JOSEPH

 Foreword

At the time when the Quebequers of French descent were very Catholic, Saint John the Baptizer, followed by his sheep, was chosen as their patron saint. But, after the « quiet revolution » of the 60s, the Baptizer and his sheep were literally wiped off the face of the earth. And rightly so.  

It was because those two great symbols of the Christian world, John the Baptizer and the Lamb, had become purely sentimental images, good only for the consumption of the devout people and for the folk show, without any serious connection with the political, economic, social and cultural situation suffered by the people since the Conquest of 1759 by the British.

According to the spirit of Jesus, the saints, the Church and her sacred signs, and also the Gospel itself, when we empty them of their prophetic content, « they are no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. »

                                                                        

                                                                                                      (Matthew 5:13)

JOHN THE BAPTIZER AND HIS SHEEP

In the past, we would celebrate with a parade, a band and all the fuss the feast of Saint John the Baptist, our national patron. The highlight of the parade was the last float that carried in triumph the little upstart chosen to represent the saint. Cute like an angel and as curly as his sheep that chew at a twig next to him, he seemed to glide on a cloud in front of the stunned crowd. All hearts were invaded by indescribable emotion, and the good people gave thanks to heaven for having given him so cute a patron saint.        

And so time flew, and one day, more than 40 years ago, in the streets of shameless Montreal, John the Baptist appeared suddenly without any halo, without a standard and without a sheep; suddenly, he had grew and become a real Tarzan, proud and almighty.  However, in spite of his big arms, he did not last. More than that, he simply disappeared, without any burial.  Nothing.  As something shameful, a stain for the family about which it was better not to talk.    

Yet, in his real life, this good patron saint was not an ordinary person. And his sheep either. Who were they actually? 

THE BAPTIZER

Since his youth, John, known as the Baptist, was introduced to the harsh life of the desert monks. These monks called Essenians were dissidents. They challenged the authority and even the legitimacy of the high priests who succeeded one another to govern the people at the temple of Jerusalem (in those times, politics and religion were one), and those dissidents of the desert entertained the darkest feelings towards the Roman occupier (at the time, the Romans were colonizing the country of the Baptist and the high priests, in any case, were puppets of the Romans).  

And why not say that the dissident friends of the Baptist were anticlerical from the beginning and all-out nationalists.  Real Quebequers of today…and «grumblers, as usual».

From them, John the Baptist learned that each individual could purify oneself  from evil without going to the Temple, that is, without going through the sacrifices and the priests ( Protestants before their time maybe)…

He also learned the therapeutic values of the water for the soul as well as for the body since, even in the desert, the Essenians used abundantly water to purify themselves in preparation of D-day when the temple would be cleansed from all its riff-raff and the country rid from the heel of the Romans. (Rather esoteric on the sidelines)…

And so, John was a man rather clean, who smelled good under his tunic made of camel’s hair. Voluntary simplicity was a must…But soon he felt cramped in that ambiance carrying a sectarian odor.    

Therefore, he left the community to take refuge alone in a cavern in the middle of the desert. (Probably he missed by a hair’s breadth to become a Buddhist)…Strict vegetarian, he fed on wild honey and locusts, which is excellent for health. And still, he was searching for his own way.      

He was no more no less seeking God and what God wanted from him. And as always, by experiencing  nothing, he experienced everything. He fought with the Invisible like Moses, like Jacob, to the point of becoming strong and free. And then, one morning, he left his desert to turn towards his people.  

From the shores of the river, he spoke. His voice had the power of thunder. He was shouting: « You see those mountains that blocked the horizon? They will be made low! You see those valleys that separate them? They will be filled! You see those crooked roads? Theys shall be made straight! » (Luke 3 :5)

 

Translation : You see that handful of pretentious who believe that they are the masters of the world and who stand on the head of the little ones, well, they will learn what it means to be routed! You see, that multitude of poor people who are in the hole, well, they will pull through!  As for the crooks, better for them to prepare themselves to learn to walk straight! In three words: equality, justice, freedom! (Luke 3 :10-14).  (One more leftist!)

« No more time to lose, was saying the Baptist; make the first move! If you do not get going now for that great change, everything will blow up! » Your status of « chosen people » and of « people of God », of superior race because you descend from Abraham, in other words your religious and ethnic nationalism, all of that will not serve you at all.  

What counts is justice. (Here we are!)

You must be just like Abraham was. You understand? With stones God can make people of the same race as we are! But that is not what God wants. What he wants from you, people, is sharing, and from you the civil servant is that you be just, and of you the policeman and the military man is that you stop abusing people…».   

For many the pill is rather big to swallow, but, nevertheless, most people of the country began to give reason to the Baptist; they let themselves be carried by a strong wave in favor of great changes, thinking without doubt that it was God who was speaking to them through his own mouth.

And then we were embarking in the great movement of John the Baptist by jumping into the water, in other words, in getting wet. That was the baptism of the baptizer…  

A proof that the point was really to plunge into something different than holy water, our Baptist showed personally to what that baptism committed to: to nothing less than to fight Herod, the tyrant of the country, and to incur the public wrath of the royal concubine. He lost his head for that; it was severed.    

Brief, John called the Baptist, was a great man. He does not merit to be the patron saint of a coward people, afraid of getting wet. 

                                         

AND THE SHEEP…

John the baptizer, the one who urges the people to get wet for equality, justice and freedom points out with his finger a man from Nazareth, called Jesus, and declares: « It’s him! You think that I am a revolutionary, but I am hardly in the same league as him. I would not even dare loosen the thongs of his sandals. Me, I’m only a match, but him, he is fire! He comes to clean the house from top to bottom. Everything will start anew.  In your religious faith and in your culture you say that a « lamb » will come to carry on his shoulders our  catastrophes and our national shame, and that he is the one who will deliver us from it; well, that lamb, it is he! » 

Who says lamb says sheep, and a sheep for us is a « loser ». But in the culture of the people of John the Baptist, it is completely different. That people is above all a people of sheperds, and the sheep is its food, its clothing, its life. It is its great recourse. The sheep is revered. (It’s their petroleum)… They love it because it gives its life so that the people will live, that it will be free and happy. In a word, the sheep is not a symbol for   

mini- followers, but a very great symbol of life; it is the sacred symbol of the gift of self for the freedom of the greatest number

For it’s really about FREEDOM. Here is why.

According to ancient accounts, the people of John the Baptist had been slave in Egypt, a foreign country, where a wicked pharaoh had decided to exterminate it. The pharaoh was afraid of that small people because, in his mind, it was growing and developing too fast. (He thinks like a British)… He feared that it would become independent. And so, he took the necessary measures so that little different people choose between living like the Egyptians or die.

When it had enough to be beaten up, this little people decided to run the big risk of freeing itself. Of course, everything was organized in total secret. With the police on their backs twenty four hours a day and spies everywhere, it was a must that no one’s attention be called. Here the sheep appears.    

What can be more harmless than a sheep? We really cannot imagine that a sheep can initiate a revolution…Well, come on! The sheep, precisely because of its apparent innocence, was chosen to be the rallying sign of a people of slaves and of the starting point of its liberation. A young sheep, that is a lamb.  A lamb roasted on embers that, in their huts, all the slaves, at the same time, had to eat wearing their coats, hats on their heads, stick in their hands and, ready to depart.

From now on, in the history of that people, the lamb was becoming for ever the one who gives life to assemble the people and to nourish it so that it may have the strength to undertake its march towards freedom. For it was an adventure that was extremely perilous and, by all appearances, impossible.     

At the same time, the lamb was becoming the image itself of God who in turn was committing himself to accompany his people in its great adventure of liberation. And so, when John the Baptist, one day, points to Jesus with his finger and declares publicly: « He is the Lamb! », he did not mean to have the people start to bleat behind him, but to come together, to take control, because that man was to open to that people the path of freedom.

The whole life of Jesus was a perpetual battle for the freedom of his people and of all human beings.  It is for that reason that the high priests and the Romans killed him.  

And it is for that reason also that, encouraged by his example, many people committed their selves to walk in his footsteps. They did not contest directly the Empire, but they undermined it by bluntly refusing to adore the pillars on which it was built.     

This resistance cost the life of hundreds of thousands of them, but the Empire ended by falling, and the oppressed of yesterday triumphed.

Notwithstanding the many treasons that will come afterwards, it remains that the great values for which we boast in our modern societies would have enormously been a long time to see daylight if it had not been for those first men and women who had the courage to set their feet in the footsteps of the famous « sheep » called Jesus.    

For his daring, John will be beheaded, and Jesus, the so called « sheep » or « lamb », will be murdered also for the same reasons.

Both gave their lives so that all peoples of the earth, including ours, wake up.

“The Lamb” is a typical code of the underground, a powerful symbol of active resistance to stimulate the people without power to face their almighty oppressor. It is a sacred symbol of rallying for independence and a releasing sign of liberation.  

The lamb is the triumph of the little one over death itself.  He is represented at the same time with a slit throat but alive and standing (Revelation 5:6). It is the image of the hero put into pieces, who continues to live in the heart of the people for which he sacrificed his life so that it has the strength to face the tyrant.   

The sheep of John the Baptist is the victory of the lamb over the wolf and the image of the little one who triumphs over the big bad man. It is the symbol of the sure victory of non-violence that goes till self-sacrifice over  all forms of tyranny or over all those wise reasonings that prevent a people to take control and to embark on the great adventure of its own total liberation. 

                                                                

                                                              

                                                                                           Eloy Roy

Translated from the French by Jacques Bourdages