In today’s Gospel reading we heard a story that included John the Baptist. We have been hearing a lot about John the Baptist recently. He showed up on two separate Sundays in December, and this is the second Sunday he has showed up in January. So, who is this John the Baptist we have been hearing so much about?
John was an itinerant preacher and baptizer. He was a charismatic, popular, trustworthy, reliable person. He came from a very religious family, but a rather traditional one. His father was a priest, which was an inherited position that one was born into. If your dad was a priest, then you were born to be a priest. The priests would take turns offering the sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem. John’s dad was a well respected priest who would take his turn offering those sacrifices. It was assumed John would do the same, but he decided to leave all that behind and go into the desert to live an ascetic life in which he preached, proclaiming God’s imminent judgment upon the people for all the wrong they had been doing, and calling them to turn from those ways, to be baptized as a sign of their transformation, and to live their life anew. He had a moral, ethical message for everyone, which was basically a message of sharing. If you have two and someone has none, given them one. If you have one and someone has none, give them half, a leveling out of things as the Prophet puts it.
We know from the Gospel that John was famous. He had his own disciples. Early on he had been seeking people out, but he didn’t need to do that anymore. Any time he went to a new area, the word was in front of him that John the Baptist was coming. Word spread very quickly. He did not to seek out people, they found him because there was something charismatic about him that drew people to him and his message. King Herod, not King Herod of the Christmas story, but his son, King Herod, didn’t like John because John was criticizing him. Herod was worried because John was someone the people trust. Herod was concerned the people would start believing all the bad things John was saying about Herod, which were all true. Herod wanted John to stop so the people wouldn’t turn on him, so he has John arrested and put in jail. And yet, even Herod, the person who wanted John put away, was attracted to him. There was something so intriguing about John that he couldn’t kill him, even though his wife wanted him to. Herod resisted for quite a while, but he does eventually kill John. There is an interesting detail in Mark’s Gospel about how after John was arrested, Herod would go down to John in jail to listen to him, to hear what he had to say. It says Herod was perplexed by him, but also deeply attracted to him. There is something about John.
We might get the impression, because John says I have to decrease so Jesus can increase, that it is the way it went, but John continued to preach, continued to baptize, and people continued to follow him. Later on, when Jesus asks who do people say that I am, the first answer is some say that you are John the Baptist. To many people who heard of an itinerant preacher who is charismatic and preaching about God’s judgement, it sounded like John the Baptist. Many people confused John and Jesus. Herod, when he heard about Jesus after John had been beheaded, thought it was John the Baptist raised from the dead who might try and get some revenge. Even generations later, seventy years later, when Josephus writes his great history of the Jewish people, he writes twice as much about John the Baptist as he writes about Jesus. Generations later, John was more important to most people than Jesus was.
John was somebody important to the people at the time that Jesus shows up, to the people at the time the Gospels were written, and even later. He is popular, he is trustworthy, he is reliable. So what is John doing in this Gospel reading? John is providing credibility to Jesus. Jesus doesn’t have any followers, yet. No one knows what he is about, no one knows who he is. And John is saying you trust me, and I trust him. Why don’t you go check that out? If this was a movie, you would assume that John the Baptist would be the leading actor, like Tom Hanks or Cary Grant, if that is your reference point. And Jesus, at best, would be a supporting actor. For most people, Jesus was nothing more than an extra in the story of John. John is trying to pass along some of his credibility over to Jesus. You trust me, I trust him. Go check him out.
That is how the faith gets passed along, people sharing about this guy Jesus. A person, listening to someone they trust, go and check it out. That is what happens in the Gospel today. John says there is the Lamb of God, and one of his followers, Andrew, goes and checks it out.
It doesn’t quite work like that for us today. When we hear the Gospel, unlike the first people hearing the Gospel and thinking that John is someone they should listen to, we think, who is this John that Jesus thinks is important? It has been reversed for us. It is not that John provides credibility for Jesus. Jesus provides credibility for John for us. We ask who is this weird guy that shows up a few times in the Gospel story? He is a strange aside to the whole thing. Why does he matter? He must be important because Jesus wanted John to baptize him, so I should pay attention to him although I can’t figure it all out. It is inverted. Jesus gives credibility to John.
John’s role of giving credibility to Jesus does not work for us. It has to be somebody else. We can’t just read the Gospel and accept the transferred credibility from John. For me, that person was Desmond Tutu. He was the charismatic, itinerant preacher I heard when I was thirteen years old. I trusted him, and he trusted this guy so I wanted to check this guy out.
It doesn’t have to be a famous charismatic person. There is sometimes a danger in such a person. I would argue there is another model which is probably the model more people have come to learn about Jesus. That is the model of one to one. Someone you trust, someone who is not famous, perhaps it is someone no one else really knows, shared it with you. This is what we have in the story of Andrew in today’s Gospel. Andrews tells his brother I think we have found the Messiah. Come check this out. Simon trusts his brother Andrew, so he goes, and it changes the entire trajectory of his life.
For us, it might be a sibling, maybe a parent or a grandparent, maybe a friend. But there is somebody like that who shared it with us. All of this is getting awfully close to some words that make us uncomfortable as Episcopalians. Words like evangelism, testimony, witnessing. I know we don’t talk about these words because of what these words have become to mean, and we think that is not what we do. But I promise you that there is somebody in your life who shared it with you. Whether a famous charismatic, itinerant preacher, or someone that only you know. You wouldn’t know about all this unless someone along the way had said something to you. Someone that you trusted who trusted Jesus, and you decided to check it out. There are probably lots of somebodies. It probably wasn’t a one time thing. And it continues. People who you trust and are interested in Jesus share it with you, and you keep coming back.
This week I want to encourage you to take some time to think about who it was in your life. Who was the person or the persons who shared the story with you? Who was the person you trusted who trusted Jesus who made you decide to check it out, and then continue to check it out? Then, take a little time and think about who you have shared it with. It doesn’t have to be with words. Our baptismal covenant says share the Good News by word and example. Maybe you have shared with someone by how you live your life, and they realized there is something about this Jesus guy who is important to this person I trust, so there is maybe something I should check out. Take some time to think about those, because that is how the faith gets passed along. You trust me, I trust Jesus, why don’t we go check him out?
AMEN.
