Scripture: John 1:6-8, 19-30
In this sermon, I want to make three main points. Point Number One: Who John is not. To make this point, I’m going to untangle three“nots.” Because three times, John the Baptist says who he is not. Point Number Two: Who John is. And Point Number Three: Who Jesus is. And I want to make this point by untangling John’s fourth “not,” when he says, “I am not worthy…”
So that’s where we’re heading. But first, Point Number One… Who John is not…
My favorite Christmas movie is Miracle on 34th Street, the original 1947 version with Natalie Wood. And if you’ll recall, Kris Kringle, the real Santa Claus, gets hired to be the Macy’s department store Santa. And nearly every character in the movie agrees that Kris is a wonderful human being—cheerful, loving, and kind, just like the real Santa… Although he has a bit of a temper, but besides that, he’s wonderful, as anyone can see… But very few people believe that this sweet old man is really Santa Claus.
He’s just so normal… so ordinary… And the suspense of the movie will be proving that this seemingly ordinary person is someone extraordinary.
In today’s scripture, John the Baptist almost has the opposite problem. Unlike Kris Kringle in the movie, John doesn’t seem normal and ordinary. On the contrary, by all outward appearances, he is unlike anyone else. We don’t get a physical description of John in this gospel, but we’re told in the other gospels that John wore “a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist” 1—this was about like wearing a potato sack, by the way, not soft and comfortable. Literally no one is getting a pair of burlap pajamas this Christmas… for a reason! And we’re told that he also ate weird food: locusts and wild honey.
No, John was far from normal… And far from ordinary… he was extraordinary.
And not only that: John’s ministry of preaching God’s coming coming kingdom and God’s coming judgment, and his ministry of baptizing the people of Israel as a sign of the washing away of their sins… this ministry was incredibly popular. Thousands upon thousands of Jews went out to John in the wilderness to hear him preach and to be baptized. During John’s ministry, he was the most widely discussed person in all of Judea; he was at the center of Judean religious life.
We know this not simply from the New Testament. But from an important source outside of the Bible: from the late first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who spills a lot of ink talking about John.
And of course, John’s popularity among the people is doubly surprising because, to say the least, his message was so uncompromising: When Pharisees and Sadducees, who represented the two main schools of Jewish thought in the first century, came out to see him, John called them a “brood of vipers.” 2 In other words, “Y’all are baby snakes.” Not exactly How to Win Friends and Influence People. So much for “you catch more flies with honey.” In fact, John was so uncompromising that he ultimately got beheaded for calling out King Herod for an unlawful marriage to his brother’s wife.
If he had just toned it down a little bit. If he had just moderated his words a little bit. If he had just toed the line a little bit… He wouldn’t have gotten in such trouble.
But that wasn’t John’s style. Or, more importantly, that wasn’t what God called him to do and say. John was faithful to God above all else. And the people—at least those who were not among the religious elites in Jerusalem—loved John.
He was, like, the Billy Graham of first century Judaism, only more so.
And in today’s scripture, we’re told that the most powerful religious leaders in Judea—including priests, Levites, and Pharisees—have sent a delegation to interrogate John and try to figure out what his deal is. Verse 19: “Who are you?” And what they were really getting at—the question that was on all of their minds—was, “Are you the Messiah?” And it’s clear that these religious leaders expected a yes answer. They expected John to say, “Yes, I am the Messiah.”
That would at least make sense to them—if John fancied himself the Messiah. As New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out, this was a period of great political unrest. There were dozens of would-be “messiahs”—people who claimed to be the messiah—within a hundred years on either side of the life of Jesus. In fact, Wright uses this as evidence for the resurrection: Like Jesus, all of these would-be messiahs were charismatic leaders, all of them had disciples, and all of them died violent deaths at the hands of the Romans. Yet only in one case did followers claim that their messiah had been resurrected—and that was Jesus. The very fact that we know Jesus’ name today among these dozens of other would-be messiahs, not to mention that, just in terms of world history, Jesus is literally the most influential human who ever lived, gives evidence that something incredibly unusual must have happened in the case of Jesus: and that something was the resurrection.
Be that as it may, these religious leaders would not have been surprised if John had claimed to be the Messiah. Look at how large and widespread and influential John’s movement was!
But John says, to their surprise, in verse 20, “I am not the Christ.” Christ is simply the Greek word meaning “messiah.”
And this, by the way, is the first “not” we need to untangle. John is not the Messiah.
Second “not”… Is John the Baptist Elijah then?
What kind of question is that?
Well, first of all John dressed exactly like Elijah the prophet!3 But that’s not the main reason these leaders asked the question. The main reason is that it was a popular first-century Jewish belief that before the Messiah arrived in the world, Elijah would come. In part, this belief is based on scripture. The very last words of the last prophet of the Old Testament—Malachi—are the following in Malachi 4:5 and 6:
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Many people took this prophecy literally. You may recall that Elijah was taken up to heaven before he actually died. And somehow—because he didn’t die—people expected him to return, bodily, to earth. But that’s not the right interpretation. In fact, the angel Gabriel tells John’s father, in Luke 1, that his son “will go before [the messiah] in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” etc. And in Matthew 11:14, Jesus says that John fulfilled that role: “if you are willing to accept it,” Jesus said, “he is Elijah who is to come.”
When John says that he’s not Elijah, he’s probably not denying his God-ordained role as coming in the “spirit and power” of Elijah; he’s denying that he’s literally Elijah… Because that’s what many people were expecting.
So that’s the second not: “I am not Elijah.”
What’s the third not? See verse 21: “Are you the Prophet?” Notice that our English Standard Version, along with most modern translations, capitalizes the word “prophet.” Why? Because it refers not to a prophet in general, but to one particular messianic figure… the one that Moses himself mentions in Deuteronomy 18, verses 15 and 18. There, Moses prophesies about a future prophet that God will raise up: “I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” 4
The New Testament tells us that that Jesus himself fulfilled that role, too.
So of course John denies that he himself is that prophet.
So, John says, “I am not… I am not… I am not…” I am no one special, John says. Who I am is unimportant. It’s not about me, in other words; it’s about Jesus. I am not “the point”; I am merely the pointer. I am only a “voice,” John says, referring to the prophecy from Isaiah 40 that we looked at last week. And it really doesn’t matter who owns the voice; what matters is the words that the voice is speaking. What matters is not the messenger; what matters is the message.
And this brings us to Point Number Two: Who John is…
And we are given the answer in verse 7: “He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.”
Here John, the author of the gospel, is using legal language, language of the courtroom—John the Baptist is an eyewitness who is called by God to offer eyewitness testimony to the world about God’s Son Jesus.
But here’s the thing: As radical as John the Baptist was, if we are Christians, we are no less sent by God on a mission. Jesus gives us a similar mission, for instance, in Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” We call this mission the Great Commission.
This means we are no less empowered to be witnesses for Christ than John himself was. This means we have no less of a testimony about Jesus Christ than John himself had. This means God wants us, like John, to share this testimony with the world.
So… Do you have a testimony about what you yourself have experienced of Jesus Christ in your life?
I do… I want to share part of it now. When I was 13 years old, I was not yet a believer in Jesus; I wasn’t saved. My parents were the most nominal of Christians at the time—although that changed later, near the end of their lives, thank God. But when I was 13, I was in a place in my life in which I was deeply afraid… First, I was making a transition from a small elementary school to a large high school—seventh grade was the end of elementary school, eighth grade was the beginning of high school. No middle school back then. We eighth-graders were called “sub-freshmen,” subbies. And we were the “scum” of the high school—the bottom rung of the social ladder.
In fact, our school was up on a giant hill, and there was a rumor that on Fridays at 3:00, as the final bell rang and school was out for the weekend, seniors would grab us subbies and throw us down the steep hill—which, even if it didn’t hurt physically, would cause me to die of embarrassment, I’m sure!
So I was afraid of that… Because I embarrass easily.
I was afraid of not being able to fit in at this large and intimidating new school I was part of.
I was also afraid of dying… Literally! I was afraid of dying in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union! And I know that may sound silly, but this was the early-’80s. This was the Cold War! The topic of nuclear war was all over the news, all over TV, movies, music… There was a movie called WarGames, for instance, starring a young Matthew Broderick in which he plays a computer hacker who hacks into Pentagon computers and almost accidentally launches World War III. I absorbed that scary message.
There was a hit song by Sting, called “Russians.” And the message of the song was, “If the Russians love their children, too, then surely they won’t attack the West with nuclear missiles… But they might!” And I absorbed that scary message.
There was a video game—popular at the arcades—called “Missile Command.” The object of “Missile Command” was to defend these American cities from fast approaching nuclear missiles—to shoot them out of the sky before they landed and reduced your cities to rubble. And you always failed in the end. It was always a lost cause. The game was over when all your cities were destroyed… Almost at the very same time President Reagan was talking about building a real-life missile defense system—like the video game—which was nicknamed “Star Wars.” So I also absorbed that scary message!
I was fairly certain I was going to die in a nuclear war. And that scared me!
Even more, I knew that I was not saved. I was not in a right relationship with God. I had not yet received God’s gift of eternal life in Christ. I knew this in part because I had family and neighbors who told me I was going to hell… unless… Unless something. They never quite clear about that; they never told me what I needed to do to be saved.
Which meant that I knew that if or when the Soviets did launch a nuclear attack—and I died—I would be unprepared to stand before God in Final Judgment.
And that scared me most of all!
I summoned the courage, finally, to go to my parents and tell them about this fear, and that I wanted to be saved… I wanted to be a Christian. They didn’t quite know what to do or say, but they called the youth pastor at my church, and they signed me up to go on a youth group retreat the next month or so in Black Mountain, North Carolina. There I encountered Jesus in a powerful way… There I experienced the love of Christ through some dear Christian brothers and sisters who were leading and chaperoning the retreat. There I learned what Jesus did through his atoning death on the cross to save me from my sins, to save me from hell, to give me eternal life, and to come and live in my heart through the Holy Spirit.
There I received Christ as my Savior and Lord!
I left the retreat that weekend knowing that I was saved… The Bible says in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” I knew that I was a child of God! Suddenly all my previous fears melted away! And I knew that my life would never the be same. And it certainly hasn’t been the same. And I’m standing here today, in part, because of that experience back then.
What I just offered you is truthful “eyewitness testimony” of how Jesus first got hold of my life way back in 1984; of how I was converted; and the change was dramatic, at least for me. If you’re a Christian, your mileage may vary. Your testimony will not be like mine. You may not remember the moment of conversion.
But here’s something that is indisputable: if you’re a Christian, you have a testimony about your relationship with Christ right now. If you’re a Christian, you can speak truthfully about your experience of Christ right now. If you’re a Christian, you can even talk to others about the difference that Christ has made and is making in your life right now.
And if you’re a Christian—if people are around you long enough—they should even notice the difference that Christ makes in your life right now!
Do you believe that we members at the new Toccoa First Methodist Church, like John the Baptist, have been commissioned by our Lord Jesus to offer eyewitness testimony about him? Or has Jesus somehow exempted us from this mission… leaving that task to other churches? To other Christians?
Has our Lord given us less of the Holy Spirit and his power than he’s given to other churches and other Christians?
Do we believe that anywhere close to a majority of the 26,000 people in Stephens County right now are in church this morning—or, more importantly, are in a saving relationship with God? Are there not at least thousands upon thousands of people in our community who need to hear the gospel and be saved? Jesus said, in John 4:35, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.’”
Do we not have a role to play in God’s harvest fields in Toccoa, Georgia? Do we not have a witness to offer people? Do we not have a testimony? Or do our lives not show the difference that Christ makes in them? Are we just like everyone else, except we happen to spend a couple of hours in church on Sunday?
Brothers and sisters, we face a choice: We at the new Toccoa First Methodist Church can be a church committed to obeying our Lord Jesus and fulfilling the Great Commission—as the Holy Spirit empowers us, as we trust in the Lord at every moment, as we lean not on our own understanding, as we trust that our church’s success in the future will depend only on God…
Or… we can simply be a church committed to loving and serving our own… in ever shrinking numbers… until our church slowly dies.
That’s our choice. But I know for sure that the church we’ve been in the past, as good and faithful as we were back then, is no longer sufficient for the task at hand. Our world has changed. Our town has changed. Our culture has changed. I wish it hadn’t. But if “wishes and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas,” as the old saying goes.
So… Which will we choose?
“As for me an my household…” I know what choice we will make.
One of the things that scares us about witnessing, by the way, is our fear that most people don’t care about Jesus, about being saved through faith in him, about having a relationship with God. Most people aren’t walking around thinking about things like eternal life, thinking about heaven or hell, thinking about facing God in Final Judgment. It’s not on their radar. So no matter how sincere we are in our witness, we worry that most people won’t perceive that what we’re talking about when we talk about Jesus has any relevance for their lives.
Right?
If we’re tempted to feel that way, I want us to consider something that John the Baptist says about himself in John chapter 3, when John’s disciples complain that crowds are leaving John to go follow Jesus instead. John is not at all bothered by this. John says, in verse 29, “The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.”
Notice those words: “rejoices greatly.” “This joy of mine is now complete.” In other words, John says he couldn’t possess more joy than he possesses right now!
Maybe the people that God calls us to witness to don’t care about Jesus. But you know what they do care about? You know what they care about more than anything else? They care about being happy. Thomas Jefferson wasn’t wrong: Every person in the world right now is pursuing happiness… if they’re in their right mind.Whether they know it or not, they are pursuing joy. They want joy! I mean, sure, they may settle for something less than joy—they may settle for mere happiness, but happiness doesn’t last the way joy does.Joy, unlike happiness, is something we experience regardless of our circumstances. So it’s much deeper than mere happiness.
But everybody wants it. And the Bible says that joy is only available in a lasting way in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And the Bible says that the Holy Spirit will produce joy within us as believe in Christ: It is literally part of the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” 5 Maybe those other virtues are negotiable to most people, but everyone wants joy if it’s available.
And we at Toccoa First Methodist know who the Source of joy is… We know where it comes from… We have the Source of joy living within our hearts!
Our church’s vision statement—“treasuring Christ above all and helping others do the same”—is ultimately all about joy. Because if you treasure something or someone, then that means you find joy in that person or thing. Otherwise your treasure would be something else. You can’t fake the things that you treasure. Either you treasure something or you don’t.
And we the people of Toccoa First Methodist treasure Christ above all.
And if the people of Toccoa, Georgia, see us treasuring Christ above all, and they see us finding joy in Christ, then that will be more attractive to them than anything else. And they will want what we have!
And that’s Point Number Two: John was a witness; we are too. John had a testimony; we do too. John was sent on an urgent mission by God. We are too.
Point Number Three: Who Christ is… And for this point, I need to untangle one final “not” in today’s scripture… when John says, in verses 26 and 27, “I baptize with water, 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.”
Untying the straps of someone else’s sandals in the ancient world was the lowliest job imaginable. There was nothing lower than that. Only the lowliest household slave would even be asked to do that. And John says he is not worthy to do even this most humiliating task for Jesus.
And since that’s the case, how do you think John the Baptist would feel if this same person, Jesus—the straps of whose sandals John isn’t worthy to untie… how would John feel if Jesus started untying the straps of John’s sandals… in order to wash John’s feet?
From John’s perspective, it would be unthinkable for Jesus—God in the flesh—to humble himself like that…
Yet we know from later in John’s gospel, in chapter 13, on the night in which Jesus gave himself up for us, that Jesus does exactly that for his disciples. Remember, Peter objects: “You shall never wash my feet.” 6 And Peter objects for the same reason, I’m sure, that John the Baptist would have objected if he were there: John would surely say something like this: “Since I don’t deserve to perform this humble act of service for you, Jesus, I certainly don’t deserve to have you do this for me!” And that’s an understatement of a lifetime.
Recall from John chapter 13 how Jesus answers Peter’s objection: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 7
Suddenly, Jesus is no longer talking merely about washing feet, is he? No, he’s using this foot-washing as a symbol for what Jesus would do in less than a day’s time, on the cross, in the washing away of sin, for these people he loves!
But John is absolutely right: He’s not worthy to untie the strap of Jesus’ sandals. Which means John is even more unworthy to have Jesus do the same for him. Which means John is infinitely more unworthy to have Jesus suffer the humiliation of the cross for him, to suffer the shame of the cross for him, to bear the curse of cross for him, to suffer the death penalty on the cross for him, to suffer hell itself on the cross for him—which is, to experience separation from his Father, which is hell… John, to say the least, is not worthy to have Jesus do that for him.
Yet that’s precisely what Jesus did for him… and for you… and for me.
And God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, came into the world at Christmas in order to do that for us!
Amen.