an advent sermon on john 1:6-8,19-28
Let me start by reassuring you that you are not, in fact, experiencing liturgical déjà vu. This is the second week in a row that we’re hearing about a man named John and his call to make straight the way of the Lord. Now bear with me for a second as we untangle a few potentially confusing details, because there are two different people named John wrapped up in this mix. One of these Johns is sometimes called John the Evangelist – he’s the person who wrote the book of the Bible that we know as the gospel of John. In the verses we just heard, John the Evangelist tells us about a different person who is also named John, and that John is the subject of today’s gospel reading.
This John was also the subject of last week’s gospel reading from the book of Mark. And though John the Evangelist and Mark the gospel writer reference the same verses from Isaiah as they talk about the John who came to prepare the way of the Lord, there are some important differences in how they tell the story. That’s because John the Evangelist and Mark the gospel writer want to emphasize different things as they tell John’s story. It’s kind of like what happens when you ask two different people to describe a friend that they have in common. One might say, “Oh yeah! That Joe Schmo is hilarious! He’s got the quickest wit you can imagine!” While the other might say, “Joe Schmo? You’ll never meet a kinder person. He’s the kind of guy that just notices if you’re feeling off and makes a point to ask you about it.” Undoubtedly, Mr. Schmo is both hilarious and kind, but you’ll hear a different emphasis from each friend depending on their experience of Joe, or on the larger context of their relationship with him.
So it is with John. Last week we met the locust-eating, camel-hear-wearing, wilderness-living John the Baptizer in the gospel of Mark. I love this fiery version of John with his call to repentance and his dramatic participation in Jesus’ baptism. For Mark, John’s identity as Baptizer is the most important part of his role in the whole salvation story. But this week we hear a very different take on John. The John of John’s gospel is decidedly less wild and fiery, and he’s also never called John the Baptizer in this account. Instead, he is John the Witness, whose most important role in the story of the Christ is not as one who baptizes, but as one who recognizes the true light when it appears – the Word made flesh who comes to dwell among us – and to call attention to it so that others might also recognize it and believe.
John is called to be a witness, but his testimony starts out in a rather unusual way as he responds to the religious officials’ question: “Who are you?” In contrast to the great “I am” statements that Jesus will make in this same gospel – I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the vine – John replies with a series of “I am not” statements. I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not the prophet. I am not who you think I am, and anyway, this isn’t about me. Unsatisfied with this response, the religious officials ask him again, “Who are you?” And he replies with the words of Isaiah: “I am the next person in a long line of witnesses. I am a voice crying out in the wilderness.”
Church, this is a man with deep clarity about what his life is meant to accomplish. When asked “Who are you?” he says very little about himself. Instead, he responds with his vocation – with the thing that God placed him on this very earth to do.
“Who are you?”
“I am a witness. I am here to testify to the light.”
At the very beginning of this pandemic a very close friend of mine took up the practice of lighting candles for people and circumstances in need of prayer. Each evening, as darkness settled in, she and her family would light a small tea light for people who are part of their faith community; for friends or family members who were struggling; for situations of injustice and grief in the world. A name was scrawled on a small piece of folded yellow paper and placed next to each candle. When the tea lights ran out, pillar candles from around the house were brought to the table. And when those ran out too, various scented candles in jars became vessels for prayer, wafting a curious mixture of vanilla and pine as they flickered in the darkness. Each of those candles represented a situation of brokenness or sorrow, fear or weariness, injustice or pain. And though each wick produced only the smallest of flames, it was enough. It was enough to communicate to her beloved ones and to ones she would never meet, “You are not alone. I will bear the light for you when you cannot do it on your own.”
“Who are you?”
“I am a witness. I am here to testify to the light.”
Karen, one of Grace’s staff members, shared with me on Friday that she’d had a conversation with John and Kathleen Westberg, longtime members with a deep history in our congregation. Earlier this week the Westbergs took a meditative walk through the lighted prayer path – the labyrinth – that is set up on our Catherine Lawn. Just as they were leaving a family of four approached in order to pray their own way through that same path. The Westbergs called to share with Karen what a spiritually moving experience that was for them, and to comment on the hope they experience in the many creative ways that churches finding to reach out to their communities in this difficult time.
“Who are you?”
“I am a witness. I am here to testify to the light.”
In seemingly powerless places in our community and around the world you, the people of God at Grace Lutheran Church of LaGrange, are echoing the prophet Isaiah’s words through your actions: “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives…to comfort all who mourn.” You knit prayer shawls that literally wrap our struggling members in God’s care. You pack socks and soap and shampoo and love into bags for veterans experiencing homelessness. You cook or donate healthy meals to BEDS Plus for people who are finding temporary shelter in hotels, and for families who are experiencing food insecurity. You pack backpacks full of food for kids who receive free or reduced-COST lunch at school but who often experience hunger on the weekends. You continue to drop off gifts for the Secret Santa program through Pillars Community Health, and food for the St. Francis food pantry. You send cards and make phone calls to members who are ill or grieving or even celebrating milestones. You take the time to record yourselves and your children praying and lighting candles and singing songs and telling stories so that God might meet us in worship through this whole Advent & Christmas season.
“Who are you?”
“I am a witness. I am here to testify to the light.”
Church, the clear call on John’s life was that he be a very human witness to a very mysterious, cosmic event. The Word will take on flesh and dwell among us, and he will be the light of the world, a light that no darkness can overcome. John’s role in the story of salvation is to call the whole world’s attention to that light – to point us toward the insistent glimmer growing in the dim corners where we do not expect light to be – just in case we happen to be too weary or too distracted to notice it otherwise. On this third Sunday of Advent, let this as our call, too – to keep our eyes open for even the faintest hints of light in the midst of darkness, and to point others to that light:
Light that brings healing and hope and release.
Light that carries quiet joy into places we cannot imagine it.
Light that meets the needs of hungry bodies and the hunger of our own souls.
Light that brings justice into the lives of forgotten peoples and places.
And in the words of Jan Richardson,
“Light that endures in the midst of things that seem unendurable,
and persists even when everything seems in shadow and grief.”
Who are you?
You are witnesses. Testify to the light.
Amen.
the headline photo is of the lighted labyrinth located on our church’s lawn through the advent & christmas seasons. it is intended as a gift of quiet meditation for the whole of our community.
the jan richardson quote is from her poem “Blessed Are You Who Bear the Light.”
Heidi Torgerson 