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Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church
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Second Sunday after Epiphany |
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John 1:19-34 Greater than John Sometimes we have difficulty recognizing greatness. I am told the racehorse, Seabiscuit, was considered a looser until a trainer in Saratoga saw greatness in him. Many of our great soldiers, and statesmen and ministers and business leaders were just average people in early life, and most people saw nothing great in them until they found their calling. I don’t think John the Baptist had that problem. Greatness was part of him from the very beginning. His birth was foretold by an angel. His father, a priest of the Lord, was working in the Temple when he saw a vision, and was struck dumb until the birth of John. His mother was long past the age of childbearing, yet she conceived a son, just as the angel foretold. He was filled with the Spirit of God while still in his mother’s womb, and when Mary visited his mother, John leaped in the womb as he recognized the presence of Christ. We read in Mark 6:20 that he was a righteous and holy man. He was a powerful preacher, able to move multitudes with his fiery sermons. He was so popular that Matthew 3:5 says all Jerusalem and Judea were going out to hear him preach. John was a prophet. It had been 400 years since a prophet had preached in Israel. They had been hard times for the Jews; times of persecution and conquest and death. In John’s day they lived under the harsh rule of the Romans, and they groaned for freedom and peace. They prayed for the Deliverer to come, but the oppression continued, and God was silent, until John. It is difficult to imagine the stir caused by the arrival of John the Baptist. Today we are concerned about “global warming,” but only a few years ago scientists thought we were entering another ice age. Suppose something happens that causes a cataclysmic change in the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth. Maybe the sun cools, or its warmth is blocked, or the earth’s orbit goes a little wider around the sun, but something happens and we see an immediate difference in the temperature. Summers as far south as Florida become short and cool. Rivers and lakes freeze, and the dreaded glaciers begin to advance over North America, Europe, and Asia. Something like this would crush civilization. Unable to grow enough food in the short summers, we would see massive starvation as the food supply dwindles. People would freeze to death in their homes as the energy supply runs out. Governments would collapse, the world would fall into anarchy, and everything we know and love would fall into oblivion. Now suppose you are on earth when this ice age begins, and you live through the events I just described, but the ice age does not last for a thousand years, or even a hundred. Suppose that, after five years of freezing, you notice the summers getting warmer. That would be enough time to cause worldwide devastation, but not enough to utterly destroy civilization. After seven years you notice temperatures becoming almost normal, and the snows beginning to melt in the longer summers. You can produce crops again, and the flora and fauna begin to make a come back. How would you feel when you realize the ice age is ending? That’s the way Israel felt when John the Baptist came preaching. There was a prophet in Israel again. God had not deserted them. Hope lived again. As a prophet, John accomplished a great work in the faith of Israel. According to Luke 1:16 he turned the hearts of many of his people back to God. There was a great revival under John. Many Jews had sunk into complacency in religion. They professed a faith in God, but their faith made no difference in their lives. It didn’t grip their souls or affect their ideas. They were religious because it was their tradition, not because they meant it. But when they heard John, they began to repent. They were baptized as a sign that they were returning to the Covenant, and preparing for the advent of the Messiah. Lives were changed, people were different because of their faith, and, to some degree, righteousness began to overtake the land again. Even Jesus recognized the greatness of John. He said, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11). We can look through the ages of history and see some very great people; people who changed history for good. I think of John’s model, Elijah the prophet. I think of Moses, of Mary, and Paul. I can name great theologians and statesmen and physicians and scientists and world leaders in law and business and education whose lives are studied year in and year out, generation after generation because they were great, and did good in their lives. And yet, none were greater than John the Baptist. So said Jesus. There is one person who is greater than John. John knew this. He even said so. “there standeth one among you whom ye know not; He it is who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose” (Jn 1:26-27). “And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God” (Jn 1:34). It is very important to see that this greatest of all the prophets, the greatest of all born of women, steadfastly points us to Jesus. His testimony is all about Jesus. And, great as John was, Jesus is greater. Jesus is a greater prophet. John is the greatest of all prophets, but Jesus is the prophet. John is the prophet sent to make straight the way of the Lord, but Jesus is the Lord. He is the prophet who when lifted up will draw all men to Himself. He is the fulfillment of the promises of God in the Old Testament. He is the One who brings in the new era of the Kingdom of God. He is the One in whom the message of God is completed. Indeed, He is the Word of God. Jesus’ baptism is greater. John baptized with water, but Jesus baptized with the Holy Spirit. You were baptized in the Spirit in that moment you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior. You need not look for another event. If you are a Christian, you are baptized in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the presence and power of God, and the point of the Bible here is to say that John’s baptism with water is a lesser baptism than the baptism of Christ. John put people in water; Jesus puts people in God. John baptized people for the repentance from sins; Jesus takes away our sins. John told us about sin. Jesus is “the Lamb of God which taketh away” our sins. Jesus brought a greater revelation. John came to bear witness to the light, but Jesus is the Light. Human existence apart from God is darkness. In this darkness we commit sins that destroy the lives of others, and ourselves. This is moral darkness. It is also spiritual darkness, which is the lack of the knowledge of God. Darkness is the emptiness and hopelessness of people apart from God. To them life has no meaning, or purpose, or reason. To them life is like playing a game they don’t like, with no rules, no purpose, no prize, and no way to stop playing. So they become fun addicts and thrill seekers who only want to have as much pleasure as possible between the pains of living and dying. This is the belief of a growing number of people, and it is prevalent in the youth and young adults of our time. It is the philosophy of “whatever.” It is the philosophy of “it doesn’t matter.” Nothing matters to them because life is absurd. That is why they reject family and work and marriage and parental responsibilities and all the things we value. That is why they spend their lives in the futile pursuit of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Tradition and education cannot change their actions. Only hope can change them. And only Christ offers real hope. Light is the opposite of this despair and darkness. John came to tell the world that Someone was coming to show us the Light in morals, in spiritual matters, and in life. This Person would show us that life has meaning and purpose. He would show us that there are rules to this “game” and that life came from somewhere and is going somewhere. He would replace our despair with certainty of goodness and love and acceptance in God. He would show us a reason to live, love, marry, raise a family, get a job, go to church, and get involved in life. In short, He would make sense of life, and in so doing, He would make sense of death. This is light, and the Coming One would not just show the Light, He would actually be that Light. Jesus is the Light. Jesus is the answer. Jesus is the reason. Jesus is the life. In my opinion, John’s words after the baptism of Jesus are some of his best preaching. John continued to baptize after Jesus began to preach, but his crowds grew smaller as people began to follow Christ. A group of people came to John and told him everyone was going to Jesus. “John,” they were saying, “people are leaving you and following Jesus. You’d better do something or you’re going to be a has been. No one will come to hear you preach. No one will want you to baptize them. No one will even remember you. You’ll be forgotten.” And here is what John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease”(Jn. 3:30). John must have been conscious of his own greatness. If so, it would have been easy for him to become conceited and resentful of Jesus for taking his “spotlight.” But that attitude is completely absent from John. John said he was not the Christ. He said he was happy that people were going to Christ. He said it was right that Jesus should have the preeminence. John had prepared the way. He had accomplished the great work he was born to do. But the Savior had arrived, and the Savior must increase, and John must decrease. And, were John here today, he would not seek to make us followers of John. He would steadfastly point us to the One who is Greater than John, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Let us follow that One who is Greater than John. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Rev. Dr. R. Dennis Campbell, Vicar, Holy Trinity Anglican Church,
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