O Prophet and Forerunner of the Coming of Christ, in spite of our honor and devotion, we are unable to give you worthy praise. Through your glorious and noble birth your mother’s childlessness was ended, your father’s tongue was freed, and the Incarnation of the Son of God was proclaimed to the world

Among all the saints whom our Church venerates, St. John the Baptizer holds a unique place. Besides Jesus, only John and the Mother of God have separate feasts that honor their conception and nativity. The great esteem he enjoys in the Eastern Church is very evident from the fact that during the Church Year as many as six feasts are celebrated in his honor. They include his Conception and Nativity, his Beheading and First, Second and Third Findings of his Head, and then the Synaxis following the feast of Theophany. We will celebrate his birth this Wednesday, June 24th.

John is outstanding in several different ways: (1) he stands on the border of two testaments, Old and New; (2) he closes the doors on the prophets and opens them to the Apostles; and (3) he is not only a prophet, but alsoa precursor of Christ, a baptizer and a martyr. He is always pictured with the Mother of God in the Deisis Icon which has both of them pointing to Jesus enthroned (i.e., the icon I have   embedded in the first article).

The life of John was an unbroken chain of sacrifice and penance. He preached new doctrines never heard before in Israel, namely a baptism of repentance, the nearness of the Kingdom of God, and the presence of Jesus, the Messiah and Savior.

Like John, Jesus taught people the importance of living in a manner that made God’s Kingdom real. They did not teach about some future Kingdom but about the necessity to make the Kingdom of God real, right now. They taught the importance of being a child of God in the present moment, not in a future kingdom to come.

The message of Jesus and John is all about being engaged in the process of personal transformation. This is what this earthly life is all about. The future or the past do not matter. The present does and we are called to make the present a time of trying our very best to be engaged in living like a child of God – living the Way that both John and Jesus lived. How did they live? They lived totally focused on witnessing to God’s presence in the world.