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Sunday January 17, 2010 "Where to Start?" Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 1/26/2010 1:22 PM | Have you ever been so ready for something to happen, but weren’t sure where you were to start to make it happen?
The people who knew John the Baptist were ready. They were ready for something, they just weren’t exactly sure what it was they were ready for. They were ready for the appearance of a messiah, a messiah that would lead them out of the oppression that they felt on a daily basis. They were ready to be able to fully and completely live out their religious and civic desires.
Oh, they were ready.
They just didn’t know where to start.
They looked at John the Baptist, and they wondered, “Is this where we start? Could John be the messiah?”
I’m not sure whether the question “could John be the messiah?” is a hopeful question or a question that is filled with some trepidation. The same question might be asked differently: “You don’t really think John could be the messiah, do you?”
Think about it. Is this the man you want to be your leader, your savior? Scripture tells us he was a wild looking guy. He wore his hair unkempt and his beard was completely unruly. He wore animal skins and a huge leather belt to hold everything together. He ate locusts as a meal. He was a man of the wilderness, a man uncomfortable in “polite” company, a man who was rough around the edges and lacking in the social graces. He said what was on his mind, no matter who was listening. He chastised those he wished to save. “Really, do you think he is the messiah?”
Even if they had some fear, John was sure doing some of the things that they would expect a messiah to do. He was preaching, he was baptizing people, he was prodding them to get right with God, so that they might be worthy to once again take their rightful place as God’s chosen people.
“No,” John assured them, “I am not the messiah. I am simply helping to make everything ready for the one who comes after me. I baptize you with water – I help you to symbolically cleanse yourself – so that you will be ready to start when the messiah arrives. I am doing my best to get you thinking right. I am trying to get you to open your eyes so that you will recognize the messiah when the messiah’s day comes. I am trying to help you get ready for that day.
“No, I am not the messiah,” John tells them. “The messiah who is coming, I’m not worthy to tie his shoelaces. He will baptize you, too, but there will be nothing symbolic about that baptism: he will baptize you with the holy spirit and the fire that will ignite your souls.
“No,” John told them, “I am not the messiah. But he is coming.”
The people were ready for the messiah, but weren’t sure where to start in welcoming him. John was doing everything he could to show them where to start.
“Repent of your sins. Walk away from your evil. Cleanse yourself. Prepare yourself. You may think you are ready, but until you are in the presence of the one who follows me, you have no idea. He is coming to bring comfort to those who are ready and able to follow him. If you are not able to fully follow him, you will be plucked like the weeds in a garden. So get ready. The time to start is almost here.”
Would you have believed John? Would you have followed John? Well, he’s offering a place to start. And that starting place is to look inward and prepare for the messiah’s coming.
Yes, John is a little strange, he is a little rough, and he is more than a little bombastic. But what he tells the people in the hills of Palestine is the best advice he could give. “Eveything starts,” he says, “with each of us deciding if we are going to follow God or if we are going to turn our backs on God. There is no other choice.”
The people of Palestine and Israel have heard all the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses and the other prophets. They know the history of their people: a history marked by periods of obedience and peace, followed by disobedience and strife. They know their own hearts: they want to be saved by a loving God, yet too often they seek their salvation in the things of the world: money and pleasure.
They are ready, but because of all these conflicting feelings, they don’t know where to start.
Fast forward some 2000 years. Look around. Look youself in the mirror. Look at what is happening in the world. Things are confusing at best. We don’t always know which way to turn. We seek to follow God’s will, but in the midst of all the conflicting and competing feelings we are not always sure how. We are ready to fully feel God’s presence, but we don’t always know where to start. We know the history of humanity: obedience and disobedience and obedience. Peace and war and calm and storms. Comfort and affliction, gracious reassurance and anxious hearts.
We know that the messiah has already come, but we anxiously wait for the messiah to come again. Like the people of John’s day, we are ready for something to happen, but we just don’t know where to start.
How about here? How about now?
We have plenty of folks like John out there – plenty of people who preach bombast and bluster in an attempt to get us to pay attention. They are not easy to listen to, because they get in our face and challenge our choices. They tell us that the place to start is by each of us looking at ourselves and repenting of our sins and committing our lives to following Jesus’ path. They tell us that if we are to become the people that God would have us be, we must change, and that is something we’d rather not hear.
As uncomfortable as some of those words might make us, we need to listen, just as the followers of John realized that they had to listen, too.
There is no doubt that we would prefer a gentler message, a more comforting message. But that is not the message that John offers, and it is not the message that we always need to hear. Sometimes we need to be jolted just a little bit. Sometimes we need a swift kick in the pants. Sometimes we need to have someone get in our face just a little bit and make us pay attention.
The people that John spoke to in the wilderness of Palestine and Israel were good people. They were trying hard to understand God’s will. They were trying to understand what they were supposed to do, where they were supposed to start.
Sound familiar? We are those good people, and John’s message is aimed directly at us. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know that it is a message we need to hear, over and over again.
It is hard work, this looking inward and asking God to renew us. But it is exactly what we need to do on a regular basis. We need to be reminded that we are human and in our humanness we make mistakes and too often turn our back on what God would have us do.
If you are looking for comfort in this difficult message from this difficult man, it is found in the fact that we are once again given the opportunity, today and every day, to start again. Every day we are given the chance to leave the mistakes of the past behind and start anew. Every day we are allowed to recommit ourselves to our baptism vows and allow ourselves to be symbolically cleansed and welcomed into God’s gracious presence. Every day, we are reminded that God is with us, now and always.
In the end, John’s message is not the harsh condemnation that many have characterized it as. Rather, it is the gracious invitation to start again, whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever we need.
If we respond as John directs, we are in good company: the divine ministry of Jesus Christ started when he heeded the words of John the Baptist and was baptized in the Jordan River. And God was well pleased.
This is the place, as are all places.
This is the time, as are all times.
John implores us and Jesus invites us: it’s time to start again.
Thanks be to God.
Let us pray: We are ready, Lord. We have heard the preacher in the wilderness, and seek to heed his words. Give us the strength to accept the challenge and start again. All this and all things we ask in the name of Jesus, who heard John’s words and changed the world forever. Amen.
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