Unholy Sh+t: the time the gospel writers participate in a little timeline variant cleanup to prepare the way of the Lord
I had just finished the manuscript of one of my novels. I had meticulously combed through the book to make sure everything was perfect. Each name I picked for the characters had a special significance and was part of a broader theme I had been working on. Finally, I sent it over to my partner to read. She made it through the first few paragraphs before sending me a message.
“Is Elijah a bad guy in this book?”
“Yes, well, kind of. It’s complicated. You’ve got to read the whole thing.”
“You can’t use the name Elijah.”
“Why?”
“That’s your nephew's name.”
I seriously considered calling my sister to ask if she would change her kid's name because he was very new and probably wouldn’t notice, and I had been working really hard on this novel. I was advised against this measure, so I didn’t do it. I changed the name, but I’ve always been a little bent about it, just so you know. Family, ya know what I mean?
Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study
Second Sunday of Advent
Today’s Reading: Mark 1:1-8
Jesus was a human being. This should not be a controversial statement; it certainly isn’t a heretical one. The humanity of Jesus is essential to everything that follows in his life. When the early church debated the hypostatic union (that is a fancy word for the combined divinity and humanity of Jesus), they mainly focused on the issue of whether Jesus was a God having a human experience or was he a God giving the appearance of a human experience. This, I suppose, is a fascinating discussion. Still, I am more fascinated by the finer details of Jesus' humanity, which is that he had a family, friends, and real-life experiences, many of which were never written down or got lost in some Vatican archive that has yet to be uncovered by Robert Langdon. Whether or not Jesus had a wife, or if his siblings were conceived of Mary and Joseph, or if they were Joseph’s children from a previous marriage are all things that can be speculated on, but the scriptures are abundantly clear about one family member in particular; Jesus had a cousin, and they were both weirdos.
John the Baptist is one of the stranger figures in the narrative of Jesus.
The scriptures tell us that he wore camel fur with a leather belt and ate wild honey and locusts. Why is this a significant detail, and why does John get a full lore containing one of the more descriptive explanations of his attire than most characters in the Bible? The writers of the Gospels, being no Stephen King, don’t typically go into a ton of detail about the terrain, clothing, and habits of the people they are talking about. This is probably because they didn’t expect their books to be still topping the bestsellers list some two thousand years later, mostly because they didn’t think there would be another two thousand years, and so they wrote with the assumption that folks would understand certain things. If you said someone was a rabbi, they were wearing the customary clothing of a rabbi, and if they said a person was a prostitute, well, you knew what a prostitute looked like. They didn’t have SHEIN in Rome, so most people wore clothing according to their status, class, and profession. The same is true for one's diet. So, the authors are attempting to make sure everyone knows, “Listen, John is absolutely f+cking wild, to begin with.” I guess they didn’t have a word for neurodivergence yet.
You might be asking yourself, “Why are we talking about John the Baptist in Advent?” That is a great question; I am glad you asked.
First, because it's the holiday season, you can’t have a good holiday without talking about your weird cousin traveling through the desert in their gap year. Second, because John is the end of something, and Jesus is the beginning of a new thing.
Jesus and John are only a couple of months apart in age. That means they grew up together, and their experiences wouldn’t be that far apart. Remember the story of Jesus getting left behind at the Temple when his whole family traveled to Jerusalem? In all probability, John was there with them. It’s hard to imagine these two mountains of men as babies, running, playing, and trying a first hookah behind the synagogue, but it’s the more probable scenario. They were close in age, minus Jesus being an eternal being who lives outside of time and space, but in the physical sense, they would have been close in their humanity. At least until they weren’t, life in those days would have ultimately sent both of these men in very different directions. It is most likely that Jesus went to study under the rabbis, and, well, John went out into the desert to be a hippy and do drugs and eat bugs.
People are traveling all over to see John, some probably to make fun of him, but a few are starting to wonder, “Is this guy the Messiah?” John repeatedly denies the accusation, but folks just aren’t so sure; there is something about this guy, so they hit him with a second line of questioning, “Alright, pal, if you aren’t the Messiah… are you, Elijah?” John also denies this accusation and lets them know that his job is to usher in the Messiah. Interesting, you mean, kinda like Elijah.
For the sake of time, I will skip over a bunch of sh+t that we will get to later or have possibly already gone over (idk, I’m not writing these in order, y’all). Okay, so John the Baptist heralds the way of the coming Lord, baptizes Jesus, God the Father makes a little cameo in the sequel, and then he gets beheaded. Now, if you think I’m brushing over too much, listen; the gospels go through all of this about as quickly. We don’t have a funeral for John, and Jesus isn’t rushing over there to raise his cousin from the dead. Why would that be? Jesus is constantly raising people from the dead, including his BFF. It seems a bit strange that he would leave his cousin, whom he grew up with, cold in the grave.
We are experiencing some classic TVA sh+t: they’ve got to clean up the timeline.
Alright, so there was this guy named Elijah, and he was a prophet. He made a lot of folks pretty mad, always calling out the royalty and stuff. Anyway, they wanted this dude super dead, and so eventually, God sends a golden Uber down to scoop ol’ Eli up to save him from being executed. However, there is one itsy-bitsy problem: everyone has to die. That is kind of the rules, you know? The whole story of creation is rooted in the idea that human beings f+cked up and death is a certainty. Elijah skipped that bit. It became the prominent belief that Elijah would one day return and that, when he did, it was show time for the Messiah and the upcoming revolution against the oppressors.
Jesus gets called out about this. He is asked directly, “How are you the Messiah if the teachers tell us that Elijah must come first?” Jesus hits them with, “Elijah has already been here, and no one recognized him, so they killed him, just like they are going to kill me.” It says that at that moment, the disciples understood that Jesus was talking about John the Baptist (Matthew 17:1-13). But didn’t John say he wasn’t Elijah? Well, sure, he did say that, but he also grew up with Jesus and didn’t realize that he was the Messiah until the baptism, so John was many things, but clearly catching onto what was going on in the real world wasn’t one of them, ya know?
But if you look at it in this context, it suddenly makes in uteri Jesus and John leaping in their mothers’ wombs make a lot more sense. Jesus as the incarnate God and John as the reincarnate Elijah, jumping with joy that the new age is upon them. Also, it might make Elijah a bit thrilled to know that his death is finally coming, the one he tried to avoid repeatedly the first time, and now the peace of Paradise is on the horizon after all these years.
I like to imagine John, feeling absolutely crazy, standing in the wilderness proclaiming the Messiah, and then here comes his cousin walking up over the horizon. He wonders why he couldn’t see it before, but the aura of the Christ is shining bright around him, and a tear begins to fall along John’s dusty cheeks. John is the end of an era, the final prophet proclaiming the Messiah, and before him, his childhood friend. Maybe he wonders why he didn’t notice that still, small voice while they were playing as kids.
Suddenly, it would make much more sense why Jesus didn’t run over to resurrect his fallen cousin; this was the final destination. This was the last stage of enlightenment that he needed to be released from his mortal coil, and, in great irony, Elijah fled Earth to avoid death at the hands of royalty, and John died under Herod, even if they weren’t the same person; their lives and purpose parallel beautifully.
For all time. Always.
Wow! That part about the oppressors getting their comeuppance really resonated. Divine timing, Sir! 💜
Love ya. Guy. I just subscribed as another way to support you this holiday season.