Sermon Notes – December 17th

Who are you??

That’s the question the priests and Levites asked John the Baptist. Not ‘what’s your name?’ or ‘what do you think you’re doing?’

But.. Who are you?

Three words that make up a massive question. And actually, quite a difficult question for most people to answer. What would you say if I was to ask “Who are you?”

If you are a lover of children’s literature or, as in my case, someone who has watched far too much Disney, then it’s impossible to read or hear this without thinking of Alice in Wonderland. Alice meets the caterpillar and this is his question…Who are you? She cannot answer as the day hasn’t been straightforward, it’s all been a muddle. Alice responds with “I hardly know Sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”

As a child I used to take this response in my stride. As an adult  the confusion can seem all too familiar sometimes can’t it, especially in advent and the busyness of preparing for Christmas.

But back to John. For John there is no such confusion.

And to be fair…it must have been somewhat of a surprising question I reckon.

So there he is….a bit of an oddbod is probably an understatement. We can tell more about him when we put all the details from the other gospels together. Then we get a picture of a man wearing inappropriate clothing for the amount of time he spent wading in rivers, eating locusts and shouting violently at the people who came to him. He’s in the middle of nowhere by the Jordan river, and trust me it really is in the middle of nowhere, the nearest place being the small village of Bethany.

Now the people would have travelled some distance to find him, they weren’t just popping out to the market and accidentally bumping into John and getting baptised. The people going to him, had heard about him and were purposely seeking him out.

And so too did the priests and Levites. Yes they had been sent…but they knew who they were looking for, they had heard about him and what he was doing. Yet they asked…

Who are you?

I think we can safely assume they weren’t after his name.

But.. Instead of saying who he is, John states 3 times who he is not. 3 is a significant number when we read the Bible – it signifies spiritual completeness/perfection. If you see three of something it’s always worth having another read to see what else it may be saying.

And here, 3 times John states who he is not.

He is NOT the messiah.

He is NOT Elijah.

He is NOT the prophet.

All this perhaps dispels the myths but is of no use at all to the religious leaders checking him out, they beg him to give them something concrete to take back to the Jewish authorities.

Yes, but who are you?

So who is he? Well with the benefit of having the complete story we know don’t we?

John, son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, was born for a purpose. He was a man with a mission. His task was to prepare the way for Jesus, to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah, to get them to recognise their sin, repent and baptise them. He was…if you like…the warm up man. He was a man who knew who he was and what he needed to do. His task, his purpose, was important, crucial in fact, but his reply to these religious leaders displays some humility. He tells them:

‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,

Make straight the way of the Lord.’

He is a voice. Just a voice.

The man born with a purpose, a task, a task that he has faithfully and successfully carried out throughout his life, and he was successful, even with his rather unorthodox style he had built up quite a following, he’d certainly made a name for himself….he uses the words from Isaiah and describes himself as ‘a voice’. Just a voice.

But this leads to another question.

‘If you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah nor the prophet, then why are you baptising?’

Can you feel their confusion? If you are not important…..then under whose authority are you baptising people?

You’ve got to love them haven’t you? You see it was the job of the pharisees to make sure rules and rituals were being carried out correctly. It was their job to make sure things were being done right. I’m sure we can all see the similarities with the Church of England here can’t we? We like things done ‘right’.

Again John displays both his humility and his dedication to his mission..he deflects all attention from him and towards the important one who is coming.

‘Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thing of his sandal.’

Now sandal untying was a slave’s job, remember that when you’re in Clarks! (best not to tell them I find) Sandal untying is a slave’s job, even servants were too high in the ranking for this task. It was the job of the lowest of the low. And here, John explains, that compared to the one who is coming, he is the most unworthy, not even worthy enough to untie his shoes.

The one coming after me is standing amongst you and you do not recognise him. Jesus, until his baptism, was just an everyday man….except he was perfect. You’d think that in itself would cause people to ask questions wouldn’t you? Perhaps they did. Maybe he was the gossip of the town. But anyway…until his baptism life just carried on as normal. And actually, John was right, the Messiah was coming, in fact he arrived with John the very next day. His arrival was indeed imminent.

So, what does this all mean for us? What can we take away from it today?

Who..are..you?

As we live in these uncertain times it’s easy for us individually and as a church to feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, all a bit muddled and unsure of where we are and what’s happening.

But stop and know this. We all have a story that’s worth telling, we all have a purpose, a God given purpose. We are all more like John the Baptist than Alice in Wonderland, but it doesn’t always feel like it.

Advent is a time, an opportunity for us to stop and find our purpose/our mission, to              re-evaluate where we are and what we need to do next both individually and together as church.

And finally I have a quote from James Smith, he’s an anthropologist and theologian – you see it’s not all children’s books! He says that “We are what we love and what we love is what we do.” I’ll say it again, “We are what we love and what we love is what we do.“

In short, our actions give us away and show others the love of our hearts.

If Christ is the love of our hearts, what do we do, what can we do, that would show that to others?

If, as a church, we were asked “Who are you?”, we need to be sure of our answer.