“As One We Do Not Know”

John 1:6-8, 19-28

December 18, 2005

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

The four gospels are as different as they can be, written by four different men who had their particular slant on the story of Jesus. If you were one of the disciples, you, too, would have written the story with a touch of yourself in it. Mark’s version was written first, we believe. John’s was last, written some sixty years after the resurrection of Jesus. All of the gospel writers tried to answer the question of who Jesus was and what he meant to them and the world.

So the four are as different as they can be, but still they include John the baptizer. The portrait that we have of him comes from Matthew and Mark. Both of them tell us that John was wild eyed, that he word camel’s skins on his back and a leather belt around his waist. They also tell us that his snack of choice was locust dipped in wild honey. John, the writer of the fourth gospel, does not take the time to give us a description of the baptizer. John begins his gospel in the heavenly realm. You will remember his first and most famous words. We read them every Christmas. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The light that shines in the darkness did not overcome it.” So it starts in the heavenly world, but it quickly comes down to the earthly world, “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” That is all John gives us. There is no description of him.

In John’s gospel we have to figure out who the baptizer is from what he says about himself. The delegation of priests and levites ask him, “Who are you?” He answers, “I am not the Messiah.” The ask a second question, “Are you Elijah?” He says back, “I am not.” They ask about his identity a third time. “Are you the prophet?” He answers, “No.” They ask a fourth question, “Who are you?” He answers, “I am the voice and I have a testimony.”

You see, the delegation wants to know what his credentials are. They want to know who ordained him. They want to know who gave him the right to do the things that he was doing and saying the things that he was saying. In essence they asked, “Why are you baptizing if you are a nobody?!” John says, “There is someone coming after me whom you do not know.” The truth is that he did not know who it was. All John really knew is that he was not worthy to fiddle with the straps on his sandals.

It must have been hard to have been John. There he was, set apart by God to do one single thing with his life. He didn’t have the need to go to a bookstore to purchase Rick Warren’s fabulously best seller, The Purpose Driven Life. His life had only one purpose and God had let him know that. John was supposed to proclaim that someone was coming and that there were preparations to make. The problem was that John didn’t have a name to shout out loud. He didn’t have a description of the one who was coming. He himself didn’t know who he was waiting for or when he was coming. He did not know if he should look up toward the heavens or up and down the roads. People had talked about this Messiah coming for years. Some thought that he would come as a military leader. Maybe John looked for such a person. Others thought that the Messiah would come on a chariot of fire, in the heavens. John looked for him there, too. John may have thought that the Messiah would come in one of those ways so that there was no way to miss him. But he also knew that there was a chance that the Messiah would come quietly and incognito so that the only ones who would find him were the ones who were really looking for him. They would know for sure when he had arrived. How will he come?

Every year just before Christmas, I like to quote one of my favorite lines from Frederick Buechner, a great thinker of our day. Frederick wrote these words, “Once Jesus Christ has shown up in a manger in Bethlehem, there is no telling where he will show up next.” I like that. I believe that.

Well, I guess the net affect of this unknowingness is that John was not altogether sure who he was. He knew what his job was. There is no doubt about that. The delegation, the priests and the Levites who came from Jerusalem had to have an answer. They tried their best to label John. That is why they asked their questions. They wanted to figure out who he was. Why are you baptizing if you are not the Messiah? That is what they really wanted to know! John defied the categories as Jesus would. John tried his best to prepare the world for the one who would turn the world upside down! But until he came, John’s life was one big waiting game. It was a waiting in the dark for the light. It was a waiting for the one thing that would change everything.

Who are you? The authorities want to know. John himself was not sure. He only knew what he was supposed to do. Let me ask us this morning, “Who are we? What are we supposed to be doing?” For most of us, it takes a long time for us to figure out who we are and what we are supposed to be doing. From an early age, I knew that I would be a minister of some kind. Later I discovered that that meant being a preacher and a pastor. I also knew that I was called to be a good son to my parents. I have tried to make them proud of me. I was also called to be a brother to my brother, David, and a brother to my now deceased sister, Emily Ann.

By now I am sure that most of you know of her sudden death. Almost two weeks ago she went in for surgery, female surgery. The surgery was uneventful. It lasted an hour. Her time in surgery recovery was an hour and then she was in a regular room to sleep off the anaesthesia and to begin healing. What happened the next day, the next morning devastated me. It took nearly a day to understand what had really happened. While the tests were being run, the doctors referred to what had happened as a catastrophic event. It was in every way. When we were allowed, we went to the Critical Care Unit to see her. Covering her body was a prayer shawl, a ministry of this church. I talked to her. I asked her to wake up. I told her that I needed her. We have always needed each other. Thirteen months separate our ages. I have a picture of the two of us taken in Conway. She seemed a little jealous of me. She’s trying to push me out of the stroller that I was in. Thirteen months separated our birthdays, but nothing else ever separated us. I was her biggest fan and she was the one who I could call and know no matter what, that she would be there for me. Who am I? You see, who I am as a Christian and a pastor is not that different from who I am as Emily’s brother.

Her death shakes me. It makes me tremble, but it does not shake my faith. I’m not angry with God, though I think that if I wanted to shake my fist at him, I think that He could take it. I believe that God cried when Emily died and I believe that He cries me with me when I do, and I have, believe me!

Who am I? Let me tell you what I witnessed these past two weeks. I saw a waiting room full of people so many that they overflowed into the hallways, who came to be with us. I saw two pastors, who did not leave the hospital except to sleep. I saw a young doctor who kept shaking his head and who cried when he told the waiting room the status of what was happening. I saw a Sunday School class, her class, clean her house and rake her leaves. There was so much food that my parents had to buy a little refrigerator to hold it all. I saw more than seven hundred people attend her memorial service. They were Emily’s friends. They were my parents’ friends. They were my friends and David’s friends. They were members of the churches both present and past that we have served. Many of you were there and I will never forget that. More than twenty-five sympathy cards arrive every day. People want to know how I am doing. Some are offering me paths to take and offering to walk with me. Who are we? What are we supposed to be doing?

Isaiah’s prophesied in last week’s lectionary passage, the one that Jesus used when for his first sermon: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted (I am brokenhearted), to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor!” Why are we doing what we’re doing? Because it is what Christians do.

That is the first thing to think about this morning, who are we. Here’s the second. I want you to hear what John says of the Messiah: “Among you stands one whom you do not know.” I guess that this is the way that God works in our world. We are reminded of that by Christmas. Christmas is the story of how God entered into our world. He came to a small town. If God wanted front and center, Jesus would have been delivered in Rome, not in Nazareth. Nazareth is where the angel found Mary and said, “Greetings favored one.” We sing the story, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given; So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven. No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin. Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

Someone said to me at the hospital last week that it is a terrible time for Emily to have died. To which I said, “Sure it’s hard. But think about it, it is the time of the year that we celebrate the Jesus has come to live among us. “Among you stands one whom you do not know.” I heard about a woman whose life was not going well. She was battling depression and was in and out of therapy. She had hoped for more. Then one day she decided that she was going to get out of her house. She drove to the closest church and looked for the pastor. The church was a small and out of the way place. It was like Nazareth or Bethlehem, some place like that. The pastor was not all that remarkable. She told him about her needs and asked for communion. He went to get the elements and administered them, clumsily is my guess. She took the bread and dipped it in the chalice, closed her eyes and she prayed. Something happened at that altar. She talked about being able to feel Jesus as she swallowed. Something happened. She got better and she stayed better. She said that it was a miracle. She said that it happened because a humble man opened his heart to her and then served her symbols of the presence of Jesus with her, and then they prayed. Who would have imagined it? He stand among you as one you do not know. Maybe that is what we need now more than anything else, to notice that Jesus is near us, all around us, in our friends, in our joys, yes, even in our grief. My hope is that you will notice the one who walks among us. I hope that you will walk with me.

(I dedicate this sermon to my sister, Emily Ann Fleming Castle. Thanks for the memories, dear sister. Stay safe in the everlasting arms of God. And trust that we will be together again some day. Until then, I will miss you!)