Our usual image of John the Baptist, at least in Western art, is often a soft and tender one. In Byzantine iconography, he is depicted as wild and fearsome, which is closer to how we find him the Gospels. Yet, he is profoundly attractive to the people of Judea and Jerusalem and they come to him in great numbers. His humility and self-abnegation before God is a powerful Advent image even today. 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador.