Why Christians Don't Know Beans About John the Baptist

Yesterday marked the last Sunday of Advent, and like the Hebrew prophets of antiquity I can hold my tongue no longer. I've got to set the record straight on a Biblical matter that about 97.8 percent of all western Christendom gets wrong. The facts in question have more to do with tree-ology than theology. But that's all the more reason to spill the legumes, as it were.

At issue are the dietary habits of one John the Baptist. His earthly mission, as you may recall, was to proclaim the coming of Jesus Christ. John called for widespread repentance and he baptized believers, including Jesus himself, in the Jordan River.

John's travels often took him into the rocky hills and badlands of the Judean Desert. It was ideal terrain for an itinerant preacher and ascetic who often locked horns with the civil and religious authorities. But it's here that the New Testament's eytomology has faded away like footprints on a windswept wadi. It's this particular verse, Matthew 3:4, that causes the confusion:

"J0hn wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey."

As a kid growing up in Florida, I couldn't imagine anything more revolting. We had Spanish grasshoppers down there. They were red, yellow and black; monstrous things some four inches long. And you're telling me that John the Baptist dipped these things in honey for breakfast? That disturbed me more than the hairy-legged nun I once saw order a plain McDonald's hamburger (no ketchup, mustard, onions or pickle -- just a heroic helping of self-denial.)

In fact, John the Baptist did not eat insects as the English translation suggests. He almost certainly ate from pods that come from the locust tree. The pods, about a foot-long on honey locusts that grow in North America, contain leguminous (bean-like) seeds. Around the Mediterranean basin, the tree goes by many names: locust, carob, carob bean, sugar pod -- and drumroll, please -- St. John's bread. Apparently, they've known all along.

So these are the "locusts" that John dipped into honey. In arid lands with scant pasture, the high-protein locust beans have long been an important food source for livestock. People can eat them too, although it sounds like they're an acquired taste.

On a family walk two weeks ago, we came upon a nice stand of honey locusts. Given our temperate climate and rich soil, some of these had reached heights of 60-70 feet, much taller than their Palestinian cousins. In summer, their fern-like foliage will cast a shade that's cool, but pleasantly mottled. The honey locust's fine leaves can be easily swept and won't clog storm drains, which makes them popular as urban street trees.

The wild trees we saw, however, had a signature trait that nursery-bred locusts lack: an arsenal of indomitable thorns. We're not talking here about little prickles, as you'd find on a rose bush or raspberry cane. No, the three-inch pig stickers on a wild honey locust are as stout and brutally sharp as a bayonet. There's three by my writing chair and each time I pick one up (like just now!) I manage to poke myself.

So why would such a large tree need such a hostile defense? What's it afraid of? It's got bark as thick as an elm, ash, oak or maple. Shouldn't that be body armor enough? No resident bird, squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, possum, or even bear could cause a honey locust harm. Indeed, the honey locust's over-the-top nasty thorns seem more offensive than defensive. They project an aura of gratuitous evil -- something you'd expect more from humanity than an innocent tree.

Could it be that trees need salvation, too? Some process of rebirth or re-creation to amend the flaws of their imperfect, earthbound evolution?

I'll leave that question to someone above my pay grade. For now, I'm content with the seed pods we collected on our walk. They'll over-winter in the barn, and I'll see if I can get seedlings to sprout from them in spring. It seems only right to have a wild honey locust on our property, a thorn among the roses of our benign shade and fruit trees.

Most important, the tree will stand as an alpha to omega remembrance of the gospel story. The tree recalls a wilderness holy man, the herald of a divine king who was born to serve the poor and oppressed. And that king, in his defining moment, would wear a crown of thorns that were as painful, ugly -- and thereby necessary -- as these in my hand.