In this new series, Prof. Carmel McCarthy, RSM, enlightens us on the lives and works of the Biblical Prophets. (1)
Who were the biblical prophets? What did they do? And when did they live? In simplest terms we could say that they were important Old Testament figures called by God for a specific task, and that they lived at various points in the years stretching from about 750 BC to the time of Jesus.
Present-day usage of the word ‘prophet’ tends to limit a prophet’s role to that of predicting a distant and often fearful future. But the role of a biblical prophet, while including that of foretelling God’s future plans, was far wider, involving symbolic gestures and invitations to repent and reform.
Our English word ‘prophet’ comes from Greek and means ‘one who speaks on behalf of’. This gives us an excellent starting point from which to explore the biblical prophets and their contribution. They were first and foremost people who ‘spoke on behalf of God’. They were to be found in a wide range of occupations. Some, like Isaiah, were advisors to kings. Others, like Amos, were engaged in agricultural pursuits, before being plucked from obscurity, and forced into the limelight. Yet others, such as Jeremiah, were reluctant prophets, and complained openly to the Lord about their sorry plight arising from their role as God’s prophet. One female prophet, Anna, is mentioned by name in Luke’s Gospel (2:56).
Later on in the year we will sketch individual portraits of key Old Testament prophets such as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. But in this first exploration we will take John the Baptist as our starting point, and then look at Jesus’ prophetic role.
John was not just another prophet. He was the hinge on which the door from Old to New Testament swung swiftly forward. The Gospels clearly present him as the last and greatest of the prophets, the one who was to usher in the Messiah. At John’s birth his father Zechariah had already highlighted the infant’s future significance: ‘And you, little child, you will be called the prophet of the Most High; you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation’ (Lk 2:76-77).
John’s adult life was visibly upright. After an austere period in the desert, he preached a baptism of repentance to all who would listen. He invited people to prepare ‘the Lord’s way’ by a radical change of moral behaviour: ‘The one who has two coats must share with one who has none’ (Lk 3:11). He confronted people in every walk of life, challenging them to be honest, compassionate and sincere. He was not afraid to take issue publicly with Herod over his domestic arrangements. Indeed, Herod feared him ‘because the crowds all regarded John as truly a prophet’ (Mk.11:32). Yet, beguiled by Herodias and her dancing daughter, Herod had John decapitated in prison.
John the Baptist is beyond doubt the greatest of all the prophets. Not only did he inherit and enrich their key functions, he was unique in that he witnessed to and spoke and acted on behalf of Jesus (and God) in a way no other prophet could ever have done. And he sealed this witness with the ultimate price: martyrdom and a horrible death. Jesus testified to John’s uniqueness when he asked the crowds, ‘What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet …Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist’ (Mt.11:9, 11).
If a prophet is ‘one who speaks on behalf of God’, then it is not surprising to find that Jesus himself accepted this title on various occasions. In the Nazareth synagogue, after reading from the scroll of Isaiah, Jesus proclaimed, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And then when the crowd turned hostile, he observed, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown’ (Lk.4:21, 24). During his public life, after various moments of teaching or healing, the public reaction to Jesus was spontaneous: ‘They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes’ (Mk.1:22). ‘A great prophet has arisen among us’ (Lk.7:16).
Thus, it was clear to those who opened their hearts and minds to Jesus that here was a prophet like none other. His entry into Jerusalem in that final week of his earthly life drew from the crowds the acclamation, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee’ (Mt.21:11). But it prompted a different response on the part of the Jerusalem authorities: ‘They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet’ (Mt.21:46). Aware that a violent death lay ahead, Jesus acknowledged that it was ‘impossible for a prophet to be killed outside Jerusalem’ (Lk.13:33).
All of Jesus’ actions during his public life as recorded in the Gospels were truly prophetic. His words were sometimes challenging, other times encouraging. They were sometimes uncompromising in the face of deceit or oppression, other times thought-provoking and energising. The tribute of the two Emmaus disciples sums up the impact Jesus made on people, ‘Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people ... Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the Scriptures to us?’ (Lk.24:19, 32).
The secret underpinning the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus in terms of their respective prophetic profiles must surely lie in their being each rooted in God. John’s mission was to draw all attention to Jesus as the ultimate expression of God’s tender love for humanity. Jesus’ mission was to be the living embodiment of God’s love, even to death on a cross. Our challenge is to seek ways in which we too might be ‘prophetic’ – ways in which we might help each other to find and reflect God authentically in our daily lives.