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| Mathis Grünewald, from the Isenheim Altarpiece (c. 1515) "He must increase, but I must decrease." |
Advent 3, Year B – December 14, 2014
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
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Grace and peace are yours, from God
our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
One of the lessons that I was taught
as a child was that it was impolite to point at someone. I remember learning
this especially from both of my grandmothers – so, for instance, if we were in
the grocery store, and I saw someone doing something…strange (in my mind,
anyway), as a child, my instinct was to point at them and ask what they were
doing. “No! Don’t point!” I’d be told. “It’s not polite!”
What is humorous about this to me
is that if you look at artwork of John the Baptist from throughout history, in
many portrayals, he is breaking these modern rules of propriety by pointing. In
some artwork, he’s pointing this way, in other artwork he’s pointing that way.
If we were to form our opinion of John the Baptist based solely on this
artwork, we’d think that the most important part of his job description is to
point.
Which, of course, begs the question
– to what or to whom is he pointing?
“There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John. He came as a witness
to testify to the light, so that all
might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” John’s
purpose is to point others to Jesus.
I am reminded of a church building
that I was aware of as a child. We would sometimes drive by this church
building, just to look at it. What was the architectural feature that drew us
to drive by this particular church? Was it beautiful stained glass or a
beautiful garden?
It actually was the steeple – for
high atop the steeple of this very simple church building was – not a cross –
but rather a large, gold hand, with one finger pointing up. One finger,
pointing up to God, I guess was their thinking – and the image was so ludicrous
to us as a family that we would make pilgrimages to see this steeple with its
golden hand.
And yet, as an adult, I now think
about this image – the hand with the finger pointing up to God (as if God is up
and nowhere else) – and I think, that’s what John the Baptist’s purpose was –
to point to Jesus (God) – and to give his witness to the power of God at work
in our world.
Later on in this gospel, John the
Baptist will say about Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease”[1] –
kind of like the relationship between our Sun and our Moon – the Moon reflects
the light of the Sun – the Moon gives us light, but it is the Sun’s light, and
not its own. John knows that he is not reflecting his own light – not at all –
but rather reflecting the “true light, which enlightens everyone.”[2]
Today’s gospel lesson about John
tells us that he came to testify as a witness – in other words, John the
Baptist came to tell others about what he knows to be true about God. What is
John’s testimony about Jesus? In the very next verse after today’s lesson – so,
verse 29 - John’s testimony is that Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world.”
How much sin is there on the
evening news? Or on the morning news? How much sin is there in each 24-hour
news cycle – how much sin in a complete day’s worth of news?
Each week, as we prepare for Holy
Communion, we sing “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy
on us…” The struggle for us is that we quite obviously still have sin with us,
so if Jesus has taken it, he hasn’t taken it very far.
But Jesus didn’t come to remove sin
from the world – at least, not in this here-and-now. Jesus came to remove the ultimate power of sin over the world. In
other words, Jesus came to trample sin under his feet – to say to sin, “You
don’t get the final word here. The final word will be the love of God for
creation.”
It is this Advent season that
reminds us: we don’t live in a time wherein all of that has been fulfilled. We
are still waiting for Jesus to come again and to make all things new – we are
still waiting to see that final word made complete. So while Advent is a time
for us to prepare to receive the newborn King – Jesus – it is also a time for
us to remember that there is another day for which we are still waiting: the
final day. The day and the hour that no one knows.
In the meantime, we are called to
be witnesses to the Light. We – like John the Baptist - are called to decrease,
that Jesus may increase. We – like John the Baptist – are called to point to
Jesus and say, “This is the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world” – this is the one who takes away sin’s
ultimate and final power over us and over all things.
“Now may the God of peace himself
sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful;
he will surely do it.”[3]
Amen.
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