On            On Wednesday nights, we’ve just begun studying the book of John, and I invite you to join us if you are able.  Our passage today is from the first chapter of John.  The story here is about John the Baptist, who is not the same John who wrote this book. 

          This passage tells about John the Baptist as one who was called by God to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus and to testify that Jesus was the Christ—the Messiah.                                                                                                                                                                                                     As the passage opens, there’s a group of religious leaders who have gone out from Jerusalem to the place out in the wilderness where John is baptizing.  Apparently, he has become known to them, and they want to find out who he is and what he is up to.

          In his reply, John makes it very clear that he is not the Christ, or the Messiah.  The book of John is written in Greek, and in the Greek, the word used is Cristos, or Christ, which means the anointed one.  By the time of the New Testament, the Israelites spoke Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and those who were educated also spoke Greek.  The New Testament was written in Greek and the Old Testament was written in Hebrew.  But they would have all known the Hebrew word for the anointed one who was to come, Messiah.  So when we hear the word Messiah, it is the Hebrew word, and when we hear the word Christ, it is the Greek word, but both words mean “the anointed one.” 

          I am reading John 1, beginning at verse 19.   

¹⁹Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. ²⁰He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ."

 ²¹They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"
      He said, "I am not."
      "Are you the Prophet?"
      He answered, "No."

 ²²Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"

 ²³John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.' "

          John tells them he is not the Christ, he is not Elijah, and he is not the prophet.  The words John the Baptist finally uses to explain who he is are a direct quote from the book of Isaiah.  Isaiah was a Hebrew prophet, and earlier in the service we read these words from the book of Isaiah.  The religious leaders who were questioning John would have known this passage well.

          John sees himself as the one who was chosen to call people to repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, the Christ.  The baptism that John practiced was similar to our baptism, but not quite the same.  John’s baptism involved repentance from sin, and it was a kind of renewal of one’s faithfulness to God. 

          Our baptism is an act of obedience to Jesus.  Just before he ascended into heaven, Jesus spoke these words:  “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

          That is still our mission in the world.  We are to go and make disciples—that is, bring people to Jesus—and baptize them.  That we are called to baptize is something all Christians agree on.  I don’t believe there are any Christian churches in the world today that do not practice baptism.  We do it because Jesus told us to do it and we believe him.

          If you have not been baptized, I encourage you to consider it.  It’s a way that God wants to bless you.  For ages, people have debated over the meaning of baptism.  Baptism is not a means of salvation, but it is an act of obedience, and a seal of our salvation.  It is a public witness one makes that says “Yes, I believe.”

          A story is told that in a certain community there lived a very wicked man.  And there was a certain minister who insisted that he should be baptized. The wicked man insisted that he was not a Christian and was not ready to be baptized.

          But the minister insisted that he would become a Christian when he was baptized and would then be all right. The man declared that he was desperately wicked and full of the devil and he feared it would require more than water baptism to fix him up. Still the minister insisted.

          Finally the sinner replied, "Well, I will comply with your request. I will let you baptize me, and I can tell if any change has taken place in me. I will know. And if there is a change and I am all right, I will consider myself a member of your church; but if there is no difference, and I am still wicked inside, I am going to beat you up right there on the spot for deceiving me."

          The minister answered, "Well, I fear you are not ready for baptism now!" 

          Does baptism transform you?  Probably not, unless you want God to transform you.  Baptism is a way in which God pours out his grace on us.  Like salvation, baptism is a gift God wants to give us, if we will only receive it. 

          Let’s go back to our passage, where John is baptizing in the wilderness, and the religious leaders have come to find out what he is doing.  The questioning continues, and John begins to clarify what he has alluded to about the One who is coming. 

 ²⁴Now some Pharisees who had been sent ²⁵questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"

 ²⁶"I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. ²⁷He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." ²⁸This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  

          Even though Jesus is at the very beginning of his ministry, John already knows that Jesus is the Messiah—that Jesus is indeed, the Son of God.  That’s why he claims such great deference to Jesus.  He says Jesus is the one “the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."   

          In those days, to untie the straps of a person’s sandals was a job for the lowliest of slaves or servants.  There was a Rabbinic saying that a disciple could do for his master anything that a servant did, except he could not untie his sandals.  That task was too menial.  And John says he is not even worthy enough to untie Jesus’ sandals.  In other words, he not even worthy enough to be Jesus’ servant.  He knows that Jesus is God.

          Reading on, John speaks in a prophetic way of the role Jesus will one day play as he becomes the Lamb who is sacrificed on the cross for the sins of all humankind.

 ²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' ³¹I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."

 ³²Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' ³⁴I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

          The book of John is itself a witness that Jesus is the Son of God.  In this segment that we have read today, John the Baptist is a witness to the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.

          John the Baptist is quite an interesting person.  In the book of Luke, we learn about the events surrounding his birth, and how those events were intertwined with the events of Jesus’ birth.  John was a miracle baby, born to an old, child-less couple named Elizabeth and Zechariah.  Zechariah was a priest, and when he was serving as a priest in the temple, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him his wife would have a son, and that they should call him John.  But Zechariah was dubious, and he asked the angel how this could be possible, as he and his wife were quite old. 

          Well, the angel was Gabriel, and Gabriel did not like to be challenged.  So Gabriel caused Zechariah to be unable to speak until the child was born. 

          While Elizabeth was waiting for this miracle child to be born, in the sixth month of her pregnancy, she had a visit from her young relative, Mary.  Mary had just been visited by Gabriel, and he had told her she would give birth to a son who would be called Jesus.  Furthermore, the child would not be fathered by any human father, but by the Holy Spirit.  This child would be the Son of God. 

          Mary and Elizabeth were able to share with each other these amazing things that had happened to them.  So we can assume that Jesus and John the Baptist knew of each other, and perhaps were acquainted.  Certainly they must have known the stories surrounding both of their births.

          So two things John says in the passage we just read are of interest.  First, John says 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'  But of course, we know that John was born some six months before Jesus.  So obviously he is not talking about their birth order.  When John says “he was before me,” he is talking about the preexistence of Jesus, who existed before the beginning of time. 

          The second thing John says that is intriguing is “I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel."  It is puzzling that John would not have known Jesus, but it is possible.  But it may be that John is speaking of knowing Jesus on a different, spiritual level.  Or perhaps he is saying that he did not actually understand that Jesus was the Messiah until he saw the Spirit of God descend on Jesus when he was baptized.

          At any rate, by the time Jesus has come and submitted himself to John to be baptized, John is absolutely convinced that Jesus is the Son of God.  So John makes this testimonial statement, “I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."

          Almost two thousand years later, thousands of people have made that same testimony:  “This is the Son of God.”  Thousands of people have heard the message of Jesus Christ and have believed.  For some, belief comes easily.  Others struggle, weighing the evidence. 

          But there is an amazing volume of evidence.  For those of us who have believed, there is the evidence in our own lives.  There is the joy of knowing that we have been forgiven all of our sins, and that we are the recipients of God’s love.  There is the witness of the Holy Spirit, who testifies to our spirits that yes, this Jesus is truly the Christ, the Son of God.

          I believe one of the most powerful witnesses of this truth is the church.  Jesus says that the church is his body and his bride.  He loves the church, imperfect as it is.

          If you study church history over the past almost two thousand years, it is amazing to see God’s hand at work.  The church has never been perfect.  It has always been a gathering of imperfect human beings.  There have been—and still are—events the church would love to forget.  The amazing thing is that the church goes on. 

          That’s true for the church worldwide and for our individual church.  It doesn’t take very long hanging around the church to know that this is a group of imperfect people.  But in spite of that, there is something powerful about the church.  That’s because in the midst of all of our imperfections, God is in the process of changing our lives.  The church is a place where we experience God’s grace and his love.  And God is working in this place.  As we allow him to work in our lives, he does.  He molds us and shapes us and sometimes has to chip away some stuff that needs to go.  But he patiently continues to work in our lives, making us into the people we were meant to be.

          In a minute, we’re going to sing “Take My Life and Let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.”  Whether you have sung this many times before or this is the first time, I invite you to carefully consider the words.  Make the words of this song your prayer.  And if you would like prayer for anything at all, I invite you to just come forward.  It would be my privilege to pray with you and for you.

Prayer:

Lord, you know our hearts, even better than we know them ourselves.  You know when we rise up and when we lie down.  Melt our hearts today, that we might be willing to give ourselves wholeheartedly to you.  Lord, take my life and let it be consecrated to you.  May that be the prayer of each one here this morning.   Amen