Light That Expels Darkness

 

Prayer:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light,

 that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness to the light. (John 1:6-9)

The key word this morning is "witness." A witness gives testimony to what he/she has seen and heard. A witness opens his or her mouth and testifies before the world to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. A silent witness is an oxymoron, a piece of nonsense. No words, no witness.

Without speaking there is no witnessing. There are two ways to be a false witness. One way is to lie, to speak untruths and distortions in the name of the truth. The other is to be silent, when we know the truth and are given an opportunity to speak it. And it is a false witness when we, who are inheritors of the great treasures of the Reformation, the truth of the Scriptures, keep silent.

This morning's Gospel holds before us a witness, a great witness by God's standards of greatness, who by Jesus' own assessment was the greatest witness ever born of woman. His name was John. His work was to be a witness, to give testimony to the Coming One.

What made John such a great witness? First, John knew the One he served and what his service was. He knew the One. He was "sent from God." Every facet of John's life bore witness to his being sent from God. He lived as one who sought first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and trusted that all the other things would be taken care of. He lived as one who had placed his entire life in the hands of his coming Lord and said, "Do with me as you please."

John was much too busy to be concerned with mundane trivialities - what he would eat, what he would drink, what he would wear. Food, drink, and clothing were of no matter to him. Camel's hair and leather were adequate.

Locusts and wild honey were sufficient. For John what was more important was the kingdom of God that was at hand. The One who is Creation's Lord and Judge and Saviour was near.

What made John so great a witness? John knew why he was sent - "to give testimony to the Light, that all might believe through him." John was so consumed by this work of bearing witness that he is known in the Scriptures simply as "a voice" and "the Baptizer."

We are busy, overly busy, incredibly busy. We are especially busy during the so-called holiday season, which is anything but a holiday let alone a season of holy days. Our busyness can create static in the message, background noise that drowns out the words of our witness.

What do the people around us learn by watching us and listening in on our Advent devotion? Will they see a people eagerly looking forward to our Lord's second advent in glory, a coming that could come at any day or hour? Will they repent and watch and pray with us? Will they recognize that we are celebrating the Incarnation of God at Christmas? Will they hear that God reached down to dwell with us in a baby boy named Jesus?

Will they know that this same God in the Flesh who once in Bethlehem’s cradle is now among us in the mouth of the minister, in the bread and wine of the Supper, in the water of Baptism? How can they possibly know that, unless someone tells them, unless we testify to the Light who has shined into the darkness of our hearts.

The Church's task is to be John the Baptizer for this present age, but that is going to take a witnessing Church of great courage and conviction.

It will take a church that does not care what people think of her, a church that doesn't worry about the bottom line of success, a church with focus and intensity, confident in the God who sent her and knowing the purpose for which she was sent. It will take Christians who "love not their own lives" so much that they are unwilling to lose everything, including their own lives, for the sake of testifying to God's great mercy in Jesus Christ.

John was not afraid to upset the religious status quo, to ruffle feathers, to make people uncomfortable. He called all Israel without distinction back into the wilderness. He called the religious Pharisee and the Sadducee to repentance, and when they balked at being washed in the same water with a bunch of filthy Gentiles, publicans and prostitutes.

John called them a hypocritical brood of snakes and sons of the devil. Clearly, John did not set out to win friends and influence people. He set out to proclaim the coming of the Greater One who is both Savior and Judge, and if that made him more enemies than friends, then so be it?

How many times have we kept silent because our witness would upset a delicate family balance, provoke a difficult conversation, threaten a friendship?  John was not afraid to antagonize when necessary, to swim against the prevailing currents of popular opinion, to speak out where others were politely silent, to stick out in a crowd.

Ultimately, that move cost John his head in Herod's prison. It is no coincidence that the same word for "witness" in the Greek is the word for "martyr." To be a witness to Jesus means to have the world do to you what it did to Jesus.

The greatness of John's witness was that he knew who he was and who he wasn't. He wasn't the Christ, Elijah, or the Prophet. John was the first to confess that. He refused to apply any of those high and lofty titles to himself. John was completely unconcerned with personal honor and recognition.

He deflected all attention away from himself. The way he saw it, he was nothing but a Voice. John was the trumpet, but God was the trumpeter, and the note that sounded from John came from the mouth of God.

John was a voice and a mouth and a finger. He was a Voice calling out in the wilderness, calling all to repentance. "Make straight the way of the Lord. Repent. Confess your sins. Be baptized." He was a mouth preaching the coming of someone greater, who would baptize with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

The only personal testimony that John had to talk about was Jesus. "He must increase, and I must decrease." John was a finger pointing all people  to the cross, to Jesus, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

 There was not much that come from John to tickle the ears of his contemporaries. His tune was much more of a single note that rang out loud and clear. "Repent. Be changed in your minds. Be turned from yourselves to the Christ." That's all John had to say.

We might say that John was a monomaniac, narrow, not very well-rounded, out of touch. John lived and worked and witnessed as one who had nothing to lose. That's what made his witness great. He didn't care what happened to him, what people thought of him, what men would do to him. John was nothing; Christ was everything.

Our mouths will open as we stop paying attention to ourselves, when we stop worrying about what others think of us, and start worrying about what others confess of Jesus. Like John, we are nothing. Jesus is everything.

The One whose sandals John was not worthy to bend down and loosen is the One who bent down to lift the burden of guilt from our shoulders, including the sin of our silence. Into His death we have been buried in your Baptism. "We have died and our life is now hidden with Christ in God."

We no longer live, but Christ, who is in us, now lives. We have nothing to lose that we haven't already lost. The worst that could happen to us already happened to Jesus. What in this world is left to fear? And if others reject our testimony, our witness to Jesus, so what? They have not rejected us, they have rejected Him who sent you.

There is our freedom to witness. It makes it a joy instead of a burden. We bring good news of great joy for all people. Freedom for the captives. Release for the prisoners. Healing for the broken. Gladness in place of sadness.

We are pointing to the Savior, to our Lord Jesus - crucified, risen, and reigning. He has anointed you in your Baptism to declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. You are sent by God to testify.

And you know who you are - a voice, a mouth, a pointing finger - calling your neighbor out of the comfort zone into the wilderness to receive the gifts of Jesus Christ the Savior, pointing him to Baptism, to the Word, to the Supper. Through His Church, through you, God is preparing a people for the Day of Jesus' coming.

 

Blessed Advent in Christ.
Amen