John 1.6-8, 15-16, 19-37
Think of your favourite film or tv programme.
You can easily tell me who are the stars
Be it Louis Walsh, or Bruce Forsyth,
but it takes a certain sort of anorak to say
who was the producer or the cameraman or the lighting arranger.
Their names do flash up on the credits.
They are important, even essential for the show
but compared to the star, they just don’t shine.
John the Baptist was a bit like that a back seat guy but also a big name.
Most lighting technicians have always been behind the scenes.
They have little thought of making the top billing and the headlines.
But John had been a big name.
Here in John 1 the wonderful thing is how willingly and consistently
he points away from himself to Jesus
As you can read in c 3 he is a faithful best man or bridesmaid.
‘He must become greater; I must become less.’
There are some things that are special to John the Baptist
which don’t apply to us -
He was a bridge between the Old and the New Testaments.
We don’t have to adopt his austere lifestyle
living in the desert, eating locusts and wild honey;
there is a sense too that we are more privileged than he
because as Jesus said:
‘the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John’
We may know the fullness of Christ which was hidden from John
but here are three things in which we do well to use John as a model.
1 HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS NOT AND WHAT HE WAS 15,19-23
John had a right and sober view of himself.
He didn’t puff himself up with fantastic and unrealistic notions.
Nor did he beat himself up because he would never be No 1.
He knew what he was to do and what he was not to do.
He knew who he wasn’t and who he was.
John could say of Jesus
15 "This was he of whom I said,
`He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'"
In one sense, John came first. He appeared on the scene first.
Jesus’ ministry came later. But John says Jesus is doubly before him.
He is before him in time — because the Word was in the beginning with God
and therefore, also Jesus is absolutely before him in rank:
“He ranks before me.”
John did not have a problem with Jesus ranking before him.
He is up front and open about it all
20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ."
With boldness and clarity, he states exactly who he is, and who he isn’t:
he isn’t Elijah, he isn’t the Prophet of which Moses spoke who was to come;
he identifies himself as the voice crying in the wilderness (Isaiah 40.3)
He has no false humility, no grand self-advertisement,
just humble awareness and acceptance of his calling which is to.
`Make straight the way for the Lord.'
John is a model for us of true humility
Humility is not a low view of yourself, but a true view of yourself;
it's not beating yourself up, ‘I am rubbish, I can’t do anything.’
Humility is the ability to accept yourself because God accepts you..
It is knowing what God wants you to do and being content in that.
Somebody said wisely that
God seems to love humility in his servants more than any other quality.
Why?
Because it's humility that opens our ears to hear him,
when we have stopped angling for the approval of others
or fearing that if they criticise us, it’s the end of everything.
Humility actually releases us to serve God properly,
because we're no longer afraid of people's reactions or of looking silly,
or of being taken for a ride or rejected.
Humility brings joy,
because we're ready for whatever he sends, even deep pain.
Humility allows us to bask in God’s love
because he has regard for the humble;
it’s the proud he keeps far away
In his third letter v 9
John wrote about someone who had a problem in this area
‘Diotrephes loves to be first’.
Sadly there are still people like that in churches,
there are even ministers like that
who love to be first, who put themselves forward,
who need the praise, the glory.
I wonder when John the gospel writer wrote that about Diotrephes
did he think about his namesake John the Baptist
and shake his head at the contrast.
Diotrephes as a Christian
had greater spiritual privileges than John the Baptist
but at least John didn’t love to be first.
‘He must become greater; I must become less.’
John sets us an example of knowing ourselves and of knowing Jesus
2 HE KNEW WHO Jesus WAS 29
7-8 tell us that John was not himself the light of Christ;
he came only as a witness to the light.
V 29 gives us a crucial insight into who Jesus really is:
‘The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
"Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ‘
John points to Jesus as God’s sacrifice for sin.
That’s a major mega claim.
It is in fact something to be asked of any religious system:
does this take away sin?
Whatever your particular religious beliefs are, do they work for you?
Do they give you joy that you are forgiven?
Does the Dalai Lama, does the prophet Mohammed take away sin?
When John baptised people in water
it was a baptism to express repentance,
people were acknowledging that they needed cleaning
but John did not claim that his baptism actually removed sin
or that he could take away the sin of the world.
He was willing to point to Jesus as the one to deal with sin
in the offering up of his body as a sacrifice.
This is backed up by what he says about the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus
after John had baptized him.
32 "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.
33 I would not have known him,
except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me,
`The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain
is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.'
34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God."
John of course knew Jesus in an ordinary way
- they were cousins of roughly the same age, John a little bit older.
But he is saying here it was only when he saw the Spirit come upon Jesus
that he realised who Jesus truly was,
one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and so fully cleanse us from sin,
one who is the Son of God.
Who do you think Jesus is?
What would you say first off if anyone asked you who is Jesus?
Would you say he’s your friend, your good shepherd, your rock or what?
Jesus is all those things, but we must also accept John’s insight
that he is Saviour and Lord and God.
One of the old statements of Christian doctrine (Heidelberg Catechism)
puts it so clearly in its opening question and answer:
'What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own,
but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ;
who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins,
and delivered me from all the power of the devil …
I am not my own, I belong to Jesus Christ who has died for me.
That is the Christian’s bottom line.
That is what we must say even when we feel we have nothing else to say:
Jesus is my only Saviour and Lord.
How wonderful that John the Baptist could sense this and say this
from three years before the cross and resurrection,
something that he was not spared himself to see.
But we should honour one who was willing to share this insight
that Jesus is the Lamb of God taking away our sins
Jesus is the one who gives the Holy Spirit.
John was willing to say this when it lost him followers.
3 HE KNEW HOW TO LET GO 35-36
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.
When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"
37 When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.
It doesn’t seem to have annoyed John in the slightest
that when he told his disciples who Jesus really was
they left him to follow Jesus.
It did seem to annoy some of his followers
in John 3.25-30 (p 1066) they bring John the Baptist the uncomfortable news
that his popularity ratings are dropping, everybody is now flocking to Jesus.
What does John say?
We have to stop him! I need a rebrand, a relaunch,
Who does that upstart think he is?
No, he rejoices. He says I am only the best man, he is the bridegroom.
’That joy is mine and is now complete;
he must become greater and I must become less.’
There is a great joy when we finally let go of our own agenda
and embrace what God has for us.
When we simply focus on Jesus and point to Jesus
and let him be greater and we become lesser.
May John the Baptist encourage you in your witness to Jesus.
May you be aware of what God wants you to do
and what he does not want you to do
May you know who Jesus truly is
and may you be able to point to him, whatever the consequences.
O the bitter shame and sorrow,
that a time could ever be,
when I let the Saviour’s pity
plead in vain, and proudly answered,
“All of self, and none of thee!”
Yet he found me; I beheld him
bleeding on th’accursèd tree,
heard him pray, “Forgive them, Father!”
And my wistful heart said faintly,
“Some of self, and some of thee!”
Day by day his tender mercy,
healing, helping, full and free,
sweet and strong, and ah! so patient,
brought me lower, while I whispered,
“Less of self, and more of thee!”
Higher than the highest heavens,
deeper than the deepest sea,
Lord, thy love at last hath conquered:
grant me now my supplication,
“None of self, and all of thee!”
Theodore Monod 1874
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