Sermon by Rev. Tracey Marx
Our winter theme is “Look for the Light.”
We’ve been thinking about how we can see light in the darkness, how we can look for light in the darkness, even when it’s difficult. How can we not be overwhelmed by the darkness that sometimes can feel very overwhelming?
Our gospel reading for today is an unusual one, John 1:29-39. We don’t often turn to this passage because it’s only found in the gospel of John. In the other gospels, we read of Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River. But in this gospel, we don’t get that particular story. We only get this one, which is John the Baptist’s witness to the baptism, his witness to who Jesus is.
Well, the main purpose of this passage is pretty clear. It’s repeated several times, and it is this, John is pointing to Jesus. He’s pointing attention toward Jesus. He’s pointing away from himself and to Jesus, saying, He’s the one. I’m not the one. This is a story that takes place over three days. On day one, just the day prior, just a few verses before our passage, the religious leaders had been asking John, who are you? Are you the Messiah? Are you Elijah? Are you Moses? There was yearning expectation for one of these figures to return, and they wanted to know, are you the one? Are you the one we’ve been waiting for? Are you the one we’ve been hoping for? And John says no to each of these questions, and then, quoting the prophet, Isaiah says, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,'” -John 1:23.
On day two in our passage, John again is definitively clarifying that he is not the one. He literally points to Jesus, who’s walking by, and John says, he’s the one. He’s the one I’ve been telling you about. He’s the one I’ve been preparing you for and telling you to prepare yourselves for.
Then, on day three, John again points to Jesus, who is again walking by. This time, two of John’s disciples change allegiance right then and there. They stop following John, and they start to follow Jesus. John the Baptist did have followers, disciples, quite a few of them. He was the leader of a movement. He had his own ministry. He preached repentance and the ritual cleansing in water for one’s sins. When John explains the relationship between Jesus and Himself, he says, I myself didn’t know him, which might be hard to understand because according to Luke, they were distant cousins, but the word know can be translated as recognize him. John says, I didn’t recognize who he was until the day of the baptism. And then he has this complicated statement, which is almost like a prepositional riddle, where he says, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” – John 1:30.
At John the Baptist’s invitation and prompting, two of his disciples changed allegiance to follow Jesus. We’re told later in the passage that one of those disciples was Andrew, the fisherman, the brother of Simon Peter, and the other disciple is not named. And it’s the question that Jesus asks Andrew and the unnamed disciple that I’d like us to focus on today.
In John 1:38, we read, “When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?”
In the original Greek, the verb look is ζητέω (zeteo), which is translated to seek. He is asking them, what are you seeking? In the NIV, the translation is, what do you want? It’s a good question, isn’t it?
Because this question that Jesus asks his brand new followers gets to the very heart of our faith journey, the very heart of what it is that God might be calling us to or away from. What God might be wanting us to hear or to pay attention to.
Let me ask you this question this morning, and I’d like to ask it in three slightly different ways. The first is simply, what do you want? It’s still January. It’s still the beginning of a new year. It’s still a good time for looking deeply into our hearts and minds and answering the question. Not to create a resolution that might be hard to stick to, but to consider our identity. Now, when we ask this question, we might have to be careful because sometimes the first thing that comes to mind, what we really want is for someone else to change, someone else to be different, or we want circumstances to change, or we want outcomes to be exactly the way that we want them to be when we don’t have that kind of control.
So, asking this question as a spiritual question really focuses our attention on what we want within ourselves. Maybe when we first consider this question, we might answer on a more surface level. Maybe we wanna go on a trip, learn a new skill, explore a new hobby, fix something in our home, declutter our living space, spend more time with family, rekindle a friendship, or eat in a healthier way/be active. But when we dig deeper, there might be an unmet need that we are trying to address by those wants.
The second way of asking this question is simply to add the word really. What do you really want underneath what you might say at first? Maybe your answer might change and deepen. Maybe we want to belong. Maybe we want connection & a community. Maybe we want reassurance that we’re doing okay. Maybe we want to make a difference. Maybe we want to know that our lives matter. I think it can be really helpful to qualify the question one further time by remembering who is asking it. Because we’re not just asking ourselves the question. We remember that it is God who is asking the question of us.
Then the question changes slightly, and this is the third way of asking it. What do we really need from God? Then our answers change again. They distill down into what’s most important in the very core of us, where it’s just us and God. I need to feel God’s love. I need a sense that He is right here with me and with those I love. Bringing light into the darkness, bringing enough light so that it can shine deeply into what’s difficult and what needs to be addressed, and allow us to look straight at it and not be afraid. Or, I need God’s reassurance. I need His encouragement, or I need to find rest. I need to find rest in God. I need peace.
Sometimes, our answers can be further distilled down to something very simple and very central. When God asks, what do you really need? We might just answer. I need you.
John the Baptist is well known to most of us.
We might remember that in the gospel of Luke, we’re told that as a baby, he leaped in his mother Elizabeth’s womb. When her cousin Mary, who was newly with child, came to stay for an extended time, we might remember that his father Zechariah was silenced by the angel Gabriel for his disbelief that he and his wife, in their older ages, would bear a child.
We might remember that Elizabeth and Zechariah were told that their child was special and that his lips should never touch alcohol because he would be filled with the Holy Spirit. We likely remember that as an adult, he ate locusts and honey and lived in the wilderness. He wore camel hair and a leather belt. He was an aesthetic, turning away from the comforts of the world in order to be closer to God. Some scholars think that John was part of the Essene community at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew scriptures. In fact, there was a tradition of ritual washing for spiritual cleansing that existed at Qumran, a practice which might have been the forerunner of baptism.
We might remember that John the Baptist came to a very tragic end as he spoke out against the immoral behavior of Herod the Tetrarch, and that his death is actually one of the more disturbing scenes in the gospels. Anyone who has seen the musical Godspell knows that John the Baptist belts out the very first song, Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord.
What’s less well known to us is that John the Baptist is the only one in the Bible who refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God. The phrase Lamb of God is very liturgical in Latin. It’s Agnes Day. Agnes, meaning lamb, and day, meaning of God. We use it in our communion, liturgy, Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Lamb of God, have mercy on us and grant us your peace. So in the Bible, you might be surprised to find that this phrase only appears twice, and both of those times are right here in this morning’s gospel reading. Jesus is referred to as a lamb in other places. But the specific phrase, lamb of God is only found here, and it’s found in the context of John the Baptist pointing away from himself and to Jesus.
He’s saying it’s Jesus. Here is the lamb of God. There are so many other phrases that John could have used. Here is a charismatic speaker who’s drawing crowds that are eager to hear what he has to say. Here’s a man who tells thought-provoking stories that help us to think about who God really is. Here’s a healer who allows the power of God to work within him so that he can do miraculous things, but he uses this phrase, lamb of God. There’s very likely an intention to call to mind the sacrifice of Jesus. With this phrase, lamb of God, we are reminded that Jesus gave his life for our forgiveness.
It’s a foreshadowing the end of the gospel story right here in the beginning, right here in Chapter one. We are invited and encouraged by the author of this gospel, whose name is also called John, to read the entire story. Through the lens of its conclusion, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Here he is just beginning his ministry. Here, he is just beginning to have others choose to follow him. Here he is just beginning to gently invite those followers to look inward and to ask themselves this question, a question of discipleship, a question that gets to the very heart of our faith. If you follow me, as you follow me, as you continually redefine your life to follow me, what are you looking for?
After Jesus asks these new followers the question, what are you looking for? They don’t answer him exactly, but in a way, they do. They say, rabbi, where are you staying? They call him Rabbi (teacher), which in itself is a statement of allegiance, letting him know that he will be their teacher and they will be his followers, and then they ask this very practical question, where are you staying? They want to know, and it’s understandable where they’ll be staying. Maybe, if there’s gonna be something to eat, who else might be there? They wanna know what it’s all gonna look like. Jesus, in typical Jesus fashion, doesn’t tell them what it’s going to look like. Instead, he invites them to come and find out for themselves by saying, come and see.
This quintessential invitation reminds us that discipleship involves a lifetime of following, of paying attention, of being open to what happens next.
I’d like to invite us to consider this question today, right now, but also maybe later today or this week, maybe as you journal or just have some quiet time. Maybe as you have a conversation with a trusted friend. Maybe when you’re by yourself, and it’s just you and God. What are you looking for? What is it that you need from God? What is a need that you have that only God can fill?
As the French philosopher Pascal said in the 17th century, so poetically, “there is a God-shaped emptiness in the heart of every person that only God can fill”.
Maybe the phrase, lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world can help us to further and even more deeply answer this question with honesty and vulnerability. What is it that we need from God? Maybe it’s a reminder of God’s grace & of God’s mercy. Maybe it’s a reassurance that no matter what happened in the past, no matter what, you are forgiven and you get that chance to start again. You get that chance to be seen as a person who’s not defined by their past or by their past mistakes, but by their relationship to the one who continually invites us to follow and to be faithful.
Maybe it’s a prompt to forgive someone else, to reconcile, or to stretch out your circle of inclusion. What is it that we really need from God as a church, as a community here in Lancaster, as a nation, as human beings, and worldwide? What do we really need from God? I invite us to open ourselves to those questions. To live with those questions, and as you do, may you look for the light this day, this winter, this new year, and always the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Have mercy on us and grant us your peace.
May it be so. Amen.
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