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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +

Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am enjoying getting to know a little bit about each of you, the congregation, and the community. Someone said something to me this past week about not yet really knowing me, and I suppose that is true. (I have known some people, for a lot longer than four weeks, who probably do not really know me, either.) My new physical trainer, whom I have not yet met in person but with whom I am scheduled to start working this coming week, yesterday e-mailed me a nearly fifty-question questionnaire for me to complete and to return to him. I suppose my answers will help him know my identity, though not as much my actions over the course of his training me for the next six or eight months. Identity and actions are at the center of today’s Gospel Reading. Representatives of the various Jewish groups ask John the Baptizer a series of seven questions, which boil down to two: “Who are you?” and “Why are you baptizing?” As we reflect on John the Baptizer’s identity and actions, we will also reflect both on Jesus’s identity and actions and on our own identities and actions.

All four Gospel accounts essentially begin by telling about John the Baptizer, but only St. John’s Gospel account reports this exchange with the Jewish representatives. And, unlike the other accounts that emphasize John the Baptizer’s work of preparing, St. John’s Gospel account emphasizes John the Baptizer’s witness or testimony. First our Gospel Reading gives us an excerpt from the account’s Prologue, which emphatically introduces the fact of John the Baptizer’s witness, and then the Reading gives the record of that testimony.

What is recorded really took place, in Bethany, the Reading says, across the Jordan from Jerusalem, in all likelihood some time after John had baptized Jesus. As God sent John the Baptizer for the purpose of bearing witness, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent Sadducean priests, Levites, and Pharisees—all religious leaders in their own right and experts in religious ritual. They were sent for the purpose of conducting an inquisition. So, those religious leaders asked John the Baptizer about his identity (who he was) and about his actions (why he was baptizing). The Jewish representatives may have known that John the Baptizer was the son of a priest and, as we heard last Sunday, that he lived in the wilderness, wore camel’s hair and a leather belt, and ate locusts and wild honey. But, they are not so much concerned about his personal background, and John the Baptizer seems to know that. With increasingly short, clear-cut, point-blank answers, John the Baptizer confessed, without any qualification whatsoever, that he was not the Christ, neither was he Elijah, nor was he the Prophet. Instead, John the Baptizer said he was the voice prophesied by Isaiah preparing the way of the Lord. John the Baptizer thereby pointed to Christ, the Messiah, the One no longer coming but already standing among them, though they did not know or recognize Him. As an ideal witness, John the Baptizer distinguished himself from Christ and put himself in the proper relation to Christ (lower than a slave who would untie the strap of his master’s sandals). But John the Baptizer did not diminish himself, nor did our Lord Jesus Christ, later in His ministry, diminish John the Baptizer when speaking about him. For their part, the Jewish representatives were so fixated on John the Baptizer that they did not recognize Jesus. In our time also, people can be so fixated on the witness that they fail to recognize the One to Whom witness is being borne.

Sometimes the fault for failing to recognize the One to Whom witness is being borne lies with the witness himself, and sometimes the fault lies with the ones observing the witness. In what ways can the witness himself be blamed for people failing to recognize Jesus, the One to Whom witness is being borne? Unlike John the Baptizer, witnesses might give their own, personal testimony instead of testifying of Jesus. Witnesses might point their observers to rely in part on themselves for salvation instead of relying completely on Jesus. Or, witnesses might deny ways that Jesus brings salvation, perhaps causing their observers ultimately to deny Jesus. In what ways can the ones observing the witness be blamed for failing to recognize Jesus, the One to Whom witness is being borne? Observers may look to the witness and expect him to do the work that Jesus actually does. Observers might in some other way have wrong expectations about what the witness is supposed to do. Or, observers might simply be looking for excuses to not recognize Jesus and so be unwilling to look past the witness’s human failings. The truth is, as witness and observers, as pastor and people, we all sin, whether in regards to witnessing and observing the witness, or in countless other ways. Too often we are like those St. Paul described in his letter to Titus, those who confess to know God but by our actions deny Him—even if God is the only one Who sees those denying actions. For, by nature, we are, as St. Paul continues, detestable, disobedient, and unfit for doing anything good in God’s eyes. Our sin clings to us; even we who believe cannot escape it.

John the Baptizer was not the same Elijah who had been taken up by a whirlwind into heaven, but John the Baptizer was like Elijah. And, John the Baptizer was like Elijah in more ways than his clothing and diet. As prophesied by God through Malachi in the last verse of the Old Testament, John the Baptizer was like Elijah in trying to turn the hearts of young and old by calling them to repentance. Their judgment was at hand, as our judgment is at hand. Our Hymn of the Day, which dates back at least to the tenth century, paraphrases for us John the Baptizer’s call in this way:

When we “haste with tears of sorrow” over our sin and trust God to forgive our sin, we, “one and all”, truly are “forgiven”. Out of His great love, God forgives our sin because of what His Son Jesus did for us.

Our Old Testament Reading speaks well of Jesus’s work of bringing good news. Jesus, like John the Baptizer before Him, was a witness in the greatest sense of the word: the testimony of both was given even to the point of death. (To give you a better sense of that, know that the Greek word used for their “testimony” gives us our English word “martyr”.) The Jewish leaders put both Jesus and John the Baptizer through a trial of sorts, and both were put to death ultimately for their testimony. Even though Jesus said the testimony He received was not from men, Jesus was aware of John the Baptizer’s testimony and referred to it. When Jesus identified John the Baptizer as the prophesied second Elijah, Jesus said the Jewish leaders did not recognize John as such but did to him whatever they pleased. In the same way, Jesus said, He would suffer at their hands, and He did. The Jewish leaders had the Romans put Jesus to death on the cross, but Jesus died there willingly, for you and for me, in order to save us from our sins. And, Jesus rose from the dead, showing that He had indeed conquered sin, death, and the power of the devil for us. Jesus’s identity as the Son of God is bound up in His actions that save us. We heard in our Gospel Reading that John the Baptizer bore witness about the Light, Jesus, so that all might believe—which is the first reference in St. John’s Gospel account to faith. The account’s last reference to faith makes clear that by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, we have life in His Name.

Jesus gives us that life in His Name in very specific ways. St. John, the divinely-inspired author of our Gospel Reading, writes elsewhere that there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. The Church has often understood these three to refer to preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments, for which purposes God instituted the Office of the Holy Ministry. Likewise, we heard in our Gospel Reading, the identity of the ministers is bound up with their actions. Through ministers preaching the Gospel, the Holy Spirit testifies, or bears true witness about Jesus, which witness of the Spirit Jesus refers to elsewhere in St. John’s Gospel account. The Gospel Reading itself explicitly mentions the testimony of the water, Holy Baptism. And, as with the specific time and place of the Gospel Reading, each of us who have been baptized can point to a specific time and place when we know God made us His children and gave us life in His Name—the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. (You are welcome to come by my study and see my baptismal certificate with its specifics hanging on the wall.) At the Baptismal Font is where we find fulfilled the Old Testament Reading’s statement about Jesus clothing His Church with “the garments of salvation” and adorning her with His own righteousness. We know that the Jewish leaders rejected John and his baptism, for which Jesus essentially rebuked them later, and so there is a warning also today for those who reject Baptism as a means of grace. Finally, there is the blood that testifies, as in the body and blood of the Sacrament served from this altar. From there, in ordinary bread and wine, we physically receive Jesus, the Living Bread that came down from heaven, given for the life of the world. As often as we eat this bread and drink the cup we proclaim the Lord’s death—and all His death entails—until He comes the final time in glory. Truly we are blessed to receive life in Jesus’s Name on the certainty of the three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood.

Several times recently I have found myself telling a friend to go easy with his confession of the Christian faith as he meets new people who are not Christian. Today’s Gospel Reading, with John the Baptizer’s ready self-devotion to his role as witness and the completeness of his confession, made me think more about my counsel to my friend. John the Baptizer’s identity and actions point to Jesus’s identity and actions, which should impact our identities and actions. Yet, St. Peter writes that we in our hearts should honor Christ the Lord as holy and always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us, but he says we need to give that defense with gentleness and respect. As we heard in the Gospel Reading, the goal is that all might believe, but, sadly, all, even those who ask the questions that we answer, will not believe. The fault ultimately is in them, though we certainly seek and receive forgiveness for our failure to give such a defense and to give it gently and respectfully, even as we daily seek and receive forgiveness for all our sins.

The forgiveness that is ours each and every day is reason to rejoice each and every day, though perhaps especially today. Today, the Third Sunday in Advent was traditionally known by the name Gaudete, Latin for, we might say, “All-y’all rejoice!” Gaudete was the first Latin word in the old Introit for this Sunday that began with Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I will say, Rejoice.” The rose-colored candle, with its lighter shade, symbolized the less-penitential mood of this Sunday in that old system. Though for the last thirty years the Gradual for Advent has sounded the call to “Rejoice” each Sunday of the season, the Old Testament and Epistle Readings for this cycle’s Third Sunday in Advent do have the extra call to “Rejoice”. And, the Epistle Reading in particular gives good reasons to rejoice. So, we close with the comfort with which St. Paul closed that letter to the Thessalonians and thus also the Reading:

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +