Birth of John the Baptist – Isaiah 40: 1- 11; Luke 1: 57 – 66, 80
Well, we’re in the new world of post-Brexit. I don’t know whether you were as surprised as I was on Friday morning (I didn’t stay up) to discover that Britain had voted to leave the EU. For all my adult life I’ve considered myself a European – and proud to be so. As the Bishop of London has said, the vote can’t change geography. But there’s now going to be a period of adjustment for us all and of considerable anxiety for some. Asher, who is to be baptised today will be growing up in the post-Brexit world. I wonder what he and his contemporaries will make of our decision.
Our Gospel today seems rather appropriate for a baptism. The birth of John the Baptist and the circumcision and naming ceremony which followed soon after. Just as for Asher today this was a family gathering and a celebration for friends and relatives too. Though a baptism isn’t a naming ceremony, we always baptise children and adults by their names, and some people take a new name, a Christian name, when they are baptised. How do you choose a name for a child? I haven’t asked Ayo and Dee how they chose Asher’s names, or what they mean. Ayomitunde Asher-Haniel. Perhaps you can ask them afterwards! John the Baptist’s name caused some controversy because it would have been conventional at the time for the firstborn son to be named after his father. But his parents both insisted that he be called John which means ‘God has been gracious or God has shown favour’. God had indeed been gracious to Elizabeth and Zechariah in granting them a child in their old age. Moreover John’s whole life was to be devoted to expressing God’s graciousness and favour to all of His people as he pointed them to Jesus, the Messiah.
Zechariah had been struck dumb because he didn’t believe the angel who told him that Elizabeth would bear a son and only recovered his speech at the naming ceremony as he agreed that his son should be called John. People who witnessed the miracle asked one another ‘What then will this child become?’
‘What then will this child become?’ It’s a question which goes through all parents’ minds from time to time. At special moments like baptism, or those quiet moments when they’re asleep and looking angelic. But also at less auspicious moments as for example when they have screamed their way around a whole supermarket – again – or bitten another child in a toddler group. (Yes, both of these happened to me!)
What did become of John the Baptist? Well, he is someone who straddles the boundary between the Old Testament and the New. When he grew up he seems to have spent some time in the wilderness, possibly in a strict desert community, before beginning his public ministry. As in our first reading, from Isaiah, he’s a voice crying in the wilderness, a charismatic and visionary character in the mould of the Old Testament prophets; a second Elijah, coming to herald the Messiah. He proclaims that God is on His way, a new order is coming. God’s people are to turn away from their sins and be baptised as a sign that they’re ready for the Messiah. We know that John had a significant following in his own right and may even have been seen by some as a rival to Jesus. The Gospel-writers, however, are clear that John’s role was to point to Jesus. As Luke records Jesus saying “among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Luke 7:28).
After his baptism we will be welcoming Asher into the fellowship of the kingdom, or the church. As members of the kingdom, Christians, we all have a vocation like John’s. We all have the opportunity to point to Jesus. It’s the job of everyone who is baptised, not just the clergy. We shall shortly be signing Asher with the sign of the Cross and praying that rather serious prayer that he will fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful to Christ to the end of his life. To be a disciple of Christ and remain faithful to Him means learning about our faith and also living it day by day so that we’re able to share it confidently and appropriately with others. Otherwise how will we have anything to say if they ask us about our faith? To be a disciple will also affect our life choices and our lifestyle. I’m not suggesting that we all decamp to a desert and eat locusts and wild honey – and there are no simple answers. But we may need to consider what sort of choices that we can make will point others to Jesus. And finally, as we continue in the Christian way, we may hope to develop the kind of character that points others to Christ – The apostle Paul called this the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience…. and so on.
‘What then will this child become?’ As we pray for Asher, his Mum and Dad and big sister Channah today, let’s remember our own baptism and consider our own vocation to point to Christ. How are we doing? May we, as we shall shortly be praying for Asher, also receive the riches of God’s grace, also be daily renewed by the anointing spirit of God.
Amen