“That He Might Be Made Known”

Years ago, inspired by artist Matthias Grünewald’s Crucifixion piece and Benedict XVI’s insights, I wrote an article discussing the significance of the priesthood of John the Baptist and its exemplarity for priests and bishops, particularly as it pertains to humility and the responsibility to promote the Gospel and not one’s own agenda. This present article is, in parts, very similar to my article “The Implications of the Priesthood of John the Baptist” published in Homiletic and Pastoral Review. Some sections are almost identical to paragraphs written in my previous article, such as those which describe Grünewald’s artwork and those which explain the nature of the priesthood of John the Baptist. The repetition and similarities were simply unavoidable because I believed those sections from my first article did not need much improvement.¹

More recently, I was inspired by Fr. Thomas Weinandy’s article in Church Life Journal wherein he offered an insightful theological and spiritual analysis of the San Damiano Crucifix and the Gospel of John.² Weinandy says that “by contemplating the Cross of San Damiano in unison with meditating on John’s [Gospel], one may hear the luminous crucified Jesus speak as he spoke to St. Thomas — ‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.’”³ It is with a similar intention that I now offer this present essay which again is also partly inspired by Grünewald’s Crucifixion, hoping that by contemplating the artwork also in unison with a meditation on John’s Gospel, one can be faithful and believing — just as Jesus asks of doubting Thomas. The primary purpose of this article is to demonstrate how John the evangelist portrays John the Baptist as one sent by God whose primary, priestly mission is as herald to announce the presence of God in the world (and not as baptizer).

The “absence of God” seems an apt description of the state of modern art in the West, including television and film, although there are some notable exceptions;⁴ this seems to mirror the relative and problematic absence of God in the modern era, especially in the West.⁵ Within the Catholic sphere, a more specific problem is the lack of belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.⁶ I propose that a proper account of John the Baptist, particularly as presented in the Johannine Gospel, together with an appreciation for the Crucifixion piece by Grünewald, can inspire Christians (especially priests and bishops) to boldly proclaim the presence of God in the world and the Eucharist. Like Weinandy, I am not so concerned with the historical and artistic background of Grünewald’s work, but with theology; in fact, I will be even less concerned than Weinandy with an in-depth artistic and theological analysis of the artwork. I am simply attempting to answer the following questions:

1: Who is John the Baptist according to John the evangelist and his Gospel?
2: How does Grünewald’s work reflect the Johannine depiction of the Baptist?
3: How can this understanding of the Baptist help contemporary Christians, particularly priests and bishops, understand their missions and duty to proclaim the presence of God?

Matthias Grünewald’s Crucifixion and the Figure of the Baptist in John’s Gospel

Grünewald was born in the latter part of the fifteenth century and died in the year 1528.⁷ His Crucifixion piece appears on the center-front panel of his polyptych masterpiece, the Isenheim Altarpiece (when its wings are closed). It was created for the high altar of the church of the monastery of Saint Anthony (the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony) in Isenheim, in the southern Alsace region of France, to complement the work of Nicolas Hagenau, who designed the altar. The Antonine monks helped those who were afflicted with various illnesses, particularly those suffering from the plague and skin diseases. This explains why Grünewald painted Christ with skin lesions all over his body.⁸ It is a realistic depiction of the Crucifixion; not that the figure of Jesus is realistic (Grünewald exaggerates and distorts Christ’s body), but the work expresses the grotesque reality of a Roman crucifixion.⁹

Grünewald anachronistically places John the Baptist at the Crucifixion, where he is depicted pointing at Jesus. Why did Grünewald paint John the Baptist in this scene? John was already dead; the other figures at the foot of the Cross are Jesus’s mother Mary, John (traditionally understood to be the unnamed, beloved disciple in the Gospel of John), and Mary Magdalene, all of whom were indeed present at the Crucifixion according to John’s Gospel. Grünewald’s depiction is certainly based on the Johannine Gospel. Grünewald painted Latin words behind the Baptist that observers at first might believe read “Behold, the Lamb of God” (also from John’s Gospel) because he placed a small lamb at the feet of John which is holding a cross and bleeding into a small chalice. Priests repeat these words during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and Grünewald’s work is an altarpiece at which these very words are proclaimed. John had first uttered these words “Behold, the Lamb of God” according to John’s Gospel when “he saw Jesus coming toward him” when he was in Bethany across the Jordan River.¹⁰ He followed these words with “who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) An appropriate theological interpretation of these words is that they reference the salvific work of Christ, who as the lamb is either the true paschal lamb who saves humanity (refencing the Passover lamb of the Exodus) or the lamb that is led to the slaughter as a sin-offering in the suffering servant song of Isaiah 53 and who bears the iniquity of us all, or both.¹¹ Catholics would probably see the Eucharistic reference in this announcement by John and understand it to be a proclamation of Jesus’s sacrificial and salvific Passion and death on the Cross, and it is probably how they would interpret Grünewald’s work as well. The painting is very Eucharistic.

Interestingly, John does not baptize Jesus in the Gospel of John.¹² As John P. Meier notes, “John the Baptist ceases to be the Baptist” in the fourth Gospel and the title is never used.¹³ The Baptist first uttered the words “Behold, the Lamb of God” a day after (in the text, immediately after) he answers questions about his own identity to priests, Levites, and Pharisees who were sent from Jerusalem to interrogate him. John responds and says that he is not the Messiah, Elijah, or “the prophet,” but referencing the prophet Isaiah, he announces that he is “the one crying out in the desert,” and then he proclaims: “make straight the way of the Lord.” (John 1:23) This is a reference to Isaiah 40:3 which describes the Israelites’ return to their homeland (particularly Jerusalem) at the end of the Babylonian Exile during which time the Lord will lead them again (and this time back) to the promised land, just as he did during the Exodus.¹⁴ The voice that cries out in Isaiah is perhaps the voice of those in the heavenly court who God has asked to proclaim a message to Israel. (Isa 40:1, note 40:1) John now appears here as the voice that is similarly relaying a message from God to Israel; and his message is to make room for the Lord to lead Israel to the new promised land (Heaven), and for Israel thus to follow the Lord Jesus.¹⁵ In fact, the Gospel of John begins with the famous prologue in which John the Baptist is identified as one who, like Jesus, is sent by God; John is sent with a mission (divine commission) to testify (deliver a message) about the Light — Jesus — and he will proclaim Jesus to be the Son of God, whereas in the synoptics a voice from heaven (the Father) instead proclaims Jesus to be God’s Son. Just as the voice in Isaiah announces that Israel should make way for the Lord and be led back to the promised land and Jerusalem, John the Baptist calls Israel to follow Jesus to a different promised land which is later identified in John’s Gospel as the Father’s house (Heaven) that Jesus will go to first so that he can prepare a place for his followers with the Father; and Jesus will explain that he is “the way” that must be followed. (John 14:2–6)

John announces that he baptizes with water but that there is one whose sandal strap he is unworthy to untie, who they do not (or could/will not) recognize and who will come after him. It is the next day when John sees Jesus approach him and he makes his initial proclamation: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” It is this One who John says ranks ahead of him. He further clarifies that the reason he came to baptize with water was so that this One “might be made known to Israel” (John 1:31) and, interestingly, no mention is made about repentance or the forgiveness of sins regarding John’s baptisms in John’s Gospel as it is described in the synoptics. Meier says: “John is instead the first witness to Jesus . . . . Even when John’s baptism is mentioned, it is no longer a tool either of remission of sins or of repentance. Instead, John’s baptism has become a tool of revelation, of Christological manifestation . . . . The function of John is to point beyond himself to the One,”¹⁶ just as Grünewald depicts him pointing at Jesus. Dirk Van Der Merwe similarly explains that nowhere in the fourth Gospel are readers informed about the content of the Baptist’s preaching; he argues that John is a witness sent by God whose major purpose “is to reveal the Christ” and witness to the nature and significance of the person of Jesus.¹⁷ John’s entire baptism ministry in the Gospel of John is therefore to make this One known. Thomas Aquinas similarly writes about the Baptist that he came baptizing so that the One may be made manifest: “As if to say: my entire ministry is to reveal” the Light/Word.¹⁸ Raymond Brown writes: “Little of this [John’s preaching and baptisms] appears in [the Gospel of John]; for the evangelist is not interested in John the Baptist as a baptizer or as a prophet, but only in his being a herald of Jesus.”¹⁹ Brown further writes: “the whole purpose of John the Baptist’s baptism consisted in revealing to Israel the one to come.”²⁰ John the Baptist explains that the One (God) who sent him gave him a message — that the One on whom the Spirit descends and remains is the One to come and is the One who will baptize with the Holy Spirit; and it is at this moment that the Spirit comes down like a dove from the sky and remains on Jesus. John immediately proclaims: “Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.” (John 1:34) John announces the arrival of the Son of God in the world; he points to the One who was unknown, hidden, and thought to be absent from the world.

The purpose of baptism by the Baptist is merely to make known the unknown one who is already present; and everybody understood that this unknown One was the awaited Bringer of salvation. He was already there, although no one knew Him . . . . God, who had sent[John], had to give him a sign by which he would recognize the Christ.²¹

But John did not only come to make it known that the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Lamb of God was now present in the world; he came to make it known that God was present in the world. The identity of Jesus is made clear at the outset of John’s Gospel where the evangelist declares that Jesus is the Word, and that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” (John 1:1) and that this Word — God — was the light that John came into the world to testify about. Origen, an ancient commentator on the Gospel of John and the ministry of John the Baptist, writes: “In a word, when John points out Christ, it is man pointing out God.”²² The Baptist therefore proclaims that He (the One) — God — is now present in the world. In the liturgy, priests say with John the Baptist: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” They proclaim the presence of God. God is present in this world in a supreme way in the Eucharist; and on the altarpiece, Grünewald therefore depicts John pointing at Jesus, God, and the Eucharist all at once!

Immediately after this event in John’s text (again, just the very next day), the Baptist “watched Jesus walk by” and he repeats the words: “Behold, the Lamb of God.” (John 1:36) Here one might imagine John pointing at Jesus. Two of John’s own disciples simply leave him and follow Jesus. One disciple remains unnamed (traditionally the beloved disciple, John) and the other is Andrew who later brings his brother Simon/Peter to Jesus. John simply points Jesus out to them, and they begin following Jesus instead, and the unnamed disciple ends up following Jesus all the way to the Cross in John’s Gospel, just as Grünewald depicts him.

But Grünewald did not paint the words “Behold, the Lamb of God” behind the Baptist in his Crucifixion scene, despite the obvious Eucharistic imagery. Instead, he painted the words: “Illum oportet crescere, me autem minui” (He must increase; I must decrease). The Baptist speaks these words in the Gospel of John when both he and Jesus were later separately baptizing in Judea, and it is part of his response to his own disciples who tell him that “everyone” is coming to Jesus. (John 3:22–30) John exclaims that his joy is complete now that “everyone” is going to Jesus. He says that he has already testified that he was not the Messiah but that he was only sent before him. He identifies Jesus as the bridegroom and Israel as the bride, and he identifies himself as the shoshben (friend of the groom, or the best man) who arranged the wedding in ancient Jewish tradition; and he says that he rejoices greatly at the voice of the bridegroom. (John 3:29, see note 3:29) He finishes with his final words of testimony in John’s Gospel: “So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease.”²³

John the Baptist’s Priesthood

A complete theological picture of the Baptist should also include an examination of the synoptics, as “each evangelist develops a highly individual interpretation of the Baptist.”²⁴ I will briefly step outside of the fourth Gospel and focus on Luke’s Gospel (with help from Benedict XVI) because it contains more information about the Baptist than the other gospels. The Baptist’s father, Zechariah, is a priest from the division of Abijah who serves in the Jerusalem Temple two weeks out of the year, and his mother, Elizabeth, is from the tribe of Aaron. Because Old Testament law and practice regarding priesthood is connected with the sons of Aaron and the tribe of Levi, Benedict XVI says that John the Baptist is a priest who, as the angel Gabriel proclaims to Zechariah during the miraculous annunciation of John’s birth in the Temple during the evening sacrifice, will not partake in wine or strong drink as was earlier commanded by God of Aaron and his sons when they entered the tent of meeting.²⁵ This announcement recalls the angel Gabriel’s only previous appearance in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, where he also appears during the evening sacrifice and makes a proclamation about a future, definitive act of salvation. The story of the annunciation of the birth of John is thus both an end of the prophetic, salvific announcement in the history of Israel and the beginning of its fulfilment. Benedict says that the priestly path of the Old Testament which points toward Jesus climaxes with John the Baptist, who finally proclaims that the awaited One and savior, Jesus, has arrived. The priesthood of Israel moves through the Baptist toward Jesus, and John’s priestly ministry points to Jesus and his salvific mission.²⁶

Gabriel visits John’s father in the Temple during the evening liturgy to deliver his message about the miraculous birth of Zechariah’s son, who will be named John.²⁷ Benedict says that this annunciation is steeped in Old Testament language which clearly has parallels to the miraculous births of Isaac and Samuel.²⁸ Because of the limits of this article, I will focus only on how the priestly ministry of Samuel and his role in salvation history are similar to those of the Baptist.

Hannah, who was barren, had prayed to the Lord at the shrine of Shiloh (the location of the ark of the covenant) that if she were given a male child, she would give him to the Lord all the days of his life (1 Samuel 1:9–20); and he would not drink wine or liquor, just as it is said of John the Baptist. Eli the priest had been listening to her and he promises her that God will grant her request; she miraculously conceives and gives birth to Samuel. She announces to her husband that after the child is weaned, she will bring him before the Lord and leave him there; she later brings Samuel to the Lord at Shiloh, offers a sacrifice, and presents him to Eli the priest. She says: “I prayed for this child, and the Lord granted my request. Now I, in turn, give him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the Lord.” (1 Samuel 1:27–28) Indeed, the child remains in the service of the Lord under the priest Eli. Samuel, like John the Baptist, is a priest who also calls Israel to repentance and offers a baptism by water, of sorts. After the ark of the covenant was returned to Israel by the Philistines and “the whole house of Israel [re]turned to the Lord,” Samuel addressed all of Israel asking them to repent for their sin of false worship of foreign Gods and to serve the Lord (which they did), and he prayed for them at Mizpah where “they drew water and poured it out on the ground before the Lord,” fasted, and said “we have sinned before the Lord.” (1 Samuel 7:2–6) The promised reward for such penitent and purifying actions would be a divine act of salvation — that the Lord would deliver Israel from the Philistines — which indeed occurs immediately in the text after Samuel sacrifices a lamb and offers it to the Lord. Samuel thus also points out a lamb of God and to God’s presence and salvific actions in the world. This “baptism” (pouring out of water on the ground) of repentance and turning to God is similar to John’s proclamations in the synoptics and the purifying nature of the water of his baptism; in the Old Testament, this ritual of pouring water on the ground as an act of repentance, linked with fasting, that washes away guilt is not found anywhere else in the Bible, which makes the connection between Samuel and John the Baptist all the more important.²⁹

At whom else does Samuel point? He points out Saul who God told him was to be anointed as Israel’s first king. (1 Samuel 9:17; 9:26–10:1; 10:17–24; 11:12–15) According to the text, Samuel is ambivalent about Israel’s request for a king. Nevertheless, God answers affirmatively to the request for a king and he delivers a message to Samuel so that he will be able to recognize who is to be proclaimed king,³⁰ just as God will later show John the Baptist who is to be proclaimed the Lamb of God and the Son of God by the Spirit’s descent on him. (This is not the place to discuss both the troubles surrounding the request for a king and the selection of Saul. Examining the biblical stories both before and after the selection of Saul can help explain the will of God that was at work in a mysterious way). Samuel later transfers his favor and blessing on to another who follows, and in this case, as commanded by God, Samuel anoints David and the spirit of the Lord rushes upon David who eventually becomes king³¹ — the anointed one who, like Israel, is also called a Son of God in the Bible.³² It is this complex figure of David who serves as one of the most important prefigures of the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal king and Messiah — the anointed one from the line of David — who John the Baptist similarly pointed at when the spirit rushed upon him. Samuel belonged to God in a special way from the womb through the prayers and promises of his mother and he was a priest dedicated to God from his very conception and throughout his life. Benedict states that John is the culmination of a line of miraculous interventions of God and that he too belongs to God in a way similar to those who preceded him.³³ Benedict writes: “Because [John] comes from God in this special way, he belongs completely to God, and hence he also lives completely for men;” but Benedict adds an important caveat: so that he may “lead them to God,”³⁴ i.e., so that he can point at God and announce God’s presence in the world.

In the Gospel of John, Pilate interrogates Jesus and asks about his kingship, and Jesus responds: “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world.” (John 18:37) John the Baptist was similarly born and came into the word for a specific purpose — to point to Jesus and to offer his testimony about the One: “[John] came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, that all might believe through [Jesus].” (John 1:7) The Baptist came into the world to announce the presence of God and to lead his disciples, Israel, and all people to Jesus/God which is precisely how Grünewald depicts him with his outstretched arm and prominent finger directing all to Jesus. Benedict explains that John is filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb and lives permanently in the tent of meeting (which had contained the ark of the covenant — God’s mysterious presence — which was at Shiloh where Samuel served as priest); in other words, the Baptist is a priest always, and in all that he says and does, he fulfills his divine commission (as “sent from God” – John 1:6) and his priestly ministry by directing people to God in the world, and he lives continuously in the presence of God, as we all do.³⁵ It is a mission which begins in his mother’s womb when he leaps in the presence of Jesus who is in the womb of his mother Mary, as if to announce the arrival of God in the world to his own mother Elizabeth who then proclaims the presence of the blessed Lord.³⁶

Benedict finds it nonsensical to dismiss Mark’s description as an exaggeration that “they went out to [John] all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” on pilgrimage to be baptized by him.³⁷ Many people came to listen to John and to be baptized, and some became his disciples and followers; and yet, John unequivocally stated “I must decrease” and that he was full of joy that others were now going to Jesus. In fact, that is precisely where he was pointing them, just as Grünewald shows us.

Conclusions: The Implications of the Priesthood of John the Baptist

In Grünewald’s painting and in the Gospel of John, the Baptist is announcing (pointing at) the presence of Jesus/God; this is quite plainly his primary task — to identify the One. To live out the priesthood of John the Baptist, priests must announce God’s presence in the world; they must point at Jesus in their preaching and teaching, proclaiming, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Benedict often argued that the absence of God and the loss of transcendence are the sources of the greatest crises of the modern, materialist era, and they seem to have had a detrimental impact on the art of preaching and teaching the faith as well. He writes:

What role does God really play in our preaching? . . . . We think that everyone knows about God already, and that the subject of God has little to say about our everyday problems . . . . We think that God is too far away, that he does not reach into our daily life; so we say to ourselves, let’s speak of close-at-hand, practical realities. No, says Jesus: God is present, he is within call. This is the first word of the gospel . . . . This has to be said to our world with completely new vigor on the authority of Christ.³⁸

Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” Philip’s request was: “Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied”; and Jesus says: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” (John 14:8–9) Jesus thus responds to their request for satisfaction by doing what Grünewald’s Baptist does — he points to himself! God is not absent from the world but is truly present in the person of Jesus.

John the Baptist’s entire ministry was in humble service to Jesus as he continuously pointed away from himself and at Jesus — the Lamb of God in the world who takes away the sin of the world. And it is this God — the Lamb — that is now truly present in the world in a supreme way in the Eucharist. Priests proclaim “Behold, the Lamb of God” as they celebrate the Eucharist, and it is therefore God’s presence in the Eucharist that they must also continuously announce to the world and the members of the Church who increasingly reject that reality as is suggested by recent polling data. The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that the bishop is “marked with the fullness of the sacrament of Orders [and] is ‘the steward of the grace of the supreme priesthood.’”³⁹ The Council implies that the ministry of the bishop is oriented to its office of sanctifying (the sacraments) and especially to the Eucharist — to making God sacramentally and really present in the world;⁴⁰ this is the primary duty of bishops in their sanctifying roles by virtue of their office (which also comes with the teaching/preaching and governing responsibilities of the episcopal office).⁴¹ The bishop’s responsibility to provide the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, can only be understood in conjunction with the Council’s very important declaration that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the whole Christian life.⁴² If this is true, it is a source and summit that is increasingly thought to be absent from the world. Therefore, it must be a primary duty of bishops and priests to proclaim the presence of God in the Eucharist and the world. Grünewald can assist them.