.
Here's just one little fact to keep in your head about all of this. It's possible Now, I use that word carefully. It's possible that all four of the gospels were written not later than seventy AD. I said it's possible. That they were not written, that is put down into script.
We all know that they've been circulating in one way or another before they were put down in writing. But the writing could be as early as seventy AD. Christ didn't die till '33, roughly. Therefore, now, at the latest, they were all written before a 100 AD. That's for sure.
Now, here's the very common sense question. If if what is recorded in these texts, which pretends to be history, which is put down as history, which is which is narrated and reported as fact, if all of us is not, then how did the people who either knew it firsthand or could easily have known it secondhand, and you are dealing with an oriental here, and these people had memories, and they had fantastic memories, and they had great love and fidelity to cherish history, tradition, the spoken word. These are facts we know and they're still true. When you put this together, if this data which is given as fact, as given as history, if it wasn't, how did these people react to it? They weren't a bunch of fools, know.
They weren't primitives, wherever a primitive is. Keep that in the back of your head. For example, father Brown, who's a very reputable scripture scholar, man I know well, he says, how could Luke or how could these evangelists have known these things? And then he says, well, they couldn't have known them this way, they couldn't have known them that way. We have no corroborating evidence from other historians.
We don't have any other books that recount it. Then finally, he says this, and I'm quoting, possibly they got it from the virgin Mary. Possibly. Why couldn't they have gotten it from Mary? She was around, you know.
She was Christ's mother. She was sort of there. And to put this down as the last possible, vague possibility, how do you this isn't common sense. The second point is this, about these texts, these early what do we call these early texts about our Lord's life. The burden of proof of proving them valid doesn't rest with those who accept them in the traditional way.
The proof rests upon those who challenge them. And keep this in your pretty little heads. Much of this so called foreign criticism goes back to a German named Bultman, b u l t m a n, who's the great champion. Father Brown's quoting him all the time. Here's a man who first begins with saying there can't be such a thing as a miracle.
That's that's one of his first premises. There can't be such a thing as a miracle. There are no miracles. They're an insult to man's intelligence. Therefore, the text has to be interpreted without miracles, some way or other, come hell or high water.
Keep this in your mind, head. When charges are made often by people who have no knowledge of what the actual situation is, they don't go back and read the originals. And so, this picture of John that we have is a fascinating picture. I'm the first one to admit we how little we know, how much we would love and dearly love to know about John, and his relationship to Christ, and the world in which he moved, and what he did, and who he was. Of course, we would like to know it, the point is the fact that we don't know all that we would like to know, how can we let that destroy admittedly the little that we do know?
And so, when we read this text, let us follow our blessed Lord. John says his sent his delegates and asked Christ, who are you? Are you he who is to come or I would look for another? Christ didn't answer with words. He says, look, look.
This reminds me of a recent statement of our holy father. Well, it's a couple weeks old now, several weeks old. Where our holy father says this, that is John Paul the second. We have two ways of knowing. One comes from God.
We call it revelation. He said the other one comes from things. We should let things speak to us. And all I can say to that is, amen. That was Christ's answer to John.
Look at the things I have done. Let them speak. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit. Amen.