A Cloth made of camel's hair

John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1:6)

According to Mark’s explanation, John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He was a handsome guy clothing a high qualified fur coat! If the animal fanciers read this verse they may demonstrate in the desert where John was working. You may know who the first passion designer was. He was God. The Lord God clothed Adam and Eve with ‘leather garment’ when they hid themselves among trees in the garden after eating the fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil. (Gen. 3:21). The first cloth in the Bible also was a leather garment. Did God kill an animal and cut it up? And what animal’s skin was that? This is the Bible Quiz of today.

The cloth made of camel’s hair of John the Baptist was not a symbol of beauty and wealth. The cloth on the one hand made the spiritual charisma of John the Baptist who preached with burning passion look better and the other side it was the symbol that revealed his non-possession life. A camel is a mandatory animal to cross over the desert. A camel has a water hump that enables a camel to stay long in the desert without drinking water. Some who emphasized a prayer life examples a camel’s knee. In any case a camel clearly is an animal of patience. Isn’t John’s cloth made of a camel’s hair emphasizing his strong spiritual patience?

However, when we see his cloth made of camels’ hair it is clear that John didn’t inherit his father’s job despite he was a son of priest. Some of well-to-do pastors in Korea inherit a duty of the head of assembly to their son or son-in-law. However, Zachariah the father of John the Baptist might not to be such influential father. John didn’t wear a priest’s cloth nor wore a noble’s. He wore clothing made of camel’s hair and preached the word of God lonely in the desert.

I’m not sure but John might spend his entire life with a pair of cloth made of camel’s hair. Indeed his entire life was short. He was Jesus’ contemporary. If he left his home at the age of twenty for preaching then his life in the desert might maximum 5-10 years. However, the important point here is not the matter of short or long period of wearing a camel’s cloth. To John who absolutely put aside his own concern but concentrated on the future of his nation and God’s presence, other cloth was not required at all. For him a cloth was nothing but taking a role of protecting his body.

John the Baptist had lived with a pair of cloth made of camel’s hair only but we have too much clothes today. Though the same religious leader, compare to the pastors in Protestantism the priests in Roman Catholic and the monks in Buddhism wear very simple cloth. Especially, a Zen priest lives in one or two pairs of cloth in his life time. If it is worn out and then patching it up and again and again till it becomes the rags.

It is safe to be bet that what can be a big issue to have a cloth or ten that only covers our body. Everything for us should be adjusted in according to situations. In some cases in modern society we have to consume a certain level of cloth so that the workers in making cloth also can be survived. It is not easy to find out a certain level of consumption that satisfies in both activating human community and maintaining the ecosystem of the earth.

The cloth of heart is important indeed. Those who are proud of self are the same person who is dispossessed by cloth. The meaning of clothing made of camel’s hair for John the Baptist might be simplifying his heart toward God only. Such simplicity is the very spirituality to make his soul free. We also need a cloth of soul made of camel’s hair which is fitted to each of us.

Lord, please lead us to minimize our concern on ourselves so that we may concentrate on you only. May you grant us to distinguish what is the cloth of soul made of camel’s hair that needs for us. Amen.

The belt

John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. (Mark 1:6)

Baptist John wore his clothing so simply. He put on the belt. Ancient Israelites generally put on the clothes with a belt. John had the simplest food enough to survive. When I was reading John's story living in the wild in the Bible, I remembered the one scene in the Old Testament. That was the ceremony on the eve when Israelites living in the region of Goshen in Egypt did. They killed the lamb and put its blood on the sides and tops of the door frames, and ate the roasted meat and the bread without yeast with the bitter herbs. Exodus chapter 12 verse 11 describes this scene like this:

"This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover."

Generally speaking, on the table you are supposed to loosen your belt, take off your shoes, put down whatever you were holding on your hands, and you should eat slowly as much as possible. But at the feast of Passover, you should eat on the exactly opposite way. The reason was that they were to leave Egypt as early as possible next morning. Leaving Egypt means that the basis of life changes from the life of a slave to that of a free man. Similarly you cannot be idled at the moment as the center of your existence is about to change.

Exodus 12:11 points out to us the more important thing. The feast in haste stands for remembering the night of Passover. On that night the angels of death wandered around the whole area in Egypt. The first born of man and animal died. It was God's last punishment towards Pharaoh who stands for arrogance of human beings as well as towards the Egyptians who oppressed the minority in their country. Without exception the human beings seems to understand who he is when he faces a critical moment of survival in his existence. The angels of death just passed over the household, who put lamb's blood on the door post. That incident meant Passover. At the moment that the angels of death passed by very close, you cannot have your meal in very comfortable condition.

If you take a look at this world more calmly, we could see the angels of death still visiting us these days also. It happens to the young people, even to the children as well as to the old people. At the hospital, in the war, at the highway, at factories, or at home with domestic violence, all the various kinds of death happen wherever people is living. We just neglect because we are unwilling to face those. How hard we try not to face, we cannot avoid the angels of death coming like nightly fog.

We cannot figure out exactly what the massive death in Egypt, the tenth disaster, was. In ancient world it might not be rare to have this kind of massive death. The most fearful thing to them must be the total destruction of a village, or a nation by natural disaster, or plague. The writer of Exodus explains this as God's punishment. Do not regard this kind of explanation of history as a joke. Without realization this kind of massive death could happen to us. Many different species of living creatures on earth extinguished. One of them is dinosaur. Is it not possible for human beings also belong to this category? You may say we have civilization unlike them. Do you trust that civilization? Do you believe civilization save us from massive death? There is much possibility that human civilization could be cause of extinction of human species. In the long future, 10 billion years later, one very intellectual creature that might be different from a human being might hand in the thesis of doctoral degree that could be the topic of a cause of human species.

If you are the person who can feel a big force of death and life, you have to wear a spiritual waist belt, like Israelites 3400 years ago, who were having a feast of Passover with a waist belt, and like Baptist John who baptized 2000 years ago, with a waist belt on. For the race we are supposed to tie a waist belt, we need a waist belt for our spiritual race.

Oh Lord please help us to prepare a belt on our waist like Israelites who were having the feast of Passover on that critical moment between life and death, and Baptist John who has been living in the wild as a stranger in that dark age. Amen.