Christmas is 16 days away. Does your pulse go up when you hear that? You have 16 days to buy your gifts, wrap them, finish decorating, plan and shop for a meal, finalize any travel plans, and or clean your house before your company arrives. Christmas will be here before you know it, and almost everyone is doing something today or will do something in the coming days to prepare for the biggest holiday for the year. You are no doubt aware by now that this is my favorite time of the year. My apartment is all decorated, I have a few presents bought, and I have most of my Christmas plans all planned out. Hopefully, by this time next week I will be totally prepared for this special holiday. Yet, as I think of the word holiday, it makes me wonder if I have the right mind set as I prepare to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The word holiday is actually the combination of two words: Holy and day. Here in America we have all kinds of holidays that are not holy like Memorial Day, The Fourth of July, and Labor Day. I have nothing against those holidays, but there is nothing holy about them and calling them holidays kind of changes the meaning of the original meaning of the word holiday. The church still has holy days, but it seems as if the secular world has stolen our holy days and made them into something that is not..well holy.
There is a Christmas song that I have grown to love over the years because it always reminds me that this should be one of the holiest times of the year. It is a song my Trisha Yearwood called Walk Through Bethlehem. Don’t worry, I am not going to sing it, but I do want you to hear the words. I would like you to close your eyes and get a mental picture as I read these lyrics. It is hard for me to keep my eyes close, so I understand if you can’t but I want you to lets these words sink into your heart and mind.
The city's decorated up for Christmas. All the stores are open late tonight. People hurry through the frozen streets I take a walk.
Every child has a thousand wishes. Every window has a thousand lights. Every soul has a need for peace. I take a walk.
There's a star that still outshines the night. You can find it if you close your eyes. And see the light.
Take a walk through Bethlehem. Come and kneel before the Lamb. Good news for every man. Walk through Bethlehem.
Every night another TV special. Merchants counting down the shopping days. But something's missing underneath the tree. I take a walk.
'Cause every heart longs for more than tinsel. Something more than just a holiday. Come and celebrate the baby King. Let's take a walk.
You don't have to travel anywhere. Faith and hope and love will bring you there. Take a walk-through Bethlehem. Come and kneel before the Lamb
Good news for every man. Walk through Bethlehem...
This morning’s Gospel lesson and Old Testament reading are about John the Baptist. John the Baptist was given one mission in life, and that was to prepare the way for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I preached on John the Baptist back in July, but today I want to revisit this special Holy man, and his role in the Christmas story. There are somethings we can learn from John the Baptist’s life, mission, and personality that can teach us how to prepare our hearts both to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and for the second coming of Christ. So, on this second Sunday of Advent let John the Baptist guide us as we prepare to celebrate the holy day of Christmas.
Our old testament reading this morning comes from the book of Isiah. Isaiah 40 is just one of the few chapters in the Old Testament that foretells the coming of both John the Baptist and Jesus. John the Baptist is the voice calling in the wilderness that Isaiah writes about in verse 3 of chapter 40. In fact, Luke quotes Isaiah in this mornings Gospel text. Luke begins chapter three of his Gospel by telling us when John the Baptist began his ministry, but because we know when Pontius Pilate was governor, and we know when the high priesthoods of Annas and Caiphas were most scholar agree that John began his public ministry sometime between September of A.D. 27 and October of A.D. 28. If you remember, last week I told you that most scholars think that Jesus was born in 4BC. Therefore, in the years of 27 and 28 both John the Baptist and Jesus were around 30 years old. We know that John the Baptist and Jesus were born within months of each other because Luke wrote about a time when Mary, who was six months pregnant with Jesus, went to see Elizabeth who was her cousin. In Luke 1:41 Luke records that when Mary entered Elisabeth’s house the baby John the Baptist leaped in the womb. Even before he was born, John the Baptist new that his mission in life was to point other people to Jesus.
John the Baptist was an interesting man. He was set a side by God at his conception. He was raised by his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth who had specific instructions from God on how to raise him as well a detailed description of the ministry John would have. We read those instructions last week, but I want you to listen to them again. The angel Gabriel told Zechariah “He is to never take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go before the Lord in the Spirit of Elijah to turn the hearts of their parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous- to make ready a people for the Lord.” So, no pressure Zechariah and Elizabeth, but your son in the beginning of God’s redemption plan for the world.
We are not told a lot about John’s childhood, but we do know about his ministry. He called people to repent for the Kingdom of God is near. He was the one that was to tell the people of Israel to stop sinning because the Lord’s Messiah was coming soon. And despite the fact that Jesus was his cousin, John did not know that Jesus was the Messiah until he saw the Spirit of God descending on Jesus in the form of a dove. Even after that John still questioned the identity of Jesus, and sent his disciples to ask Jesus if he was the one that they had been waiting for or if they should be expecting someone else. I always thought Jesus’s answer that he sent back was interesting. In Luke 7:22 and 23, Luke tells us that Jesus replied to John by telling John’s disciples “Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account on me.” If I were John, I would have probably sent by disciples back and ask, yeah, but are you the one? Although we are not really told how John reacted to Jesus’s answer it is assumed that John recognized that Jesus answer came from Isaiah 35. Isaiah 35:5 and 6 read “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame leap like deer, and the mute tongue will shout for joy. Water will gush for in the wilderness and streams in the desert.” You might notice that the passage for Isaiah does not say anything about the dead being raised, but there was a copy of Isaiah found in the dead sea scrolls that does mention the dead raising in chapter 35. John, being the son of a priest, and being set aside by God to prepare the way for the Lord would have known that Jesus’ answer was a confirmation that He was the messiah. Jesus was the one that John has spent his entire life pointing others to. John had done his job well.
So, what can we learn from the life of John the Baptist? As I studied John the Baptist over the past could a weeks a few things stood out. One was that he took his mission seriously. He knew he had a calling from God, and he did what he had to do to answer his calling. He could have been quite prideful about his special calling from God, but he wasn’t. Once when he was approached by the Pharisees and Sadducees he scolded them for their sinful behavior, but then quickly pointed them to Jesus, although at the time he did not now the identity of the Messiah, by saying I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.” John the Baptist knew his role, and was satisfied with his role. That is called humility. We all have a calling. Sometimes many callings. It may be to a vocation, or a role such as motherhood or fatherhood, or it may be to play the piano for a certain church. We all have been called to something. However, it is not always easy to answer the call or to accepts one’s call. I caused myself a lot of years of heartache, because I refused to accept my call to the ministry. I wanted to be a school teacher, and since it is not in my DNA to quit I applied for about a thousand or more teaching jobs. I had a lot of interviews, but no job offers at least from public schools. It wasn’t that I did not want to be a pastor, I just wanted to achieve the goal I set out to achieve. In fact, the last few years I applied for teaching jobs I knew I had no desire to teach, but I hated to not accomplish something I set out to do. Now, that I have gone all in and accepted my call, almost every area in my life is better. To be honest back in July I was a little disappointed that I was not getting a full-time appointment, but it was me who asked for the quarter-time appointment. And, even though I still would like to return to full-time work someday, the Lord has taught me that in order to be successful in our callings we have to accept or calling, and be willing to serve where ever and whenever the Lord calls. That is what John the Baptist did with his life, and we would be wise to learn from the way he answered his call. He not only called the people to repent of their sins, he also pointed them to Jesus. Whatever your call is now in the season of life that you are in, you must be willing to not only fulfill your calling, but also point others to Jesus as you fulfill your call.
There is one other thing about John the Baptist’s life and ministry that I think we need to learn from and ponder as we prepare to celebrate the holy day when God became flesh in order to give us hope and pour out his love and grace on us. It starts with the last part of Gabriel’s description of John to Zechariah. Gabriel said that John would turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous. You may not remember this, but one of my first sermons here was about the death of John the Baptist. He was beheaded by Herod because he had spoked out against Herod’s marriage. John did not die because he pointed people to Jesus, but because he spoke the truth about relationships. John pointed people to have a relationship with Jesus, but as he called people to repent of their sins, he called them to repair their relationships. I don’t have a biblical text I can cite for this claim, but if you study the accounts of John the Baptist in all four Gospels you get the picture that he called people to stop being so selfish, and begin to love one another. Of course, loving God and each other is the heart and soul of Jesus’s Gospel. Sin makes us greedy and selfish. When we are greedy and selfish we can’t love others the way that we are called to do. I can’t say if John the Baptist ever sinned or not for certain, but my guess is that even though he had a special calling from God he did sin because after all he was human. John spent his life leading others to live better lives. And since Gabriel said that he would cause the heart of parents to turn to their children, I have to believe that he taught people to love each other.
In John 13:35 Jesus says “By this they will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” As we going through this holy season of waiting, as you take a walk-through Bethlehem over the next few weeks, as you prepare your heart and mind to celebrate one of the holiest days of the year I challenge you to examine your relationships. Start with your closest relationships in your immediate family, but don’t stop there. Examine your relationships with your extended family, friends, co-workers, and your brothers and sisters in Christ. Ask yourself, am I pointing them to Jesus? Last year at Christmas I wrote individual letters to people who I am closest with. And in every letter, even to my loved ones who have close relationships with the Lord, I implored my love one to seek Christ like they never had before in 3028. In fact, in some cases I begged them to go deeper. Some of those letters fell on deaf ears, some brought me closer to the ones I wrote them to, but my letter to my mom had the most impact. She started going to church, reading her Bible every day, and attending Bible studies at her church. This year she bought her brother a Bible, and wrote a letter to him. Who needs a letter or a note from you? Might it be someone in your family?, a neighbor?, a coworker? A friend? Or maybe someone who belongs to or used to belong to this church? Maybe you need to ask for forgiveness as I did in a couple of my letters, or maybe you need to offer forgiveness as I did in my Mom’s letter. Or perhaps you just need to point a loved one to the source of love, forgiveness, and hope that is Jesus Christ our Lord. Ask God who you need to reach out to, and then reach out. And when you do reach out, if you feel it is appropriate, invite them to our Christmas Eve service. But, don’t just invite them. Offer to pick them up and take them for a meal either before or after the service.
John the Baptist was born to point others to Jesus. He carried out his mission with humility and love. As we prepare to celebrate the holy day of our Saviors birth, let us look past all of the lights, decorations, parties, and presents with the pretty ribbons and bows, and remember that Christmas is about God becoming flesh in order to give us hope in the eternal love that our God has for us. And, as we try to wrap our minds around the truth of the Christmas message, let us resolve to be a church the points each other, and the world around us to the source of all hope that was born in a manger over 2000 years ago.
