Text: John 1:19-28
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
As we near Christmas, the birth of our Lord in the flesh, we are brought to the village of Bethany in Judea, just two miles outside of Jerusalem.
For here, priests and Levites come to John the Baptist to interrogate him regarding his work. They ask him bluntly, “Who are you?” They know that John is doing the work of a prophet, and that he is preaching in a way that the priests and Levites, the Sadducees, the scribes, and the Pharisees do not. He is preaching a new message about the kingdom being near.
What they are really asking John is if He is the Messiah, that is, the promised Shepherd-King of Israel as proclaimed by the prophets of old. By this time, Greek has replaced the Hebrew language, and so John denies that he is the Messiah, using the Greek word “Christ” instead of the Hebrew word “Messiah.”
Indeed, “he confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’” This denial baffled John’s interrogators. So they ask him if he is Elijah – for many Jews believed that Elijah would return to earth before the end of the world. “I am not,” John answers. Well, this is very strange.
They ask John if he is “the Prophet” – since they are confused about the Prophet whom Moses promised would come. The Prophet is the Messiah. So John the Baptist also denies being this Prophet.
The priests and Levites who are questioning John are frustrated. They are losing patience with his answers. “Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
And indeed, St. John the Baptist will now not just give them a list of whom he is not, but he will now confess that he is indeed a man sent from God: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.’”
John informs them that he is the one that Isaiah was talking about. John is a prophet prophesied by an earlier prophet. And so his interrogators are even more confused. And we learn that their bosses who sent them were none other than the Pharisees: the legalists who will be the enemies of the Christ whom John was sent to announce to the world.
John is baptizing people in the Jordan River in a cleansing ceremony that indicates repentance. The Pharisees did not authorize this. Neither did the priests, the Levites, the scribes, the king, nor any rabbi. John was preaching and baptizing without their authority, and crowds beyond number were coming to him to be baptized.
And so their next line of questioning is, “Why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
They are offended by John’s actions apart from them. They are really accusing him of acting without authorization. He is a strange figure with his camel hair clothing and unusual diet of locusts and wild honey. He doesn’t come to them asking for permission, and his short answers to their questions seem to show a kind of detached disrespect toward the religious leaders that everyone else holds in high esteem. John the Baptist seems to shrug all of them off, and continues with his preaching and baptisms.
John answers their question in a way that they don’t want to hear. Instead of explaining and defending himself, John points his interrogators to someone else – someone whose identity that John himself does not yet know. “I baptize with water,” John says, “but among you stands one you do not know, even He who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”
Of course, John is pointing them to their as-yet unknown and unrevealed Messiah, the Christ, who is the Prophet, who is the fulfillment of Elijah’s preaching, the one whom John’s entire reason for being born was to point to. John will soon learn that the Christ is his cousin Jesus, and John will send his disciples to be His disciples. John will reveal the Christ in his preaching, and the rest of his life will be devoted to proclaiming Jesus the Christ and the kingdom that has now drawn near.
Indeed, “these things took place in Bethany,” even before the baptism of Jesus, even before the start of His ministry. And three years later, our Lord’s earthly ministry will draw to a close as He makes His way to Jerusalem to be crucified, to die, and to rise again. And on the way to His cross, Jesus will stop in Bethany, where He will raise Lazarus from the dead. For Jesus is not only the Prophet and the Messiah, He is God in the flesh, the Creator who is to also the Redeemer. He is the light that dispels the darkness. He is the life that overcomes death. And what Jesus does for Lazarus, He does for us, dear friends. That is the kingdom that John proclaims.
John is not the Christ. Rather he is a preacher of Christ. John, and all preachers and baptizers in the history of the church have the same task: to point our hearers to Jesus, who is the Christ. We preachers can raise the dead, because we preach Christ, who indeed has given you the promise at your baptism that you have been born again, born from above, “not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” You have been born of water and the Spirit. And as St. Paul teaches us, “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death.” And “if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
The preaching of John had power, not because John had power, but rather because he preached Christ – the one whose Word washes us, forgives us, creates faith in us, and raises us bodily from death. All preachers wield an alien power that is not their own. It is the power of the Word: the one whose sandal neither John nor any other preacher is worthy to untie.
You are receiving this grace now in the hearing of this good news. The Word of God bears this power, and you are receiving it right here and right now, dear brothers and sisters.
In this final week of Advent, we are very near to the feast of our Lord’s incarnation and birth. Let us ponder anew the mystery of His coming, the fact that Jesus fulfills all of the prophesies, that He is the Christ, God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us, our Savior, our Redeemer, the one who will call our name from the tomb, and we will, like Lazarus in Bethany, walk out and come back to life. And this mystery includes His coming to us in preaching and in His body and blood.
And we baptize, and we are baptized, with the power of Jesus, with the authority of God, for our Lord Himself gave us this command: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Dear friends, you are baptized into this name, born again, and given the promise of the resurrection.
Though we are not worthy, Jesus is. And He has come and made us worthy by means of His own worthiness. John has proclaimed the kingdom. Jesus brings the kingdom. We have received the kingdom. So let us receive our King!
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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