He Must Increase and I Must Decrease

Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermons - Catholic Preaching and Homilies

Bishop Robert Barron

Spirituality, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality:christianity

4.8 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2018

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John the Baptist is one of the most important figures in Christianity, and provides a window into the tradition of the Jewish priesthood and the historical context of the day. John chose the river Jordan to baptize, a conscious move to display the forgiveness of sins against the backdrop of the Jewish history of Exodus and liberation. Yet while he was baptizing in the desert, likely an exercise in protest of the corruption in the Temple in Jerusalem, he was heralding the coming of Christ, one who will "baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Friends, welcome to Word on Fire, Catholic Ministries. Word on Fire is an
0:05.4	apostolate dedicated to the mission of evangelization, using media both old and
0:11.4	new to share the faith on every continent and to facilitate an encounter with
0:16.6	Christ and His Church. The efforts of Word on Fire engage the culture and bring
0:21.8	the transformative power of God's Word where it is most needed. Today we invite
0:27.9	you to join Bishop Robert Barron as he preaches the gospel and shares the
0:32.5	warmth and light of Christ with each one of us.
0:37.4	Peace be with you. Friends, it's our great good fortune this year that the
0:43.2	feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist falls on a Sunday which gives us the
0:48.6	opportunity to reflect on this absolutely pivotal figure. I think it's fair to
0:56.4	say you can't really understand Jesus without understanding John which is
1:01.8	precisely why all four evangelists tell the story of the Baptist as a kind of
1:06.0	overture to the story of Jesus. John sums up Israel and without the
1:15.7	Israelite background the story of Jesus becomes simply opaque. I think I've
1:21.0	quoted you before from NT Wright the Anglican Theologian who said much of
1:25.0	the Christology of the last 200 years has been largely Marcy and I'd inform. It's
1:30.6	a fancy way of saying our approach to Jesus the last 200 years largely abstracts
1:37.2	from the Old Testament and when you do that you don't get him. The gospel
1:45.8	writers now insist that you get to Jesus through John meaning you get to Jesus
1:52.4	precisely through Israel. So let me unpack that idea in the course of this
1:57.8	homelain. This feast of John's birth brings his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth
2:06.2	into focus. Here's what I want you to see. Both Zechariah and Elizabeth are
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