![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
Make Ready the Way
All this talk of being ready to finally begin has called to mind a Bible passage. It appears in the Gospels, but is actually a reference to the Book of Isaiah, chapter 40. It reads:
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain
In the New Testament, this is repeated and the voice crying in the wilderness is none other than John the Baptist. John is seen then as the fulfillment of the prophecy uttered in Isaiah.
(PS. I got that hilarious image of JtB at this site)
John the Baptist was a pretty cool sort of wildman who lived in the desert and ate only locusts and honey. He wore the skin of a dead camel he’d come across, with a simple leather strap around his waist. There are some decent normal Christian views of John:
He was consumed, not with his own importance, but with the One who was to come.
Mark paints this picture of John the Baptist to serve as an icon of the spiritual condition we must give ourselves to if we are to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, if we are to receive the one more powerful who baptizes with Spirit.
In Islamic tradition, where he is referred to as Yahya, John is also revered as a great prophet. Wikipedia has some good basic info on this. An excerpt from that:
He found comfort in the open and never cared about food. He ate leaves, herbs, and sometimes locusts. He slept anywhere in the mountains or in holes in the ground. He sometimes would find a lion or a bear as he entered a cave, but being deeply absorbed in praising Allah, he never heeded them. The beasts easily recognized John as the prophet who cared for all the creatures, so they would leave the cave, bowing their heads.
John sometimes fed those beasts, out of mercy, from his food and was satisfied with prayers as food for his soul. He would spend the night crying and praising Allah for His blessings.
When John called people to worship Allah, he made them cry out of love and submission, arresting their hearts with the truthfulness of his words.
There’s another simpler translation of John’s/Isaiah’s message that I really like as an elegant poetic religious line:
Make ready the way of the Lord! Make His paths straight!
Seems like a good passage to keep in mind at this point in my travels.
August 26th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
john the baptist is rad. i especially love the depiction of him in the last temptation of christ, where he’s played by andre gregory (the andre from “my dinner with andre”). he’s all old and crusty looking, thin and emaciated (instead of the creepy neanderthal beefcake in the pic you found).
the mandaeans of iraq actually believe that john the baptist was the ’seal of the prophets,’ not christ or muhammed! there’s an awesome mandaean text that’s all a big conversaion between john the baptist and jesus. it’s online here (damnable geocities frames!).
August 26th, 2005 at 4:21 pm
You know, I’ve never actually seen the Last Temptation. Everybody keeps bringing it up though.
Which one of these items on the Mandaean page is the one you’re referring to?
Yeah, that photo of JtB was just too funny not to include!
August 26th, 2005 at 4:47 pm
o, here’s a non-geocities edition:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/gno/gjb/gjb-2-1.htm
good ol’ sacred-texts.com! check out “JOHN AND THE BAPTISM OF JESUS” (scroll down).
man, you should really check out the last temptation! the book is better, but the movie is way shorter and also rules.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I still don’t get why John had to be beheaded. Seems very harsh and brutal.
August 27th, 2005 at 5:48 am
Re John the Baptist in the Islamic tradition, his tomb is actually inside the Great Mosque of Damascus. I’m not sure whether it is his head or body that is in there - it is a normal sized sarcophagus - but it is a major place of pilgrimage.
There are many Christian connections with this mosque, it used to be a church (and before that a Roman temple of Jupiter) and for a while Muslims and Christians prayed there together. It is also the place where in Islamic tradition Christ will appear when he returns to earth.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
To “Hello”: I’ve been thinking about the beheading issue myself. I’m more inclined to think that you’re supposed to look at it symbolically. The way I’ve been interpreting it lately myself has to do with this whole thing of John coming “ahead” of Jesus. John came before to prepare the way, so to speak. In a horse-race, we have the phrase “won by a head” where one horse is slightly in advance of the other. Plus, a head is seen as sort of in charge of a body. The head is like the leader. John is also in a sense the leader. But after he baptised Jesus in the Jordan, his role was fulfilled. His leadership was no longer necessary. Cutting off his head almost seems like it could mean a few things. Like Jesus had become his head (sort of like in Voltron), so John no longer needed his own. He went on autopilot. Anyway, that’s one interpretation, but I’m sure there are other ones that could be made on a closer reading of the story of his beheading. More than likely, its a borrowing from stories in other traditions. It could be worth looking at other specifically non judeo-christian stories of beheading to amplify the meaning of the story.
I’d be interested in hearing other people’s accounts of what John’s beheading is all about.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
Maybe even in Judaic though - Judith and Holofernes for example.
But I would look at Salome more - clearly John is a proto-Sufi type figure (the word derives from suf meaning wool and referring to the animal-skin garments they - and John - wore) and the Sufis speak of seven veils separating man from God (Attar has it as seven valleys in the Conference of the Birds). Clearly Salome’s dance of the seven veils is of significance here.
There is also a wealth of esoteric lore concerning ‘heads’ - particularly in regard to the Templars and the Baphomet (and also my personal favourite - Pope Sylvester) but I should stop there.
August 27th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
I forget also, was it Dionysus who was beheaded in the Greek tradition? Whoever it was, their head later became an oracle.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
It really ticks me off when Ragged Robin meets the head of John the Baptist in the Invisibles and is just like “yeah whatever this is lame” and she leaves. Morrison never brings it up again. He only introduced it for a two-page shock. What a bastard. My lifelong dream is to attend a comic book convention he’s at and beat his ass dressed like a Cypherman, yelling “SUBMIT! SUBMIT!”
Tim, that website is pretty damn hilarious. That one guy dresses up in all sorts of biblical getups that are really entertaining.
August 27th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Man, you really have a Grant Morrison fixation, you know that?