Distant View of the Birthplace of John the Baptist
Before Jesus of Nazareth came John of Judea. He came as the Forerunner of Jesus. He was a man of force and courage. He was self-controlled and yet impetuous; a man of utter righteousness and fidelity; “like a burning torch; his public life was quite an earthquake; the whole man was a sermon; he might well call himself a ‘Voice.’ ” In the picture above we have the sweep of the Judean Mountains—the fine graceful outline of their distant summits against the sky, the shorter curves of the lower and nearer range, the nearest elevation being the “eccentric watershed” of which Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, speaks; “which beginning at the head of Wady Suleiman, passing Lifta and Ain Karim, eventually reaches the Mediterranean near Yabneh.” Ain Karim signifies the “fountain of vineyards.” The terraced hills are in the spring time full of verdure. The village has a population of about six hundred. The Franciscan monks have built one of the finest convents in Palestine to mark this sacred place—the home of Zacharias and Elizabeth, the birthplace of John the Baptist, and the retreat in which Mary found a temporary home, and where she sang her song—the Magnificat: “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord.” The song of a woman announced the Messiah’s approach; the song of the angels, His arrival. The lovely Judean landscape before us, with hills and valleys, terraced vineyards and far-away mountains, is a fitting temple for this glorious Hymn of praise sung under these skies by Mary, the Mother of Our Lord.
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