Of all the descriptions of John the Baptist in scripture, the version in John’s Gospel is my favorite. Yes, it lacks the colorful imagery of the crazy guy in the wilderness, wearing camel skins and eating bugs. But what it loses in memorability, it gains in relatability. The John the Baptist of the synoptic Gospels is someone who calls me to attention, but not someone I feel called to be. But this John, whose job is to testify to the light, that is a calling I can place myself in.
The testimony of John begins with the Jews sending an envoy out to the Jordan River to figure out what this John guy is up to. It’s important to note here, as it’s always important to remember when we’re reading the Gospel of John, that the word translated as “the Jews” almost always refers to the religious elite. The Greek word is hoi juidois, which literally translates “the Judeans.” When the Gospel says “the Jews,” it is not referring to a particular religious group, and it is certainly not referring to what we understand today to be the modern Jewish faith. “The Jews” in this story are the religious and political leadership whose power is being questioned by John’s message about a coming Lord. The conflict in this story is not between two competing religious ideas. This is a conflict about power, plain and simple. Who has it, who wants it, and who is afraid they might be losing it.
So this envoy came to John in the wilderness and asked him, “Who are you?” Remember, this is a story about power, so the answer the envoy was looking for was something they could use to accuse John of inciting rebellion. But instead of answering their question, John “confessed and did not deny, but confessed.” Which, as an aside, I always find to be a lot of build up, especially as John then doesn’t answer their question at all, but instead tells them who he is not, “I am not the Messiah.” Now Messiah in and of itself is a political term. The Hebrew word “messiah” refers to someone who was anointed by God to be king of Israel. Which, in the time of Rome’s occupation of Israel, was a direct challenge to the ruling authority. But more than just a political statement, there is a theological statement imbedded in this. The phrase “I am” is an important refrain in the Gospel of John. Jesus will say, “I am the bread of life,” “I am the gate for the sheep,” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” All of the “I am” statements help to build Jesus identity as the Son of God, by calling on the name God used in the Exodus story, when a voice from the burning bush told Moses, “I am who I am… Tell them that I am has sent you.” In contrast to the religious leaders’ thirst for power, John was very clear about his lack of it. In the question of who he was, all that mattered to John was who he was not, he was not the Word made flesh, he was not the Light, he was merely the one sent to testify to the light.
I use the word “merely” because it feels like John was deliberately clarifying his lower status to Jesus. But while John makes clear he was not the Messiah, we should not hear that as a lessening of John’s importance. Because John had a job in the bringing forth of the Kingdom of God, and it was a very important job, and John did it very well. John’s job was to testify, John’s job was to give witness. John testified to the truth that he knew, that the one coming after him was the one to be alert for, the one who was the Lamb of God, the salvation of the world.
What I find so powerful about John the Baptist’s witness is that it is a task in the salvation story that I can not only relate to, but understand and see my place in. So often when we read scripture, the stories call us to be like Jesus, to model our discipleship after Jesus. And don’t get me wrong, that’s right. As followers of Christ, we are supposed to follow Christ, to mold our lives after Christ’s example. But from a purely practical sense, Jesus did a whole lot of things that are just simply outside of my skill set. There are a lot of hungry people in the world, and with five loaves and two fish I cannot feed them. There are a lot of hurting people in the world, and as many times as I might lay hands on them, I cannot heal them. There is plenty of water in the world, and unless it is frozen, I cannot walk on it. I try my best to model my life after the life and teachings of Jesus, to care for the sick, to heal the hurting, to visit the imprisoned, and to love the outcast. But at the end of the day, I’m human, and my best efforts fall short. When I try to set Jesus as the bar for success, all I get is discouraged.
But when I get discouraged at how little I seem to be able to accomplish, it is John the Baptist who gives me hope. John reminds us that we do not need to save the world, because the world already has a savior. The world already has a savior, and the savior is not us. It’s Jesus. Our job is not to save the world, our job is to testify, is to give witness to the one who already has. We give witness through our actions, when we feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, yes, but the value of those actions are not based on the actions themselves, they are based on the power those simple actions have to reveal the presence of Christ.
We witness in our actions, we also witness in our words, when we, like Jesus, give voice to those around us whose voices have been silenced, when we lift up the oppressed, and use our words and our witness to shed light in places of darkness. It may seem insignificant, like not enough, to speak out, but what John the Baptist promises is that our words and our witness have power. This year Time Magazine awarded its person of the year to a group they’re calling “the Silence Breakers,” the women who spoke out the violence they had experienced by men in power and in doing so unveiled the open secret of a culture violence fueled by misogyny and power. I say “open secret,” because when one in four women experience sexual assault, that this is a rampant problem in our society should not be a surprise. I have to tell you that ever since the person of the year announcement, I’ve been thinking differently about the text from the first Sunday of Advent, the one that talked about how the stars would be falling. I’ve always thought about the stars falling as frightening, but what if it’s not? What if the stars were falling because the stars were threats, and their fall made space for the Kingdom of Heaven to be revealed? I have been harassed and threatened because of my gender, and it causes me to move differently through the world, and I would guess that I am not alone in this room in making that statement. And while we have a long way to go, that sexual assault and harassment are on the table right now as viable topics for conversation makes me feel safer as a part of this society. And let’s be abundantly clear this is an issue of power, when I talk to the men in my life who I love and who love me, those men make it abundantly clear that insinuating violence against another human being is not locker room talk, and it’s not boys will be boys, it is abuse. It makes me feel safer now that the people who have used their power to keep others in fear are being called to account. Grace is not always peaceful, grace is the powerful convicting presence of God to bring down the mighty and lift up the lowly. The Kingdom of God has no space for those who prey on the weakness of others, and true grace is found in the courage to hold others accountable for their actions. Evil grows in secrecy and it can only be dismantled by being brought into view.
There is, of course, a danger to our witness. That is the flip side of the John the Baptist story. The word translated as “witness” or “testimony” is the Greek word martyria, where we get the English word “martyr.” Witnessing, testifying, to the truth can be dangerous. Think about John the Baptist, he was very clear that he was not the Messiah, not Elijah, not the Prophet, and he still ended up being killed on account of his witness.
There is danger, but when I look around the world I see the power of our witness outweighing the risk. Just in this building I think about how the Woman’s Co-op has given voice to poor and marginalized women in our community, and how those women have used their voices to change our community for the better. Street court, improved lighting and neighborhood safety, a real and concerted effort to bring job training and opportunities into neighborhood, attention to childcare, and the need for help navigating the justice system are just a few of the successes that their witness has brought to Battle Creek. Their witness and their courage to speak has made and is making a better community for us all. They are not the savior, but they are witnessing to their value as children of God, and their witness brings light to the darkness and reveals God’s presence in this place. Last Sunday Laurie shared how Faith Lutheran in Okemos is bearing witness by opening their church to be a family for refugee children, and we can bear witness by sharing their story, by sharing this conviction that children fleeing certain death are precious to God, and we as a denomination serve God by caring for and about them. It feels like a small action, six children against a huge crisis. But it is a witness to who God is and to how we believe God acts in the world. And, dear people of God, as John the Baptist assured us, it matters. It matters to God and it matters to the world. So in these waning days of Advent, as we await the coming of our infant savior, let us not be afraid to bear witness to the way God is already present in the world, and to the places where we still need God to be. Because the promise of this Gospel text is that wherever we bear witness, God is there. Amen.
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