Psalm 146:5-10 on February 16th, 2025
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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Oh my, that took me back to many a chapel with our preschool. And so I'm going to give you preschool chapel manners. Are you ready?
Open your eyes. Open your ears. Open your hearts. Close your mouths. Scooch back in your chairs. Fold your hands. Oh such nice chapel manners you have.
So today we're running into an old friend, not me, but John the Baptist. We usually think about John the Baptist during the season of Advent preparing for Christmas because John factors into two Sundays worth of gospels in that Advent season. We know that he is the one who was to prepare the way for our Lord and our Lord is born at Christmas so it's the right time to talk about John. But he's in our gospel again today. And it's good that he is because today gives us opportunity to look at John in a way that I'd like to think of John as receiver, John as a cheaver, and John as believer.
First receiver. You see John didn't just happen to be by circumstance. There is a purpose to John's life. He was knit together in his mother's womb with a job to do by the way. So are you. So am I. It's just that with John that intentional purpose for his life was announced by an angel to his father. And he was already a miracle baby because his mother Elizabeth was old and had been barren her entire life. One of those miracle stories that kind of scare me. I'm coming into those years.
The angel told Zechariah that John would be the one to prepare the way. It was a promise that the prophets of the Old Testament had made that one would come to prepare the way of the Lord. Isaiah spoke of it. Malachi spoke of it. Now the angel is announcing it to John's father. This baby receives a purpose, a mission, a ministry, a life in relationship with God and to God.
And John, even while he is in his mother's womb, when Elizabeth has a visit from her cousin Mary, who by the way is also with child, John's quite an achiever. He's an overachiever. From the womb, he senses not only Mary's presence, but the one for whom he's preparing. Jesus conceived and carried in her womb. What does John do? He leaps. I call him an overachiever because friends, when I was in the womb, I may have kicked. I probably hiccoped. I don't think I ever leapt at the presence of God. But John did. He was chosen. He was anointed. He was set apart for his ministry and by the way. So are you. So am I.
And John achieves that ministry in the wilderness. He doesn't look for power. He doesn't look for comfort. He doesn't look for prestige and esteem. He stands in the river Jordan and offers a baptism in those waters that calls for repentance. Now repentance isn't just remorse for what we've done wrong. Repentance is actually recognizing our mistakes. Recognizing the error of our ways, recognizing where we have hurt God, our neighbors, ourselves by our words and deeds, our choices, our actions. This is turning, radically turning back to God and allowing God to be our guide.
John called on the people of his day into the waters where he would cleanse them, give them a new beginning where in repentance they could live, the life of purpose and achieve what God wanted them to achieve. Not all went into the waters. The Pharisees, the lawyers, they kind of stood apart. We heard that in the gospel today. Who got hurt because they stood apart? They hurt themselves for not living out the purpose that God had given them.
Jesus comes. John is amazed. He doesn't even fit the description of one who should welcome Jesus. He says, I'm too unfit to even stoop in untie the sandals that you're wearing and yet Jesus comes for this baptism that so aligns each and every one of us to live out the mission God has for us each individually alone but us also together.
John achieves, but he's a prophet. You ever hear the saying, a prophet is not welcome in his own home? Prophets are usually on the run. Catholic ministries get in trouble because prophets speak God's truth. And they don't show partiality. It doesn't matter if you're speaking to the crowds of fissure folk or to the kings and the palaces. God's truth remains the same. And it calls on us to have integrity. And it calls on us to have righteousness. And it calls on us to have mercy.
And John confronts his king, his leader, his boss. John confronts him with the truth. You have taken the wife of your brother and made her your wife. You have sinned against your brother against this woman against God. You have wronged repent. Nobody wants to hear those kind of words. And it's easy to blame the person. And the messenger, instead of sitting with the message and understanding where we all have growth to achieve.
John is locked up in prison. And even though he's in prison, Herod Antipas begins to meet with him, to talk with him, to listen to him. He begins to be somewhat taken over by John's words from God. And yet his wife Herodius, not so much. She doesn't like that she's been shamed. She has her daughter dance for Herod to the point where he makes a promise to give her anything that she wants. And the mother asks for John's head.
I went to a pastor seminar when I was just starting my ministry, fresh-faced and all excited. And Episcopalian priest was our chaplain. And he stayed it. Do you know what you get? For years of faithful ministry, your head handed to you on a platter. So much for the merit system.
John's in prison. And he wants to know what's Jesus doing? This cousin whom I adored from the womb, this Lord and Savior that was there in the baptismal waters when the heavens opened and God spoke, you are mine, my beloved. If Jesus is the Messiah, didn't you hear today, Psalm? We're supposed to free the prisoners. We're supposed to set the captive free. Jesus says, if you're the one why am I here? What have I done that you have forgotten me?
Now that's not the usual John that we see in Advent. So I want you just to sit a moment with him in the cell and ask yourself, what questions am I asking of Jesus in the same way? Oh, maybe I haven't been imprisoned by an angry king. But I am imprisoned by anguish. Maybe it's the anguish of sitting at the bedside of a loved one and there's no fix that earthly medicine can make. And I'm not ready to give this person up. Lord, where are you? Are you the one? Can I depend on you?
Or maybe you are caught up in the anguish of a relationship that's gone so sour. You're not sure it can ever be reconciled again. Peace made with that brother or sister or spouse or parent or child or friend, nation warring against nation, tribe against tribe. And where are you? Jesus, are you the one if we follow what you say? Well, we have the peace on earth that was announced at your birth.
Maybe you get an email for a pink slip or a phone call that says, don't show up tomorrow. Your job with us is done. And you're not sure how that's going to provide for you or those who depend on you. Maybe you feel a rejection or an abandonment or a betrayal from a friend. Maybe you've walked out of a courthouse and removed a ring that had been on your finger for years of married life and you don't know where to head next.
Maybe, maybe we all sit in that sill with John with our questions for Jesus. Are you the one who was to come? Are you the one who will save us? Make us whole? Heal the hurt. Hold out the promise. Uncensus disciples and Jesus tells them to go back and tell John what they see.
You know, we live at a time where you have to fact check everything. Jesus doesn't hold it against John that he wants a fact check. So he gives them some facts. Take back what you see being done. What is it to be healed? What is it to be made whole? What is it to have a new beginning and resurrection? Tell John what you see.
Could somebody open the door? We got somebody at the back door. Thank you, AJ.
Friends, when the disciples got back to John, we don't know how he took in the news, but we know he was able to face his death. As for Jesus, he's left with the crowd and he tells the crowd without anything about John being a doubter or a non-believer. He just simply says, here is a prophet above all prophets. Here is one who struggles with the faith and yet who tries to be committed, who picks up and does day after day. What God wants him to achieve.
And you folks, you can't win. Your John is too crazy and eccentric for eating bugs and dressing in camel hair. Or I'm unholy because I eat with sinners. I'm a glutton because I sit down at the table, feasts. You can't win. So maybe it's time to just sit and understand what it means to have the Christ God in your midst. Maybe it's time to sit and understand that you church are now the body of Christ.
Maybe we all have to be challenged this morning to remember that our world today has a question, is there a God? And what is this Christ all about? We see his name used in all kinds of ways, his cross, the logo for all kinds of deeds. Who is this Christ? And our answer should be, as it is with Jesus, we are the ones who feed the poor. We are the ones who reach out to heal. We are the ones who will let no division separate us. We are the ones who look for resurrection and hold on to hope.
Let the world fact check who Jesus is. Let the facts come through us. The spirits that work right now in this place, you were conceived and received a purpose from God. You have the work and strength of the Holy Spirit to achieve it. And we can believe it. Trust in it. Questions asked. Questions answered.