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Dec 12, 1999 This sermon was given by the Rev. Gene Preston on Third Advent Sunday, December 12, l999 at Community Church Hong Kong.:
John 1:6-8 and 19-28
To prove a legal case in court you normally need a witness. Whether the case is criminal or civil, there's not a strong case since without a witness the prosecution must rest on circumstantial evidence which may be only hearsay. An eyewitness is best especially if the case is criminal; though documents may serve as evidentiary witness when the litigation is civil. But as any of us who are enthralled with Aly McBeal and The Practice know, eyewitnesses are a lot more entertaining in a courtroom! In John the Baptist a vivid key witness to Jesus as the Christ burst forth in John's prologue. Some of John's followers believed he was the Messiah and this is why the Gospel of John, like that of Luke, takes great effort to disavow that John is the Messiah; he is not; he is the witness to the Messiah; he is the witness to the light which is coming to save everyone. In a burst of self-abnegation the Baptist states he is not worthy to even attend to the sandals of the coming Messiah. John the Baptist faces the test which confronts all witnesses. Is he believable? Is he creditable as a witness? In today's text he is approached by representatives of the high religious caste of Jerusalem, the very group which most disliked the Baptist. That the Levites and Priests would delegate their spiritual co-workers, the Pharisees, to travel some distance from Jerusalem to interview the Baptist in the Judaen desert suggests that this popular but troublesome preacher was taken seriously by those who opposed his radical call to repentance and religious reform. It is equally clear that it is only the religious leaders, and not the Jews per se, who interrogate John but then reject his witness by refusing to recognize the authentic nature of Jesus' ministry. This text is not meant to be interpreted as a general early Christian polemic against all Jews. There is some confusion in this text as to what precisely John was witnessing about Christ. There is the metaphor of "the light" followed by the somewhat perplexing "THAT ALL MEN MIGHT BELIEVE THROUGH HIM" at verse 7. You could guess in the grammar that the "him" refers to the Baptist, but that is not likely in the context. The "him" must refer to the Christ. But believe what about him? Believe in God through the Christ? Possibly, but more likely John's witness is that all would believe in Christ himself, the Light of the World. Listen to our text for today: THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD, WHOSE NAME WAS JOHN. HE CAME AS WITNESS TO TESTIFY TO THE LIGHT, SO THAT ALL MIGHT BELIEVE THROUGH HIM. HE HIMSELF WAS NOT THE LIGHT, BUT HE CAME TO TESTIFY TO THE LIGHT. THIS IS THE TESTIMONY GIVEN BY JOHN WHEN THE JEWS SENT PRIESTS AND LEVITES FROM JERUSALEM TO ASK HIM, "WHO ARE YOU?" HE CONFESSED AND DID NOT DENY IT, BUT CONFESSED, "I AM NOT THE MESSIAH." AND THEY ASKED HIM, "WHAT THEN? ARE YOU ELIJAH?" HE SAID, "I AM NOT." "ARE YOU THE PROPHET?" HE ANSWERED, "NO." THEN THEY SAID TO HIM, "WHO ARE YOU? LET US HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THOSE WHO SENT US. WHAT DO YOU SAY ABOUT YOURSELF.?" HE SAID, "I AM THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING OUT IN THE WILDERNESS: 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD.' THE PROPHET ELIJAH SAID. NOW THEY HAD BEEN SENT FROM THE PHARISEES. THEY ASKED HIM, "WHY THEN ARE YOU BAPTIZING IF YOU ARE NEITHER THE MESSIAH, NOR ELIJAH, NOR THE PROPHET." JOHN ANSWERED THEM, "I BAPTIZE WITH WATER. AMONG YOU STANDS ONE WHOM YOU DO NOT KNOW, THE ONE WHO IS COMING AFTER ME. I AM NOT WORTHY TO UNTIE THE THONG OF HIS SANDAL." THIS TOOK PLACE IN BETHANY ACROSS THE JORDAN WHERE JOHN WAS BAPTIZING. (John l:6-8 and l9-28)
John the Baptist goes out of his way to deny that he is the Messiah or the Christ, and to deny that he is Elijah a prophet taken in the Hebrew scriptures as the forerunner to the Christ. The Baptist is clearly a modest guy and in his humility we can identify a key trait to effective spiritual witnessing. The best witness for faith is unaffected by personal factors. The effective witness has no personal axe to grind, and points not to himself but to the event and person about whom he is called to witness. The Baptist's modest, simple conduct regarding his witness to the Christ is a correction upon Christian zealots who distort the value of their witness to Christ by calling attention to themselves. Though the Baptist specifically rejected being cast as a prophet, how about those followers of Jesus who love to put on the prophet's mantle and declare in the name of Christ that they know what is best, right and moral for everybody. This is a temptation of preachers (including yours truly), but lay people are not free from excess in their claim to know the mind of Christ and their condemnation of those who do not accept their witness. A good witness, like John the Baptist, points to who is the best and brightest light more than what is the truth from Christ. When someone approaches Christ he and she will find their truth. John's approach is a welcomed wet blanket to be thrown over those many witnesses who believe they can discern the future of the planet and our race and pronounce confidently about God's time table for judgement and end days. Many who present themselves as forerunners of the second coming of Christ are not giving out light, but confusion, and far from helping to reveal the true light, they are obscuring the light of Christ by drawing attention to their own bizarre theories and interpretations of end days. Although on other occasions, John the Baptist effected a dramatic appearance and obstreperous manner, in this interview he rejects any rambunctious or exotic conduct and speaks simply, plainly to his questioners. Given what we know about his views and personality, we might expect him to fly into a funk when approached by his opponents of the religious establishment in Jerusalem. Not so. To their pestering questions: "Are you the prophet? Are you the Messiah? Why do you baptize?" John never lost his cool. A good witness needs to keep his form together so as to maintain focus on the object of the witness. This modest and plain manner of John the Baptist when witnessing to Christ is also a wake up for believers who are given to excess of personal excitement in their worship. For there is the temptation in overly emotional worship for the focus to shift away from Christ and upon the person doing all the wiggling, screeching, and shaking. Such signs of enthusiasm may be evidence of the Holy Spirit at work against satan; they may equally be merely signs of an immature person who craves public attention. By the end of all the carrying on, there must be a witness to the power and presence of Christ or it is of little spiritual significance.
How shall we witness to the light which is the grace and truth of Jesus the Christ? Most of us live such mundane lives that it may seem we are beyond any capability to witness to grace and truth. We may cast our ambitions to witness only in terms of our mere survival or by projecting our hope in our progeny. The shaping of good children does make a very fine witness about general grace and truth, though not necessarily about the grace and truth of Christ. Every parent knows that parenting is as much a projection of our need as a witness of our love. The controversy swirling around Elian Gonzalez, the six year old Cuban boy washed up on Florida's shore two weeks ago, shows the degree to which adult polemics and competition are projected upon children. The protests and claim being made on both sides of the Florida shore have little to do with a child and much to do with adult needs. Fortunately, we read of other and more selfless evidence from current events to show that brave, forthright, sacrificial witness continues even in our self-absorbed societies. I am thinking of the six firemen from Worcester, Mass. who gave their lives last week in doing their duty: two of them searching for the homeless whom it was believed were trapped in the abandoned warehouse; four of them dying while trying to rescue the first two. This is of the nature of witness, laying down your life for your brother, which Jesus lifted up as the highest example. These six men left six widows and seventeen fatherless children because of their witness. I believe that friends in Massachusetts are rallying to witness to those bereft dependents and without the hoopla surrounding the young Cuban boy. Which do you credit as the more effective witness to Christ? I was moved by this obituary in yesterday's SCMP in which friends and former colleagues at the University of Hong Kong fondly remember Mrs. Mary Visick, once for many years their colleague, who passed away November 30 in England. They quoted the psychologist Carl Jung: "One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings." As very fine testimony that Mrs. Visick made a difference in her life, and making a difference is a genuine witness. Regretably, we do not look back often enough. One of the experiences I most dislike is having to sit backwards on a train or any other moving vehicle. I love to ride going up on the Peak Tram, but I hate the return trip because the seats are fixed so you must come down looking backwards. I don't like to see where I've been. I like to see where I'm going. But we do need to look back, especially as this century ends so that we are humbled and strengthened by the selfless witness of many who have gone before us. The violence, satanic evil and injustices of our century now ending are evident enough in the wars, concentration camps, pogroms, persecutions and fanaticisms which litter the recent historic landscape. But in response to almost every barbarism, there has been a corresponding human witness of courageous resistance and brave affirmation that the light shall not go out. An example are the Russian people upon whom so much negative criticism is heaped because of all that is going wrong in their society, not least just now because of global upset and condemnation with the Russian attack upon the capital, Grozny, of the breakaway small area of Chesnya and the threat by Moscow to obliterate that city and its civilians. The Russians have stepped back from that apocalyptic threat. But if we, the whole world, along with the Russian people, could get on the train of history, and face backward, we would come upon the almost incalculable heroism of the grandparents of today's Russians. About 57 years ago, another Russian city was under siege. The triumphant Nazi led armies had surrounded the great southern city of Stalingrad and given a similar ultimatum to the one million, mostly civilians trapped within it: surrender or die. The people did not surrender. They held out nearly a year with incredible sacrifice, pain and death. And while some believe the turning point toward Allied victory did not come until the Normandy invasion two years later, I believe it was the heroic defense at Stalingrad that prophecied the defeat of Naziism. I wonder when anyone last gave thanks for the unnamed million who perished at Stalingrad to make the world in l999 a bit safer for human dignity and freedom. On a personal level, I have come across many Christian men and women who have given their lives in steady, non-publicized witness to Christ as the light in their lives. I think of Dr. Beth whom I visited in Kathmandu 37 years ago. Back in the l930s she founded the first hospital in Nepal and labored there for 35 years introducing medicine and medical care to a nation which had previously known neither. She was a Christian doctor. I think of my friend, retired missionary Hugh Addleton who for 32 years labored in the Sind in Pakistan witnessing in his daily rounds the love of Christ for the Pakistanis and completing across his lifetime there the first translation of the sciptures into Sindi. I think of my friend, the Rev. Jerry Bedford, whom some of you know also, who last week was honored in Little Rock at a gala dinner for "30 plus years of service" to the Christian service organization known as Heifer International. And by the way our sole Christmas special appeal will be for Heifer China on Christmas Eve worship at l0:30PM. And many of you will not be able to be present. So consider writing a check to your church, marking it "For Heifer", and giving it to the Sunday collection or the church office before you fly away from Hong Kong. I know there are thousands of other believers who witness as effectively and modestly and whose names though not widely known have their "names in the Book of Life" (Phil. 4:3) and for whom the Lord will reward their service (Col.. 3:23-24). Those who witness for the Lord never witness in vain. It is not being noticed and celebrated which makes a witness authentic, though it doesn't hurt to notice now and then those who care for a person with a disability, or help to distribute food to the hungry, or teach a small class of children, or serve as peacekeepers, or witness to the grace and light of God in a thousand other ways. Witnesses do not ask to be noticed because they know, like John the Baptist, that they are not the light. They are witnesses to the light who is Jesus the Christ. But when we notice them, we are blessed with inspiration. In ancient times it was required that there be more than one witness for a case to be proven. A second witness was required. John the Baptist was the first and initial witness that Jesus was the Christ. The concept of the need for a second witness has its origin in the book of Deuteronomy 19:15: A SINGLE WITNESS SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST A MAN FOR ANY CRIME OR FOR ANY WRONG IN CONNECTION WITH ANY OFFENCE THAT HE HAS COMMITTED. ONLY ON THE EVIDENCE OF TWO WITNESSES OR OF THREE WITNESSES SHALL A CHARGE BE SUSTAINED. If we believe this Advent that Jesus Christ is the one who has come to bring light and liberation to humanity, then we are called by love to share that belief with others. We are called to be the second and third witnesses that the light has come into the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. The darkness does not prevail because of the sacrifices of millions; the darkness does not prevail because of the singular service of each believer. At this season which is Christ's time to come back into our awareness and our hearts with renewed power in his witness of God's love for us, we are invited to embrace the season by being second witnesses. Think about it. Consider what testimony you can give to support that of John the Baptist that the light has come that all may believe through him.
Pastor Gene Preston
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The Rev. Gene R.Preston14th Floor, Blk 36, Lower Baguio Villa Tel : 25516161 Fax: 25512114E-mail : gpreston@netvigator.com |
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