Preached by: Ms Sue Whitley And there was I, thinking I was going to get the magi following their star to an obscure stable in Bethlehem, only to find that…
Preached by: Ms Sue Whitley
And there was I, thinking I was going to get the magi following their star to an obscure stable in Bethlehem, only to find that they had been and gone. Instead, today marks the moment in which the adult Jesus stood on the threshold of baptism.
Tonight’s readings don’t include Mark’s account, but seeing as today marks the celebration of the Baptism of Christ, I hope you won’t mind if I concentrate on that. I had forgotten, until I reread it, just how different his gospel is in its telling of the story of Jesus, and that it actually opens with an important but easily overlooked figure in Christ’s story – that of John the Baptist.
Here is no child in a manger, no shepherds nor kings, no multitude of the heavenly host, but a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord,’ and a man emerging from the desert, clothed in camel’s hair and a leather girdle, eating locusts and honey, and preaching the advent of one whose shoes he was not worthy to untie.
One of the most impressive things about the Baptist is that he never lost sight of his role in Christ’s story. He is introduced as the fulfilment of a prophecy about a messenger being sent ahead to prepare the way of the Lord. At that time there were plenty laying claim to being the long-awaited Messiah, and plenty more who would have liked to pin that label on John himself: he had already attracted many disciples who were more than willing to follow and worship him.
And yet… he knew his place. And his place, according to Mark’s gospel, was to preach Christ’s coming and to baptise him when he came. So out there in the wilderness he rounded up everyone he could, told them that Christ was coming and baptised all those who came to him, saying ‘I shall baptise you with water but He who comes after me will baptise you with the Holy Ghost.’
And eventually Jesus himself came to the Jordon and was baptised by John. John it was who saw the spirit descending on Jesus like a dove, and who heard the voice from on high: ‘This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’
You might imagine that after such a bonding the two of them would work together – after all, in Luke’s gospel John is revealed as being related to Jesus:
Luke describes the angel Gabriel announcing John’s birth to Zechariah, an elderly relation of Mary’s, whose barren wife Elizabeth was well past child- bearing age. John was their miracle child – and again one would not blame him if his birth and his extraordinary foreknowledge about his role in the story had gone to his head. Yet John never lost sight of his position as a messenger and in a debate (related this time in John’s gospel) between the disciples of the Baptist and Jesus, it is John who makes it clear that Jesus must become greater, while he must become less.
After the Baptism, Jesus disappears into the wilderness for 40 days and nights, during which time, John is thrown into prison. John’s gospel tells the unforgettable story of the Baptist’s subsequent fate. He was imprisoned by Herod Antipas after rebuking him for divorcing his wife and marrying Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip I. Matthew describes Herod as ‘wanting John
dead’, but Mark tells us that he actually had a soft spot for him because he enjoyed their conversations. Nevertheless, he is tricked by the machinations of
Herodias and the seductive dancing of Salomé, her daughter, into ordering John’s beheading.
By then, Jesus is back in Galilee, preaching repentance, healing the sick and casting out devils. When Herod, haunted by his own actions, hears this, he immediately says: ‘It is John, whom I beheaded, he is risen from the dead.’ And indeed, many scholars, studying the Aramaic sources of the original story, see John’s arrest and execution as a foreshadowing of Jesus’s fate.
Significantly, before his execution, John had sent some of the disciples to ask if Jesus was truly the awaited one? In the gospel we are told firmly that a man was sent from God ‘who was not the light, but who came to bear witness to the light.’ John has already made it clear to his disciples that he is only the witness to one who is greater, so his belated need for reassurance at this stage is
particularly poignant.
And the answer comes: ‘Blessed is he who does not reject me.’
What shines out of the Baptist’s story for me is his humble acceptance of his role in it. Why was he not tempted to ride the wave of his own fame as so many have done, before and since? Or at the very least to cling proudly to the coat- tails of the man he came to champion? Even his faltering doubt at the end has a touching humanity to it. Fame has always come at a price, and part of that price is the realisation that it will, eventually, slip away. I was reminded recently of Antonio Vivaldi – that magical Baroque composer who took Venice by storm in the 18 th century and triumphed all over Europe for more than thirty years, but who died in penury in Vienna when his champion, Charles VI, was no longer there to support him. Fame is well-known to be fickle and there are too many stories of artists, pop-singers, composers, dancers, actors, writers, politicians –
never mind ordinary mortals – who haven’t a clue what to do when the music stops.
But John never lost sight of the man whose way he came to prepare. Those of us who are baptised into Jesus Christ, as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, may have been baptised into his death, but we were also baptised into his Resurrection. I suspect that, unlike John, it’s not clear to most of us what we are being asked to do in the service of our Lord Jesus or what to expect as a result. We flail and falter, and try to do the ‘right thing’ and fail at it, and yet, in Christ’s existence – (we’ve just celebrated Christmas: who else’s birth is still a beacon of hope after 2000 years) – we have an eternal focus, not only for human weakness but also for human salvation.
When we were all getting above ourselves as children, drawing attention to our cleverness, our talents, our looks, our own importance, my mother used to say ‘It’s not all about you, dear.’ John the Baptist knew that it was not all about him.
Teach us to know it too.
AMEN
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