Sunday, December 4, 2011
Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada (2X)A voice of one calling in the wilderness.
Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada
A beautiful, rich bird song which fills the woods. You look up into the canopy of trees, searching for the bird singing so sweetly, and you’re amazed at the beauty of the forest, amazed at the many different birds busy flying and eating and chattering, but none of these birds appears to own the song you heard. When you hear the song again, it does not look like any of the birds that you can see have stopped what they are doing to make such a song.
As you sit down on a log, it is only through careful observation that you find the singer—on the ground. You hear a rustle of leaves in the undergrowth and then from behind some broken branches lying on the ground not far from you a bird just barely appears. This bird breaks into that wonderful song. It is the white-throated sparrow.
You realize that in looking for this singing bird you have observed so much more of the forest, so many more birds than you would have. The white-throated sparrow has a voice that causes you to stop and watch and see the wonders of God’s Creation. The white-throated sparrow has a voice that calls your attention to rest of the woods—not to himself. A voice not unlike that of John the Baptist, who calls our attention to Jesus—not to himself.
John the Baptist says he came to speak about one more powerful than himself, one who is so righteous and holy that John is not even worthy to be His servant, not worthy enough to untie His sandals—a very humble thing to do. But John says that he’s not even good enough to do that humiliating task.
Yet, we learn from another Gospel, the Gospel of John, that the Jews will come to John the Baptist asking what he has to say concerning himself. John the Baptist does not really say anything concerning himself. He is true to his mission and turns his answers to those questions into answers that are concerning the Messiah, concerning Jesus. John the Baptist has a voice that causes us to stop and watch and see the coming One, the Savior of the world. A voice that calls our attention to the Savior—not to himself.
So we learn about John the Baptist in order to learn about Jesus. We talk about John the Baptist during Advent because He points us to Jesus, and Advent points us to Jesus. We don’t learn about John the Baptist to believe in John the Baptist. We learn about John the Baptist so that we can learn his message about Jesus as the Christ. John the Baptist has a voice which calls our attention to the Savior—not to himself.
That John the Baptist should call attention to Jesus not himself, the group of Jews are baffled by this. They expect to be able to have some definite answers to give to the leaders concerning who John the Baptist is and what he says concerning himself. They cannot understand someone who has such a following, who has such a clear voice and who does not speak concerning himself. John the Baptist will not talk about himself.
In the Gospel of John, we hear the Jews ply John the Baptist with questions. Every set of questions from the Jews is thwarted with a “no.” “I am not the Christ.” Are you Elijah? “I am not.” Are you the Prophet? “No.”
John turns around every question from the Jews, turns them around so that he might proclaim the Messiah. What do you say concerning yourself? “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for our Lord.’”
Every inquiry John takes as an opportunity to point to someone else, to the coming Messiah. Why then do you baptize? “I baptize you with water, but the Messiah will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John the Baptist has one purpose: to witness to Jesus the Christ. He is not distracted from this purpose. He is not tripped up in his witness. His voice is a beautiful, rich song which causes us to look not to him but to our Savior. A voice not unlike that of the white-throated sparrow.
Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada
A voice of one calling in the wilderness.
But don’t you think that the white-throated sparrow is ever tempted to call attention to himself? Don’t you think that he gets tired of hiding out in the underbrush seeing the flashy cardinals and bluejays and hawks get all of our attention? Don’t you think he’s ever tempted to light upon a rock, lean back, puff up his chest and sing some jazz tune, to dance around and hog our attention, to cry out and turn our attention to himself?
Don’t you think that John the Baptist was ever tempted to call attention to himself? Don’t you think he got tired of always downplaying himself and making sure that the Messiah got all of the attention? Don’t you think he was tempted to talk about himself? So people would ask, “Who are you?” and he would say, “Well, I’m glad you asked. My name is John, son of Zachariah and Elizabeth, a Jew from the land of Judah. I travel around preaching, and man, let me tell you, it’s tough. Oh, yeah, it’s nice when the crowds show up, but you’ve got to wear camel hair and eat locusts. And the deal is, I’m supposed to introduce some Messiah, and I don’t even know what he looks like. I’m guessing by all the pictures I’ve seen that he’s white, long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beard, but who knows? This preaching bit is tough.”
Don’t you think that John the Baptist was tempted to talk about himself because aren’t you? Aren’t you tempted to let conversations turn to yourself? Aren’t you tempted to complain about how busy Advent and Christmas are for a church-goer? Aren’t you tempted to spend more time talking to people about how you dealt with a certain sin as if you’re the example of how to live rather than helping them turn their eyes to Jesus when they’re tempted? Aren’t you tempted when in Bible study to spend more time talking about yourself than talking about the Messiah? Aren’t you tempted to turn the attention to yourself instead of Jesus?
It’s so tempting. . .and we’re encouraged to turn this whole Christmas thing into being about ourselves. Aren’t we? I mean, take for instance Target’s Christmas Champ. You know who I’m talking about? The woman in the TV commercials for Target who goes crazy getting ready for Target’s 2-Day Sale. We see her doing workouts to get ready to shop. She cries hysterically over the 2-Dale Sale ad. She’s officially known as the Christmas Champ; even has her own Twitter account. (Meanwhile, she gives me the creeps.) But anyway, what’s Target trying to say? Christmas is all about shopping, all about bargains, all about. . .you. It’s all about making your Christmas perfect with the right decorations and the right shopping. We’re encouraged to be thinking about ourselves on Christmas.
So that’s the message you get in between your favorite TV show or during the Bears game. That’s the message you get from so many places: think of yourself this Christmas.
And then we come here on Sunday morning, and we see just the opposite in the ministry of John the Baptist. If you’ve been tempted at all to be making Christmas about yourself, well, it’ll make your head spin when you hear John the Baptist say that it’s not about himself; it’s about the Savior.
Whistle: pure sweet Canada Canada Canada
A voice of one calling in the wilderness.
A voice of one pointing to the beauty all around us.
A voice of one getting us to stop thinking that Christmas is about us.
A voice of one pointing to the Savior.
If John the Baptist ever succumbed to the temptation to talk about himself, we don’t see it. Rather, the Gospel of Mark shows us an example of focusing our witness solely on Jesus. We don’t see John the Baptist talk about how tough it is to be the second Elijah. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.
We see that Jesus is coming. We see that Jesus is the One who was promised, the One who was coming to give the Holy Spirit to all people. We see that Jesus is coming in His greatness, in His awe-inspiring greatness, in His righteousness and holiness, and that John and everyone else is unworthy to untie His sandals. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.
We see Jesus as the One filled with love and compassion, the One who healed the sick and cared for the outcasts. We see Jesus as the One who came to overcome all evil. We see Jesus who conquered death and rose again. What we see in John the Baptist is Jesus.
And may the same be said about our Christmas celebrations: what we see in Christmas is Jesus. May we see that Jesus is coming into our lives. May we see that Jesus is the promised Savior, the One who has come to give us the Holy Spirit. May we see Jesus in His greatness, in His awe-inspiring greatness, in His righteousness and holiness. May we see Jesus coming with love and compassion, to bring healing, to care for the outcasts, to live, die, and rise again. May this be true: What we see in Christmas is Jesus.
And yet, when we see Jesus, something else dawns on us, something that reacts against Him, something that cowers in fear. We cower because in Jesus, we see our sinfulness, how we do not match up to the expectations of God. We see how we do not keep our focus on Jesus but focus on ourselves. We are humbled by the perfection of Jesus, and we are caused to wonder: how then can we be saved?
And the thing is, Jesus focuses on us. Even while John the Baptist has shown us that our focus needs to be on Jesus, even while we need to turn the attention of others to Jesus, the attention of Jesus is on us. Even when Jesus talks about Himself, it is because He came to save us and He wants us to know and believe this. Jesus focuses on us, because He knows we fail to focus on Him. He focuses on us, because He knows our sinfulness and knows we need salvation. He focuses on us and says, “I forgive you for focusing on yourself. I forgive you for not focusing on me. I forgive you for your pride.”
John the Baptist understood this: concentrating on himself, that’s not where salvation’s at. Concentrating on Jesus, that’s where salvation is. In concentrating on Jesus, we see that He has our salvation in mind, that He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He came to focus on us and give us eternal life.
And so, in our life together as a congregation, as a fellowship of believers, we concentrate on Jesus, focus on Him, call attention to Him, put it all on Him. Then we are following in the footsteps of the white-throated sparrow, and we have a voice which causes others to stop and watch and see the coming Savior. Then we are following in the footsteps of John the Baptist, and we have a voice which calls attention to Jesus—not to ourselves.
Today’s Instantaneous Performance at Gurnee Mills is a good example. This Flash Mob—oh, yeah, the mall told us we can’t call it a mob—this group that will show up and sing at Gurnee Mills will be pointing to Jesus. They’re going to sing “Prepare the Way,” a reminder to prepare your hearts for Jesus to come into our lives, a reminder that these days of preparation are about preparing for Jesus. Yes, in the process, hopefully people will find out that we’re from Bethel Lutheran Church. But, in the process, hopefully people will realize we’re a church that’s focused on Jesus. We want others to care about Jesus—whether at church with us or at their own church. We want others to focus on Jesus. Today’s Instantaneous Performance is like the White-throated Sparrow—singing and calling our attention to the beauty in the woods. Today our White-throated Sparrows will sing and call attention to the beauty that came into our world through Jesus. And then we are pointing to the One who has taken His stand in our midst for us.
The One who came into our midst as the baby born in a manger, He came for us.
The One who is in our midst through the Word, through Baptism, through the Lord’s Supper, He is here for us.
The One who will come again into our midst in His Second Advent, He will come again for us.
So we pray, “We have sinned, even so, come, Lord Jesus, come and save us. We fail to focus on you, even so, come, Lord Jesus, come again and keep your focus on us!” And that He will do. Amen.