Year B

John 1:6-8, 19-28

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Pointer

I heard a story once about a Sunday school teacher named Mary. She came to new faith in Christ and wanted to share it. So she volunteered to teach Sunday school because she wanted to spread the good news that Christ is the light and glory of the world….much like our own Jane Hall does. As Christmas approached one year and everyone around her seemed caught up in gift giving and receiving, Mary thought, “Whose birthday is this anyway?” Mary decided to focus on Christ and wondered what she would do. She was deeply moved when she read the beginning of John’s gospel by how “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” bringing the light of salvation. Mary became excited to share that Christmas story with others, especially her children.

Many of her students came from the darkness of the inner city, from broken homes, and from poverty. Mary wanted to go out to them with the message of light. She felt compelled to go out with the light of the Christmas story and try to link people to God by pointing at the Savior. This is exactly what John the Baptist did. His purpose and desire was to point away from himself; to point to Jesus, the Messiah. “This was he of whom I said, “The one who comes after me, I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” John came to testify to the light. “He himself was not the light, he came to bear witness to the light that all might believe through him.” This is what witnesses do—they point.

There is quite a bit of scholarly literature on the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. The scriptures talk about John as being part of the extended family of Jesus – his cousin. Some scholars think there is a link between John the Baptist and the Qumran sect, or the Essenes, an ascetic monastic sect of Jews who lived in the wilderness of the Judean Desert near the Wadi Qumran, along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between 150 BC and 68 AD. They shared material possessions and occupied themselves with disciplined study, worship, and work.

Jewish monastic groups in modern times are known for their preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many scholars believe that Jesus was originally a member of the Essenes or at least influenced by them. To seek to understand John’s identity, the religious authorities question him. Who was he? Why was he baptizing? Was he Elijah? all to try and understand about whom his message is about. Of course, some of these questions we cannot answer. What we do see from John’s gospel today is that John the Baptist is a model witness to the mission and ministry of Jesus.

John knows this isn’t about him, but about God and therefore about Jesus. He witnessed so others might come to belief. Just like Mary the Sunday school teacher did. They both witnessed that people might find faith through someone greater than themselves. Last week we heard John call for repentance and change. Today we hear him calling us to prepare for Christmas by building a straight road in the desert for God to travel on. Isaiah says, the purpose of building a straight road in the desert is “so that the glory of the Lord may be revealed for all the world to see!” John’s message about Christmas is that God wants every person in the world to know the power and glory of God.

In his oratorio, Messiah, George Frederic Handel majestically captures these words of Isaiah in music. “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Getting ready for Christmas is not about decorating trees or shopping. It is about a mission that God placed upon John and has given to every one of us: to open a path to God for others who are in need of God’s love and grace. Our mission is to point to the savior, Jesus Christ, like John who was a witness to what he saw. We are supposed to be witnesses to what God has done and is doing in our lives. And God has given us gifts to be able to do this.

God expects us to do something as a result of what God did at Christmas, John tells us. Christmas road building requires active involvement of every one of us pointing and witnessing everywhere. We’ve got to go out like John the Baptist and point to the Messiah-the light of the world-because the need is so great, and because Jesus, who is the light, set the pattern for all Christians. If actions do speak louder than words, then at Christmas God virtually shouted to the world that God cares enough to enter where we live and bring light to the dark places not only in our lives but in the lives of all who cannot see the light on their own.

Christmas is about an end to despair. It is about hope when life seems the darkness but the reality is that even with our best efforts we can’t fix all the problems. Linking people to God and one another in Christ does not solve all the problems. We cannot read the story about John the Baptist without remembering that the world regularly offers resistance to our witness. This is why it is so important that we hear again and again the hope of Christmas that John points to and Paul writes about in his letter to the Thessalonians today. First Thessalonians is as hope-filled as any of Paul’s letters.

These verses on Third Advent, Rejoice Sunday begin appropriately, with joy. Paul is encouraging the church to give thanks and show a love that witnesses and models the self-giving of God in Jesus Christ. Firing off eight imperatives in seven verses, that taken together, are Paul’s admonitions about the way life in Christ should be lived-not for its own pleasure or even in the glory of its own accomplishment, but solely in the hope of a future secured through faith in the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul says, to those who are called to serve, they are to express thankfulness in all things then they can say yes to whatever is, and embrace the reality of their lives rather than live in conflict with it. Then, rather than quench the Spirit of God, they are able to pray, give me your eyes God to see the needs, your hands to serve and your heart to love. Help me be a witness to all who need to see the hope and joy that I have found in you. Help me be someone whose life points to you, Lord.

We are called to cry out in the wilderness and make straight the way of the Lord by our witness to the light of Christ in the world. Until his death Karl Barth, theologian and scholar, kept over his desk a copy of a painting by Matthias Grunwald. In the center of the picture the crucified Christ hangs and to one side stands John the Baptist “with his hand pointing to Jesus in an almost impossible way”. In an almost impossible way, we keep pointing to Jesus too; along with all who wait to celebrate again the birth of our Messiah and who await his coming again at the end of time. Come, Lord Jesus, come!