A Willing Witness (John 1:6-8, 19-28)

Download and Listen to this Sermon

You keep having the same reoccurring dream. You are walking up to a strange house. You ring the doorbell and wait and wait and wait. Your palms are sweaty. It’s hard to breathe. You desperately want for nobody to be home, that way at least you can say you tried. Your hopes begin to rise, nobody’s coming to the door, you’re going to make it. Then suddenly the door opens and your heart leaps into your throat. The person on the other side doesn’t look happy. “Yeah? Wad’dya want?” “Uh . . . Um . . . I’m here to uh . . . I mean I would like to um . . . “Hurry it up I don’t have all day!” “Please, I would like to uh . . . Have you ever thought of …” The harder you try, the worse it gets. Your tongue starts tripping over itself. You can feel the heat as your face is turning red. You start feeling dizzy and the world begins to spin around you. This is a disaster. Suddenly the leering face on the other side of the door starts to laugh and point. The more you try to get the words out the harder they laugh. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Then they start to point and laugh harder. Only then do you realize your standing there without a stitch of clothes on. You wake up screaming!

Sound familiar? Maybe your dream ends with a slamming door instead, or attacking dogs, or a shot gun, or a law suit. If so, your not alone. Nearly every Christian I know has had one of these dreams before. The call to witness is a very scary thing for many Christians. Every Christian knows it is something they should be doing, and many even feel like it is something they want to do. But hardly anyone feels ready or able and so most aren’t willing to witness.

That is where our text for this morning can be of help. Maybe by looking to the example of John the Baptist, we can get some pointers for this witnessing stuff. By looking into this text we can discover how to be ready, willing, and able to witness, both personally, and as a congregation.

The first step to being ready as a witness is simply to know who you are. After all, isn’t that one of the dreaded questions that might come up. “Just who do you think you are?” Wasn’t that the exact question the Pharisees’ men asked John? “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” And what was John’s answer? “He confessed, he did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.” What kind of answer is that? Of course he’s not the Christ! Why would anyone think that?

What else does the text say about him? Not much. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” The Gospel writer is pretty clear in pointing out that John the Baptist was really no one special. Basically, he was just some guy whose name was John. The text goes on to say: “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.” That’s all we are told about his background by John. There was this guy, who wasn’t really special except that he was sent by God. He was sent by God for one reason and one reason only. He was to be a witness to the coming Christ. He himself wasn’t God, he was only there to tell other people about Him.

Most Christians have trouble witnessing simply because they don’t know their limitations. Read those verses again and this time put your name in them instead of John’s. When God calls you to be a witness for Him he is NOT calling you to be Him. Think about it for a minute. He is not calling you to be the light; only to point others to the light. He is not calling you to be your neighbour’s Saviour; just the one who points them to the one and only Saviour. He is not expecting you to convert anyone, change hearts, or restore broken lives; simply show others the One who can and will do all these things: Christ. Too many Christians avoid witnessing because they mistakenly feel responsible for things beyond their control. “I don’t know enough. My faith isn’t strong enough. I’m not good at debating, I haven’t had enough skills or training, I don’t live a good enough life. I’ll be a big failure!”

But nothing could be further from the truth. Every one of you has more than enough skills to witness effectively. I’ve even seen you do it before, for such things as pointing out a good book, or movie or restaurant. What did it take for you to recommend one of those? All you had to do was experience it. You read the book, you saw the movie, you ate at the restaurant. Recommended any good Gods lately. Really? What’s your experience with Him been like? You’ve heard His words. You’ve read His book (most of it anyway). You’ve seen firsthand the kind of work He does. You’ve felt his love and support. You’ve received his forgiveness and promise of everlasting life. What more does one need to talk about. Come and see for yourself.

If knowing that you yourself are not God, and more importantly, that you don’t have to be God makes you a ready witness, what would make you a willing witness? Why was John so willing to witness? I think the answer lies in the fact that John new in witnessing it was never about him. He wasn’t putting himself out there to be judged. He was putting Jesus before others. Look at every response he makes to these priests and Levites in our text. “Who are you: I am not the Christ. Are you Elijah: I am not. Are you the prophet: No!” The more they try to dig out information about John, the less he has to say. Finally they ask “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” What does John reply? “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” He points to Jesus, the coming Messiah. When they press him as to where he gets his authority to do all this work his answer again points not to himself but to Christ. “I baptize with water; but among you stands one whom you do not know, even he who comes after me, the lace of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

Time after time, John leads them back to Christ. John wasn’t the one on trial. He wasn’t the focus of attention. He wasn’t the one being accepted or rejected. Only Jesus was. John was willing to witness because he knew it wasn’t about himself. The more they tried to make it about him, the more he made it about Jesus. What a healthy attitude for witnessing! Too many Christians will not witness because they do not want to be rejected. Well, even when rejection happens, it is not the Christian being rejected; it is the message of Christ not being accepted. Have you ever recommended a movie to someone only to have them come back to you later saying they didn’t like it much? Has that stopped you from recommending movies? Of course not! It’s just a movie. In fact you’ve probably recommended other movies to that same person since. And you know what? They’ve probably even taken you up on some of them, even if that first one was a stinker. Now of course Jesus is far more important than any movie. But recommending him to others doesn’t have to be any harder. Simply give the invitation to “come and see for yourself” and God has promised He will take care of the rest.

And knowing that is the only way we will be able to be God’s witnesses in the world. God will take care of the rest. He will do the converting. He will change the hearts. He will heal the broken lives. He’s done it for each and everyone of us here. He will do it for others. When we do this witnessing thing we are never alone. He promises to be with us every step of the way to give us the courage, to give us the words, to give us the forgiveness when we need it. All of this he does for us through the Holy Spirit. As Acts 5:32 says: “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the power to witness, even when we don’t think we can. Again from Acts (1:8) “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”

God has promised that He can and will take even our most feeble of attempts and bring about miraculous results through the Holy Spirit. He simply wants to give us the opportunity to share in His glorious work. He wants to be able to share His love in Christ with others the way He has shared it with you already. As the prophet Isaiah said in our OT lesson: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.” The Gospel makes us able to witness. The Gospel forgives us when we don’t do a good job of it. It is God’s power at work in our lives. It will be His power at work in the lives of those we witness to as well.

There is a congregation sent by God. It’s name is witness to it’s faith – Christ Our Hope. It is not God, but it is to point to God. Are you ready willing and able? You can be. Witnessing doesn’t have to be the nightmare we all tend to think it is. It can, and should, be very simple. It can be our joy! Like the eye doctor whose eye chart read “God loves you and has a plan for your life.” Witnessing can be like the couple who lovingly placed scripture plaques in each of their hotel’s rooms so that it was the last thing the guests would see at night, and the first thing they would see in the morning. Witnessing can be as simple as inviting friends and neighbours to come with you to church. And what better time than as Christmas approaches. Are you ready, willing and able to be God’s witness? By the grace of God, Yes you are!

AMEN

 

The Forerunner (Mark 1:1-8)

Download and Listen to this Sermon

In the ancient world the position of forerunner was far more common than we might be familiar with today. As those who ruled the people got further and further from the everyday muck and poverty of their subjects it became increasingly more uncomfortable for them to be reminded of that difference. Thus the role of the forerunner was established. Any time that a king or ruler would need to travel the forerunner would go on ahead to prepare the way. Roads would need to be repaired or even sometimes built so the king would have the smoothest ride possible. People and towns, would need to be cleaned up so as not to offend the aristocratic sensibilities of the king. It was an important position, but the forerunner was never respected for who he was – only for who he heralded.

John the Baptist is himself probably the most well known forerunner in history. “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” John’s message was also strikingly similar “a voice of one calling in the desert, Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”

John the Baptist was a herald of Jesus, a prophet in a long and distinguished line of prophets. He wore the same dress as the great prophets of the past: camel hair robes and cheap leather bindings. He lived a prophet’s life of poverty and self-denial, wild honey and locusts were not the fare of kings and the nobility. For the better part of a millennium there had been men prophesying the coming Christ, but John was the last, John was the forerunner. Jesus was coming. He was so close that the way had to be prepared, and quick.

Yet John was also very different from the normal concept of a forerunner in several ways. John, unlike most forerunners, was famous of his own accord. He was attracting a large following. He was seen as the first real prophet of God in several hundred years. His dress, his lifestyle, his diet, these were all things that hadn’t been seen in Judea for many generations.

But strangest of all was his message! This man who lived out in the wilderness was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The Jews had heard of baptisms before, anyone who was not born Jews but wanted to become part of God’s chosen people had to be baptized. Never before, though, had any child of Abraham been called upon to be baptized! They already had favour with God, because of their birthright. No Jew had ever before been told that they needed to be baptized to have their sins forgiven. This was the path that John the Baptist had come to make straight. Not some stretch of highway between towns but rather the hearts of people. John’s call to repentance was the means by which he prepared the way for the Lord.

In the same way, we Christians have been called to be forerunners of our Lord. When John preached his message Jesus had already been born but had not yet come into his ministry. As we have gathered here today, Christ has indeed already come. We will celebrate shortly His first coming, as a lowly child, destined to suffer and die. We are his forerunners, however, not because He came, but because He will come again. It is that Second Coming that we need to prepare for now.

We prepare ourselves and others for Jesus’ arrival, we “mak[e] straight paths” by preaching repentance just as John himself did. Repentance isn’t any more enticing today than it was in John’s time. Repentance, we are told by the world, is an archaic, and morally stifling concept like sin and guilt and hell. There is actually a growing movement out there to have such concepts removed from the Christian Faith. Because there is a strong sense of regret tied to the word.

Nobody likes to feel regret. Nobody likes to be told they need to repent. And so, often it’s just easier for us Christians to leave things alone. Just as the Jews of John’s day, we can be complacent in our position as God’s chosen ones. “Let the pastor talk about all that hard-line and controversial material, after all that’s what he gets paid for. People expect a little doom and gloom from people like him, but if I went around telling people to repent I wouldn’t have any friends left. I’d be ridiculed. I’d be shunned. Nobody likes to be “the heavy”. No one is comfortable leaving themselves open to attack.

And yet, in preaching repentance, we are told that John was practically swamped with people from Jerusalem and all over Judea! What gives? Was this just a case of different times, different values? No. When we preach repentance, there is so much more to the message than mere regret. In the Scriptural use of the word repentance, we refer to that looking- back in regret, but also of the heart which then turns from sin and guilt to cleansing and forgiveness by God’s Grace.

Repentance is a source of joy and strength for the Christian. Acts 3:19 reads: “Repent then and turn to God, so the your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” Is this something that we can do on our own? Is this repentance to be seen as something that we must first fulfill before God will be gracious to us? If it were, we would not have much call for joy. Repentance is itself, a gift of God, given to us through faith and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is that which has been given to each of us through our baptism in Christ. As John said: “I baptize with water, but He will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” That faith given us through the Holy Spirit claims for its own the suffering and death that our Lord underwent on that cross.

And that leads me to the final difference between John the Baptist and usual forerunners: the Lord who was being proclaimed. As I said earlier this morning, the kings that sent out forerunners had distanced themselves from their subjects. They then used their power and influence to remain at a distance even when they occupied the same place geographically. That was the role of the forerunner, keep the king from experiencing the common man’s muck and poverty.

We too have a Lord who is powerful. But our Lord Jesus Christ used that power not to remain distanced from his people but rather to become one of them! He shared in our muck and poverty. He took upon himself all of that sin and guilt, and paid its price in full. Through his actions our sins are forgiven. The word for forgiven comes from a verb meaning to send away. In Jesus our sins are taken from us and sent so far away that even God will not find them on the Day of Judgment.

We have been called to be forerunners as John the Baptist was. We are to make straight paths for our Lord’s Second Coming by preaching repentance. The camel hair robes and locusts are optional. Truth be told, however, we will often fall short of our calling. In those times we have yet another comfort to be gained from all of this. Because he joined us here in our muck and poverty, we have a sure hope of joining him there in heaven. The one whom we go before, here on earth; has gone before us into heaven. Jesus himself is our forerunner in the kingdom of God. Our God loves us so much that Jesus has gone ahead to prepare our place in heaven for us. As John 14:2-3 reads: “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” The way has been made ready. The paths to heaven have been made straight by our Lord and our Forerunner Jesus Christ.

Amen.