WSG 11-12-11
John the Baptist
Story: Helen Keller tells of the dramatic moment when Anne Sullivan first broke through her dark, silent world with the illumination of language:
“We walked down the path to the well house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered.
Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout.
As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly.
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.
I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant that wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.
That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!”
The moment Helen Keller describes is that moment her world of darkness was shattered with the light of language.
Although she was the same person physically, her life was transformed.
She now had a way she could see and understand.
Spiritually speaking, people are living in a world of darkness.
Some of you may recognize the words to the Simon and Garfunkel song from the 70’s entitled The Sound of Silence: “Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.”
(my thanks to Devin Hudson for the information at http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-true-light-devin-hudson-sermon-on-john-the-baptist-42780.asp)
Nothing has changed that much from the 70’s
People are living in spiritual darkness and they need divine illumination.
So often they don’t realize it
For as Helen Keller said, she only realised she was living in darkness when she saw the light of human language
So it is with us.
We often only realize our darkness when we see the light of Christ
We are in Advent, a time as Bishop Stephen (Bishop Stephen Conway, current Lord Bishop of Ely) said in his latest Diocesan letter when
“….it is our special pleasure to wait for the coming of the past. During Advent we rehearse our salvation history by particular reflection upon the revelation of God in the Old Testament and the promise of prophecy that the Messiah will come”
The ministry of John the Baptist, the star of our Gospel reading today , was prophesied in the last chapter of the Old Testament – Malachi 4:5 and 6
5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
And with that the Old Testament ends and the voice of prophecy is silent for 300 years.
Three of the four Gospels begin with the life and ministry of John the Baptist – the forerunner of Jesus Christ the Messiah.
You might be forgiven in asking why?
Why does John the Baptist figure so prominently?
1. Prophecy
Well one reason is that John’s life and ministry was prophesied in the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi
1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty. (Mal 3:1)
For the message and ministry of Jesus Christ (including his death and resurrection) is the fulfilment of the Old Testament.
2. The Messenger
Why did God have to send a messenger ahead of His Son Jesus.
The only reasonable answer I can come up with is that in those days, kings were preceded by a messenger announcing their arrival to the local population.
The messenger would go ahead and let people know the king was coming, so people could
i) repair their part of the local road on which the king would travel – and
ii) be ready to welcome him.
John wasn’t there by chance – the right man at the right time.
John was there because God had CALLED John to be the messenger who went ahead of Jesus.
So you might wonder why, when John is calling people to repentance - the Jewish leaders were so concerned WHO John the Baptist was.
Were they missing the point?
I don’t think so, but to understand why we need to consider the political climate of the time
Background
Judea was a hotbed of unrest.
The Helmand province of the Roman Empire
The Jews harked back to the golden days of Judas Maccabeus
In 167 BC Judas Maccabees (his name means the Hammer) had led a successful revolt against Antiochus IV the Seleucid King of Syria who had invaded the country and taken Jerusalem.
To add insult to injury, Antiochus had sacrificed a pig on the main altar in the Temple in Jerusalem – the ultimate insult to the Jews
It was this act that provoked Jews that they rose up under Judas Maccabees leadership and then his brother Jonathan and threw Antiochus out.
The Hasmonean kingdom of Israel, which followed was quite successful for about 100 years – and quite prosperous too,
Then, in 63 BC Pompey, the Roman general was asked to decide between two claimants to the Hasmonean throne.
Instead of choosing one, he decided to invade and annexed Judea to the Roman Empire.
At the time of John the Baptist there were four main parties of Jews
1. Pharisees
The first and most important party was the Pharisees, the main religious orthodox party . People we come across in Scripture such as Nicodemus (Jn 3) and Gamaliel (Acts 5) , as well as Paul the apostle would have been Pharisees.
2. Sadducees
Then you have the Sadducees – who represented the ruling class. Caiaphas and Annas the High Priest at the time of Jesus execution would have been Sadducees.
And we come across these two groups, Pharisees and Sadducees quite a bit in the Gospels
3. Zealots
The third party was the Zealots – a terrorist organization dedicated to throwing the Romans out by force. A branch of these was known as a the dagger men
Two of Jesus original 12 disciples where Zealots, Judas Iscariot and Simon the Zealot.
4. Essenes
The last group was the Essences, who had decided to opt out of society and founded their own communes the most famous of which was Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.
At the time of John the Baptist, Messiahs sprung up quite regularly across the country - offering to rid the country of the Romans by force - and often attracted a following.
Gamaliel in Acts 5:36-and 37 describes two such Messiahs:
36 Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37 After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered.
So it was quite natural for the Jewish leaders to ask if John saw himself as one of these Messiahs.
John was adamant – he wasn’t.
Who was John then?
By his own admission John was simply the forerunner of the Messiah whose “sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Jn 1:27)
CONCLUSION
John was countercultural.
He pointed away from his ministry because he recognized Jesus’ ministry to be more important –even in the midst of revival.
People were repenting of their sins and being baptised and the temptation would have had to have been to say "I am somebody great". But John realised his ministry was not to point to himself but to Jesus
Like John the Baptist, we Christians are called to point past ourselves and point people to Jesus
That I think is the message of John the Baptist in today’s lesson.
It is easy to get caught up in the culture of consumerism at Christmas.
To feed the unholy Trinity of I, myself and me
I find it amazing that people take out loans to buy the biggest and best Christmas presents and in debt themselves for the rest of the year – until they come to Christmas again when they take out a new loan!!
But really the “greatest Christmas present “we can give people is to introduce them to Jesus.
We need to point them past ourselves – as John did
I am not the “Big Cheese” he said, but Jesus is
I wonder how the Church would be transformed if we, as Christians changed our way of thinking
“I am not worthy to untie his sandals.”
In the absolute, no one is in the same class as Jesus who was sinless.
But the amazing thing about God is – THAT DOESN’T matter.
What matters is what St John records in Jn 1:12
“Yet to all who received Jesus, to those who believed on his Name, he gave the right to become Children of God”
We did not earn it.
We simply received this as a present from God
What a Christmas present – to know that we have become a child of God
Story: When I was given Swiss nationality in 1994, I was delighted – but the greater gift I received was in Jan 1972, when I became a son of God through faith in Christ
Now that is Good News to share with others.
That’s a Christmas present worth giving to others.
