The Friend of the Bridegroom: On the Orthodox Veneration of the Forerunner by Sergius Bulgakov

Author:Sergius Bulgakov [Sergius Bulgakov]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-05-25T13:33:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

The Savior's Discourse about

John the Forerunner

After having dismissed John's disciples, the Lord addressed the people with a discourse, a eulogy, so to speak, in praise of John. To no one else does the Lord accord such attention, and His praise indicates, more than anything else, how He had received and interpreted John's sending of the disciples. At the same time, these words of the Bridegroom about His friend contain the whole doctrine of John the Forerunner stated by the Truth Himself.

The Savior's words are reported in Matthew 1r:7-ig and Luke 7:24-35 with certain differences, as we shall see. The Savior addresses the people, many of whom knew John, for they went out to him in the wilderness: "What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?" (Matt. 11:7) A dry reed shaken by the wind was the most ordinary kind of object, and it was not to see it, and not for mere gawking or empty curiosity, that the people went out into the wilderness. But at the same time the image of a supple reed implies, by contrast, tacit praise of the Forerunner's firmness and faithfulness, just attested to by his sending of the disciples. At the same time, this rejects the impression that some might have had that the Forerunner had had doubts, that his faith in the Messiah had been shaken.

Thus, it was not ordinary and petty interests that drew people from the usual places of their habitation into the wilderness. "But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in king's houses" (Matt. 11:8). It was not the spectacle of human vanity and luxury, nor that of false grandeur that seeks to exhibit it self in king's houses, that drew the people into the wilderness, for the latter is not a place for such exhibitions. Here, the Lord implicitly praises the Forerunner's severe asceticism, as well as his total independence from the powerful of this world, who live in king's houses.

Not idleness and not illusory goods drew the people into the wilderness. They went there to see and to hear the one who was becoming famous as a prophet. "But what went ye out for to see?" - the Lord asks a third time, and gives the answer Himself: "A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. For this is he, of whom it is written [Mal. 3:1], Behold, I send my messenger [angel in the Russian Bible] before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee" (Matt. 11:9-ro).

The Lord attests here that John is indeed His Forerunner, who at the same time is accomplishing the prophetic ministry. But his mission is more than a prophetic one, for prophets announced what was to come, whereas the future announced by John is already the present, which he sees and knows at the moment that he announces it. And, in this sense, he is the intermediary between the Old and New Testaments.

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