Dem ol' bones

What do we know of this man named John the Baptist? Foremost we know he was not a Baptist, but I digress.
The Bible says Jesus said of him, "Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."

He was an important person, Jesus' cousin was, in the early days of what would become Christianity.

Now, we've found him. Oh, maybe not.

We've found bones, bones that might or might not be him. For all we know we've found George the Presbyterian.

Still, the story this morning from AP reads, "A small handful of bones found in an ancient church in Bulgaria may belong to John the Baptist, the biblical figure said to have baptized Jesus.
There's no way to be sure, of course, as there are no confirmed pieces of John the Baptist to compare to the fragments of bone. But the sarcophagus holding the bones was found near a second box bearing the name of St. John and his feast date (also called a holy day) of June 24. Now, new radiocarbon dating of the collagen in one of the bones pegs its age to the early first century, consistent with the New Testament and Jewish histories of John the Baptist's life."

Where's the news here? That somewhere down the aisles of history there was a man who died, a middle eastern man, leaving bones that were held near a box bearing the name of St. John? That's conclusive. Might be Rex the Methodist for all we know.

There was a time, a very short time, when I wanted to be an archaeologist. I even took a class at Mississippi State. That sounds about right, a class. But again, I digress.

I took a class in archaeology and found it, er what's the word I'm searching for, uh, boring. Yeah, that's the word. I also heard from a teacher there that archaeology is not exactly a high-paying job.

So, I became a journalist. Not the highest paying of jobs.  Then I demoted myself out of the business till I became a preacher, not even close to middle-road in pay checks. I'm going to keep demoting myself till I pay someone else instead of accepting pay.

I digress.

In some ways, however, I'm still looking for bones. I pour over ancient scripture to find the ageless God who created at some dim point in the past. I skim, then reread the scriptures that point to a man who walked the dusty trails of Palestine some 2,000 years in the past when things changed for everyone.

That's not archaeology. That's reading for life, for as a middle-eastern man named Peter once said, "where else would I go?"

So, here's the deal about all this bone stuff:

If they find a box with the bones of Jesus, let me know. Then we have a story.

The problem is, they won't, of course, because he isn't there. No bones will be found of a man named Jesus, the man called Christ, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, of a carpenter step-father, of a teen-age mother named Mary, out of the blood-line of the King of Israel named David.

No bones.
No way.

He is risen, indeed.