The Politics of John the Baptist

Icon of the Theophany

“Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

Advent is the “little lent” in the shorter liturgical cycle of the Christian year that begins with Advent and ends with Transfiguration. And in this penitential season, we are accustomed to reflecting on the second coming, the final judgment, our need to let our hearts “prepare Him room,” and, of course, John the Baptist’s call for repentance.

But when John the Baptist went out to the Jordan to baptize, he was making a political, not just a religious, statement. Though people were “Confessing their sins, [and] … baptized by him in the Jordan River,” his baptism was not just about forgiveness of individual sins and getting a ritual cleansing. Had that been the case, there was no reason for this to take place at the Jordan. 

There were probably thousands of specially built baths, or mikvahs, around the country where people could have been baptized. Baptism was not uncommon. The Qumran monastic community, where John may have lived for a time, practiced daily baptisms. Anyone visiting the temple would have to be baptized. During high holy days, the mikvahs around Jerusalem were quite efficient in getting tens of thousands of people through the waters.

So why perform baptisms out in the wilderness, at the Jordan river? Why make these people travel out to you from “Jerusalem and all Judea … and all the region along the Jordan”? And why would they go?

They went, probably for a lot of reasons, but one was that they were longing for a gift that was promised, but not yet received. And that gift was as political as it was religious. What they longed for was not personal salvation, but a vision of a godly society, which they knew they didn’t inhabit.

The Jordan is the beginning of the nation of Israel. After their ancestors had been purified through suffering in the desert for forty years, they were allowed to enter this land through the Jordan, a kind of baptism, to set up a nation under God that would sustain this band of slaves, these descendants of wandering Abraham’s faith, and give them security as they had never known it.

The problem was that the nation, as it existed in John’s day, was definitely not what God had in mind, and the people knew it. They looked at the government of their country and they knew, deep down, that something was wrong. They were not a nation under God. They were under a brutal and sadistic and decadent king, serving at the behest of the demonic gods of this world. King Herod was a puppet of foreign pagan interests, a tool of the Romans.

When John baptized in the Jordan, he was effectively saying to those who came to him, “We have to start over as a nation, and not not just you rulers. You, all you Judaeans, have surrendered your right to be called Jews, to be the nation of Israel. You need a restart. If you want what God intended and intends for you, you need to go through the Jordan like our ancestors did.”

“Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

It would be like some American “prophet” setting up a preaching stand outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, calling out the tyrannical aspects of the United States, telling people something new is coming that will overthrow the current regime, and that they all need to re-sign the Declaration of Independence. 

Now imagine that hundreds, thousands of people made their way to Philadelphia from around the country to sign up for the USA 2.0. That would be perceived as a threat down in Washington. I don’t imagine it would be tolerated for long, or that the “prophet” would be tolerated for long. John wasn’t.

I want to look at a passage in Isaiah 11, where that prophet describes this “Kingdom of Heaven” that John said has “come near.” It is not an uncommon text for the Advent season. It talks about a new kingdom of peace, shalom. 

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Is 11:6-9). 

But that vision of peace doesn’t begin with peace. It begins with destruction. The passage begins, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” A stump, a dead thing. For there to be a stump, something violent must have happened to a tree. Isaiah is saying something political in his time as well. As exile looms, he is telling the nation that their king, the descendent of David who lives in the palace and says that everything is fine, has no future.

That stump means the walls of Jerusalem cannot protect the people. The rites in the temple cannot guarantee God’s favor. In Isaiah’s vision, the government and church which God tolerated through unfaithful king after unfaithful king, false prophet after false prophet, corrupt priest after corrupt priest, is ending. 

Isaiah was saying, “Sure, right now, the government is technically intact. It is still making promises to protect you, tackle your economic problems, protect your borders, promote equality, and make you prosperous, comfortable, and secure. But do not trust it. Do not rely on it. “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

And what happened? Assyria dissolved Ephraim. Babylon destroyed Judah. Foreign pagans annihilated the kingdom of Yahweh. 

Then Isaiah describes the new branch from that stump. If the tree of Jesse as a stump hints at destruction, the branch that grows out of its roots brings it. “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him… with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.”

That was the promise. That is what the people of Judea came out to the Jordan to prepare for. That is who they longed for. Admittedly, John the Baptist, with his “clothes … made of camel’s hair, and … leather belt around his waist,” eating “locusts and wild honey” looked more like Elijah than Isaiah. But like Isaiah, he was saying that what currently is, is coming to an end. Judgment is coming to Judah, in his time, as it had in the past. 

Those who should care for the people are abusing them. Those who should demonstrate faithfulness are leading people astray. John is angry. God is angry. It is not okay, leaders, to get your status from the trappings of worldly prestige and your power through the manipulation of politics. All of that is coming to an end. The ship is going down and you’re convincing people to keep playing shuffleboard and go to the buffet, as if that will save them.

Sometimes God has to call us on the carpet, especially we corrupted religious leaders. “When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing” John spoke directly and harshly to them. “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Those who maintain the mainstream religious status quo are sons of snakes, children of the tempter—the serpent who convinced our first parents to eat from that tree.

Imagine again the example of the prophet in Philadelphia. It would be as if the politicians responsible for the corruption of the “self-evident” Truths (capital T), showed up to re-sign the Declaration, to look patriotic. Produce fruit in keeping with repentance….  The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. In John’s day, the Pharisees and Sadducees were playing a dangerous game. By playing at religion, they played with fire and by their example they got other people to play with fire.

The King whose kingdom has come near, who was born in a stable in Bethlehem, is love. But he is a terrifying love. His is a love so hot that it can tolerate no rival. As a leader, He is more than a prophet. He is more than a priest. He is more than a king.  “I baptize you with water for repentance” John preached. “But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” 

The king and kingdom that is coming will not tolerate political game playing, nor will it tolerate false earthly allegiances masquerading as faithfulness, as patriotism and piety. The hopes we place in worldly leaders, political or religious, are false hopes. They are no better than Uzziah, Herod, or the “pious” Pharisees and Sadducees. The household idols we have—the things we turn to when we’re convinced the Holy Spirit is not enough to cope, including trust in politics—will be taken from us whether we like it or not. They cannot coexist with the Kingdom of heaven. If we insist on depending on them, we will find ourselves with nothing.

The politics of power that says it will protect our freedoms will not. The things we buy to make ourselves feel secure and confident are passing away. The wealth we store up to give us a sense of security will turn to dust. The old wounds we are afraid to allow the Healer to touch—because touching will hurt—are fatal. 

They are all dead idols. They cannot save. They keep us from what God has for us. They keep us from the fullness of His fiery heavenly love, from His healing. They keep us from His very near Kingdom of Heaven. “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” They will not stand in the judgment. If we depend on them, we will not stand in the judgment, either. 

The kingdom of shadows has passed away because the “light that enlightens everyone” has come into the world, born in Bethlehem, attended by the poor, under a star to lead even foreign magicians to Him. Too often, those of us who know better ignore His light and give our prime attention to the shadows the light has already obliterated.

The Pharisees and Sadducees who came to John knew the prophecies of Isaiah, and yet lived as if politics, religious and secular, were what really mattered. They were realists, and they were disappointed. Denominations, governments, economies, educational institutions, health systems—we’re all on borrowed time. 

The baby, the infant Messiah, prophet, priest, and king, for whom we wait liturgically in Advent, whom John would soon receive into the waters of the Jordan, came with a promise and a threat. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” 

“Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.”

Scott Kisker is Professor of the History of Christianity at United Theological Seminary and a member of the Firebrand editorial board.