Dec 12, 1999
This sermon was given by the
Rev. Gene Preston on Third Advent Sunday, December 12,
l999 at Community Church Hong Kong.:
SERVING AS A
SECOND WITNESS TO THE LIGHT
John 1:6-8 and
19-28
To prove a legal case in court
you normally need a witness. Whether the case is
criminal or civil, there's not a strong case since
without a witness the prosecution must rest on
circumstantial evidence which may be only hearsay. An
eyewitness is best especially if the case is criminal;
though documents may serve as evidentiary witness when
the litigation is civil. But as any of us who are
enthralled with Aly McBeal and The Practice know,
eyewitnesses are a lot more entertaining in a courtroom!
In John the Baptist a vivid key
witness to Jesus as the Christ burst forth in John's
prologue. Some of John's followers believed he was the
Messiah and this is why the Gospel of John, like that of
Luke, takes great effort to disavow that John is the
Messiah; he is not; he is the witness to the Messiah; he
is the witness to the light which is coming to save
everyone. In a burst of self-abnegation the Baptist
states he is not worthy to even attend to the sandals of
the coming Messiah.
John the Baptist faces the test
which confronts all witnesses. Is he believable? Is he
creditable as a witness? In today's text he is approached
by representatives of the high religious caste of
Jerusalem, the very group which most disliked the
Baptist. That the Levites and Priests would delegate
their spiritual co-workers, the Pharisees, to travel some
distance from Jerusalem to interview the Baptist in the
Judaen desert suggests that this popular but troublesome
preacher was taken seriously by those who opposed his
radical call to repentance and religious
reform.
It is equally clear that it is
only the religious leaders, and not the Jews per se, who
interrogate John but then reject his witness by refusing
to recognize the authentic nature of Jesus' ministry.
This text is not meant to be interpreted as a general
early Christian polemic against all Jews.
There is some confusion in this
text as to what precisely John was witnessing about
Christ. There is the metaphor of "the light" followed by
the somewhat perplexing "THAT ALL MEN MIGHT BELIEVE
THROUGH HIM" at verse 7. You could guess in the grammar
that the "him" refers to the Baptist, but that is not
likely in the context. The "him" must refer to the
Christ. But believe what about him? Believe in God
through the Christ? Possibly, but more likely John's
witness is that all would believe in Christ himself, the
Light of the World. Listen to our text for
today:
THERE WAS A MAN SENT FROM GOD,
WHOSE NAME WAS JOHN. HE CAME AS 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.
THIS IS THE TESTIMONY GIVEN BY JOHN WHEN THE JEWS SENT
PRIESTS AND LEVITES FROM JERUSALEM TO ASK HIM, "WHO ARE
YOU?" HE CONFESSED AND DID NOT DENY IT, BUT CONFESSED, "I
AM NOT THE MESSIAH." AND THEY ASKED HIM, "WHAT THEN? ARE
YOU ELIJAH?" HE SAID, "I AM NOT." "ARE YOU THE PROPHET?"
HE ANSWERED, "NO." THEN THEY SAID TO HIM, "WHO ARE YOU?
LET US HAVE AN ANSWER FOR THOSE WHO SENT US. WHAT DO YOU
SAY ABOUT YOURSELF.?" HE SAID, "I AM THE VOICE OF ONE
CRYING OUT IN THE WILDERNESS: 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF
THE LORD.' THE PROPHET ELIJAH SAID. NOW THEY HAD BEEN
SENT FROM THE PHARISEES. THEY ASKED HIM, "WHY THEN ARE
YOU BAPTIZING IF YOU ARE NEITHER THE MESSIAH, NOR ELIJAH,
NOR THE PROPHET." JOHN ANSWERED THEM, "I BAPTIZE WITH
WATER. AMONG YOU STANDS ONE WHOM YOU DO NOT KNOW, THE ONE
WHO IS COMING AFTER ME. I AM NOT WORTHY TO UNTIE THE
THONG OF HIS SANDAL." THIS TOOK PLACE IN BETHANY ACROSS
THE JORDAN WHERE JOHN WAS BAPTIZING. (John l:6-8 and
l9-28)
***********
John the Baptist goes out of his
way to deny that he is the Messiah or the Christ, and to
deny that he is Elijah a prophet taken in the Hebrew
scriptures as the forerunner to the Christ. The Baptist
is clearly a modest guy and in his humility we can
identify a key trait to effective spiritual witnessing.
The best witness for faith is unaffected by personal
factors. The effective witness has no personal axe to
grind, and points not to himself but to the event and
person about whom he is called to witness.
The Baptist's modest, simple
conduct regarding his witness to the Christ is a
correction upon Christian zealots who distort the value
of their witness to Christ by calling attention to
themselves. Though the Baptist specifically rejected
being cast as a prophet, how about those followers of
Jesus who love to put on the prophet's mantle and declare
in the name of Christ that they know what is best, right
and moral for everybody. This is a temptation of
preachers (including yours truly), but lay people are
not free from excess in their claim to know the mind of
Christ and their condemnation of those who do not accept
their witness.
A good witness, like John the
Baptist, points to who is the best and brightest light
more than what is the truth from Christ. When someone
approaches Christ he and she will find their truth.
John's approach is a welcomed
wet blanket to be thrown over those many witnesses who
believe they can discern the future of the planet and our
race and pronounce confidently about God's time table for
judgement and end days. Many who present themselves as
forerunners of the second coming of Christ are not
giving out light, but confusion, and far from helping to
reveal the true light, they are obscuring the light of
Christ by drawing attention to their own bizarre theories
and interpretations of end days.
Although on other occasions,
John the Baptist effected a dramatic appearance and
obstreperous manner, in this interview he rejects any
rambunctious or exotic conduct and speaks simply, plainly
to his questioners. Given what we know about his views
and personality, we might expect him to fly into a funk
when approached by his opponents of the religious
establishment in Jerusalem. Not so. To their pestering
questions: "Are you the prophet? Are you the Messiah? Why
do you baptize?" John never lost his cool. A good
witness needs to keep his form together so as to maintain
focus on the object of the witness.
This modest and plain manner of
John the Baptist when witnessing to Christ is also a wake
up for believers who are given to excess of personal
excitement in their worship. For there is the temptation
in overly emotional worship for the focus to shift away
from Christ and upon the person doing all the wiggling,
screeching, and shaking. Such signs of enthusiasm may be
evidence of the Holy Spirit at work against satan; they
may equally be merely signs of an immature person who
craves public attention. By the end of all the carrying
on, there must be a witness to the power and presence of
Christ or it is of little spiritual significance.
*****
How shall we witness to the
light which is the grace and truth of Jesus the
Christ?
Most of us live such mundane
lives that it may seem we are beyond any capability to
witness to grace and truth. We may cast our ambitions to
witness only in terms of our mere survival or by
projecting our hope in our progeny. The shaping of good
children does make a very fine witness about general
grace and truth, though not necessarily about the grace
and truth of Christ.
Every parent knows that
parenting is as much a projection of our need as a
witness of our love. The controversy swirling around
Elian Gonzalez, the six year old Cuban boy washed up on
Florida's shore two weeks ago, shows the degree to which
adult polemics and competition are projected upon
children. The protests and claim being made on both sides
of the Florida shore have little to do with a child and
much to do with adult needs.
Fortunately, we read of other
and more selfless evidence from current events to show
that brave, forthright, sacrificial witness continues
even in our self-absorbed societies. I am thinking of the
six firemen from Worcester, Mass. who gave their lives
last week in doing their duty: two of them searching for
the homeless whom it was believed were trapped in the
abandoned warehouse; four of them dying while trying to
rescue the first two. This is of the nature of witness,
laying down your life for your brother, which Jesus
lifted up as the highest example.
These six men left six widows
and seventeen fatherless children because of their
witness. I believe that friends in Massachusetts are
rallying to witness to those bereft dependents and
without the hoopla surrounding the young Cuban boy. Which
do you credit as the more effective witness to
Christ?
I was moved by this obituary in
yesterday's SCMP in which friends and former colleagues
at the University of Hong Kong fondly remember Mrs. Mary
Visick, once for many years their colleague, who passed
away November 30 in England. They quoted the psychologist
Carl Jung: "One looks back with appreciation to the
brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who
touched our human feelings." As very fine testimony that
Mrs. Visick made a difference in her life, and making a
difference is a genuine witness.
Regretably, we do not look back
often enough. One of the experiences I most dislike is
having to sit backwards on a train or any other moving
vehicle. I love to ride going up on the Peak Tram, but I
hate the return trip because the seats are fixed so you
must come down looking backwards. I don't like to see
where I've been. I like to see where I'm going. But we do
need to look back, especially as this century ends so
that we are humbled and strengthened by the selfless
witness of many who have gone before us.
The violence, satanic evil and
injustices of our century now ending are evident enough
in the wars, concentration camps, pogroms, persecutions
and fanaticisms which litter the recent historic
landscape. But in response to almost every barbarism,
there has been a corresponding human witness of
courageous resistance and brave affirmation that the
light shall not go out.
An example are the Russian
people upon whom so much negative criticism is heaped
because of all that is going wrong in their society, not
least just now because of global upset and condemnation
with the Russian attack upon the capital, Grozny, of the
breakaway small area of Chesnya and the threat by Moscow
to obliterate that city and its civilians.
The Russians have stepped back
from that apocalyptic threat. But if we, the whole world,
along with the Russian people, could get on the train of
history, and face backward, we would come upon the
almost incalculable heroism of the grandparents of
today's Russians. About 57 years ago, another Russian
city was under siege. The triumphant Nazi led armies had
surrounded the great southern city of Stalingrad and
given a similar ultimatum to the one million, mostly
civilians trapped within it: surrender or die.
The people did not surrender.
They held out nearly a year with incredible sacrifice,
pain and death. And while some believe the turning point
toward Allied victory did not come until the Normandy
invasion two years later, I believe it was the heroic
defense at Stalingrad that prophecied the defeat of
Naziism. I wonder when anyone last gave thanks for the
unnamed million who perished at Stalingrad to make the
world in l999 a bit safer for human dignity and
freedom.
On a personal level, I have come
across many Christian men and women who have given their
lives in steady, non-publicized witness to Christ as the
light in their lives. I think of Dr. Beth whom I visited
in Kathmandu 37 years ago. Back in the l930s she founded
the first hospital in Nepal and labored there for 35
years introducing medicine and medical care to a nation
which had previously known neither. She was a Christian
doctor.
I think of my friend, retired
missionary Hugh Addleton who for 32 years labored in the
Sind in Pakistan witnessing in his daily rounds the love
of Christ for the Pakistanis and completing across his
lifetime there the first translation of the sciptures
into Sindi.
I think of my friend, the Rev.
Jerry Bedford, whom some of you know also, who last week
was honored in Little Rock at a gala dinner for "30 plus
years of service" to the Christian service organization
known as Heifer International. And by the way our sole
Christmas special appeal will be for Heifer China on
Christmas Eve worship at l0:30PM. And many of you will
not be able to be present. So consider writing a check to
your church, marking it "For Heifer", and giving it to
the Sunday collection or the church office before you fly
away from Hong Kong.
I know there are thousands of
other believers who witness as effectively and modestly
and whose names though not widely known have their "names
in the Book of Life" (Phil. 4:3) and for whom the Lord
will reward their service (Col.. 3:23-24). Those who
witness for the Lord never witness in vain.
It is not being noticed and
celebrated which makes a witness authentic, though it
doesn't hurt to notice now and then those who care for a
person with a disability, or help to distribute food to
the hungry, or teach a small class of children, or serve
as peacekeepers, or witness to the grace and light of God
in a thousand other ways. Witnesses do not ask to be
noticed because they know, like John the Baptist, that
they are not the light. They are witnesses to the light
who is Jesus the Christ.
But when we notice them, we are
blessed with inspiration.
In ancient times it was required
that there be more than one witness for a case to be
proven. A second witness was required. John the Baptist
was the first and initial witness that Jesus was the
Christ. The concept of the need for a second witness has
its origin in the book of Deuteronomy 19:15: A SINGLE
WITNESS SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST A MAN FOR ANY CRIME OR
FOR ANY WRONG IN CONNECTION WITH ANY OFFENCE THAT HE HAS
COMMITTED. ONLY ON THE EVIDENCE OF TWO WITNESSES OR OF
THREE WITNESSES SHALL A CHARGE BE SUSTAINED.
If we believe this Advent that
Jesus Christ is the one who has come to bring light and
liberation to humanity, then we are called by love to
share that belief with others. We are called to be the
second and third witnesses that the light has come into
the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. The
darkness does not prevail because of the sacrifices of
millions; the darkness does not prevail because of the
singular service of each believer.
At this season which is Christ's
time to come back into our awareness and our hearts with
renewed power in his witness of God's love for us, we
are invited to embrace the season by being second
witnesses. Think about it. Consider what testimony you
can give to support that of John the Baptist that the
light has come that all may believe through him.
Pastor Gene
Preston
Archives:
Sermon Texts
|