In an article about personality, the author used the expression “ego asset.” It was referring to the way in which one individual can cash in on the accomplishments of another. One person is given a prestigious award, and then his friend uses this closeness to the one honored to call attention to his own self. It’s the taking advantage of a companion’s popularity to attract attention to oneself.  “Notice me because I know the honoree.”

Conceivably, this quality could have influenced the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.  In John’s 3rd chapter, though both Jesus and John were in the process of baptizing people, it was Jesus who emerges as the more prominent of the two. For the Baptist, it could well have set off that “ego asset” impulse, John trading on his closeness to this up-and-coming preacher.

But the Baptist doesn’t use his connection with Jesus to burnish his own reputation. Instead, he steps back, happy that Jesus is the one getting the attention.  As John himself images it; “In a wedding, it’s the groom who stands out and not the best man.” The Baptist knows he is not the groom and so refrains from using his link to Jesus for his own acclaim. He is content that The Lord receives greater visibility.

A lesson here: a disciple does not take advantage of nearness to Jesus to enhance his or her own reputation. The priority is that Jesus’ presence prevails.  

In any Christian witness, the focus is to be more on the Lord’s prominence than on one’s own. It would be wrong for the believer to heighten his own standing by using Jesus as that “ego asset.” Or as John himself would testify, “I am not the Christ, but I was sent before Him. To make my joy complete, He must increase and I must decrease.”

 Doesn’t Vincent address just this issue in a 1638 letter to one of his priests.

Work at ridding yourself of the esteem you have had up to now for the glitter and sparkle of virtue and the vain applause of the world, which Our Lord so assiduously avoided and so often recommends us to shun, and that you labor in earnest to acquire true and solid virtues.

 (Volume: 1 | Page#: 487) To Robert de Sergis, in Angouleme, 14 August, 1638 added on 6/28/2011