From the Friars: A Desert Highway
In 1946 a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock into a cave and heard a sound of something shattering. This led to the greatest archeological discovery of the 20th Century, the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls were the library of a Jewish sect at Qumran called the Essenes and they included the oldest copies of Old Testament books ever discovered. They also provide much circumstantial evidence that St. John the Baptist, whose birth we celebrate this week, was himself part of this community.
The preaching of John The Baptist, by The AMICA Library, Public Domain, Link
The Qumran settlement was like a monastery with mostly celibate men. They lived in the desert east of Jerusalem specifically
because of the prophecy in Isaiah 40:3: “A voice cries in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” They expected the Messiah to come soon from the east as the prophets had foretold. When the priests and Levites asked John who he was he replied: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” (Jn 1:23)
St. Luke’s account of the birth of the Baptist states: “And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel.” (Lk 1:80) How could a child grow up in the wilderness without people to take care of him? The Essenes were known to recruit boys from Jewish priestly families to be raised by them. They received an excellent education in the Scriptures and Jewish law. It was within a day’s walk of Qumran that St. John appeared preaching and baptizing at the Jordan River.
The ancient voice that cried out in the desert still calls to us today. As we also celebrate Corpus Christi, we recall that the Messiah comes to us each day in the Holy Eucharist. The deepest part of our soul is like a desert in that there we are alone and away from the exterior world.
The thousands of years of Providential preparation for His first coming should inspire us to make greater efforts to make a straight highway, a clean heart, for the manna in the desert, the Bread of Life.
Amen.
–Fr. Peter