Redings: Isaiah 43: 1 – 7; Acts 8: 14 – 17; Luke 3: 15 – 17, 21 – 22
Well, I’ve cleared up and put away the Christmas decorations. I’ve taken down the cards, the tinsel, the lights and taken out the Christmas tree. I’ve swept up pine needles. Now that the family have gone I’ve taken the extra leaves out of the dining table. It was sad, but it also felt good. I noticed the bare walls, the extra space, a kind of lightness. My house feels much bigger now. I wonder what or who will fill the spaces. Just at the moment, I have no idea. But I’m ready for the New Year.
Mine was a quiet domestic revolution. But there was nothing quiet about John the Baptist. With his ascetic desert lifestyle and his uncompromising message perhaps he quite consciously modelled himself on the prophets of hundreds of years before. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’, (Luke 3:4), he cried; ‘Bear fruits worthy of repentance’ (Luke 3: 8). He knew he had a message from God – that God’s holy and anointed one, the Messiah, was coming soon. It burned within him. A message of refining fire, of God’s judgement; of repentance; of the majesty and power of God’s anointed one who was to come.
Many people flocked to hear John; many, although not all, responded to his message. They longed to be cleansed, swept clean, made ready for the great and holy one who John declared was coming soon. And so they were baptized.
And then, after all of this build up by John, Jesus shows up, just like John’s other disciples, and asks John to baptise him. In some versions of the story John protests. How can he baptise His Lord? How can Jesus, who is without sin, possibly need baptism? The moment is depicted, as Gustave Doré imagined it, on the front of our pew sheets. John the Baptist towers over Jesus from the riverbank. But the rays of the Holy Spirit descend directly from the dove on to Jesus, who stands at the centre of the picture encircled in light. And then there are the words, ‘You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased’(Luke 3:22). It’s an Epiphany. A moment of revelation. By being baptised, Jesus declares that He shares our humanity; as He is baptised God declares Him as divine, the beloved Son.
The two figures on the riverbank watch, wondering what to make of it. One kneels; one looks dumbstruck. How to respond?
How to respond indeed!
Once Jesus’ ministry began, it seems that John the Baptist became less sure that He was the one promised by God. John had talked about Jesus as the great harvester at the end of the world, striding across the landscape with his winnowing fork, separating good and evil and burning up anything worthless. The one who comes in judgement. So John preached repentance and told people to amend their lives. He lived a life of self-denial. Jesus, by contrast seemed to like parties. During His ministry He ate and drank with the most unsuitable people. He preached about God’s forgiveness rather more often than about His judgement. He told stories. He healed. His followers didn’t all have their lives sorted. They continued to make mistakes. John became so doubtful about Jesus that when he was in prison he sent messengers to ask Jesus. Are you the one who was to come?
John thought he knew what Jesus would be like. He didn’t have what we have – the advantage of hindsight. He died too soon to see more than the early ministry of Jesus. He didn’t know about Jesus’ death, His resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. He couldn’t begin to glimpse the breadth and depth of the love God was demonstrating in Jesus, the significance of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross or the extraordinary hope we’re given because Jesus rose again.
But perhaps John gets us to the right place to begin. Just as I cleared out my house of all the Christmas clutter, He helps us to clear our minds. To make space in our hearts and our lives so that we’re able to encounter Jesus. And our Gospel reminds us too that Jesus is bigger and stranger than our imaginings. He will always transcend them. Are we ready to entertain this Christ? Not the baby in the manger, but an adult human man; God’s beloved Son, His anointed one. Jesus about to set out on His ministry.
Who knows what Jesus’ ministry to us might be this year? Will we invite Him in to take up some of that post-Christmas space? Will we allow Him to stay central? Or will he get crowded out by busyness?
Instead of making New Year’s resolutions, perhaps we could just make more time for God. Leave some empty space in our diaries. Waste time with God. Daydream with God. Or we might do something specific which we’ve been intending to do for ages. Read the Bible? A course? Evensong? Some form of service where we meet God amidst the needs of others? The possibilities are almost endless. But we can be sure that if Jesus is at the centre it won’t be dull. After all, John the Baptist promised that Jesus would baptise us with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Here’s a story about that to end on from one of the desert Fathers. Abbot Joseph was in charge of a large community of monks living in the desert. His main job was to instruct the young monks who came to him for spiritual guidance. One day, one of them came to see him, clearly forlorn. He had followed all the rules, but still he felt there was something missing. “Father,” he said, “according as I’m able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, my meditation, and contemplative silence, and I try to cleanse my heart of evil thoughts. Now what more should I do?” Abbot Joseph rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said “Why not be totally changed into fire?”
Amen.