Homily for Birth of John the Baptist

Homily for the Solemnity of the
Birth of John the Baptist

June 24, 2025
Is 49: 1-6
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Zechariah confirms John's name

“The Lord called me from birth” (Is 49: 1).

We’re familiar with the story of John the Baptist’s birth, the mission God gave him, and his faithful preaching of the Messiah.  If God gives everyone a vocation, then we believe that he’s called everyone from birth—called all of us, ultimately, to live forever in joy as part of his family, children of God redeemed by Christ.

He’s given everyone, as well, an individual path toward that forever goal, a particular calling by which we are to serve him (cf. 49:3)—as brothers, priest, wife, mother, teacher, helper, friend.

“My reward is with the Lord” (49:4).  John the Baptist got no reward in this life except the satisfaction of doing what he was born to do—to direct people to God, to point out to them the Savior of the world.  With so relatively few becoming Jesus’ disciples, John could well have “thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly, spent my strength” (49:4).

Truly, when we strive to direct people to God and point out to them the Savior, we can expect little recompense in this life; maybe an occasional word or act of appreciation, a pat on the back to compensate for the kicks in the posterior; and, we hope, no danger to our heads.  But in the end, we hope to have our sins wiped away by the Lamb of God (John 1:29) and to be gathered to the Lord with his people (cf. Is 49:5).  We hope to be “made glorious in the sight of the Lord” (49:5); we hope for his welcome to his home, our eternal home:  “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt 25:21); you’ve been “a light to the nations” and helped “my salvation reach to the ends of the earth” (Is 49:6).