The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe of True Will Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on December 7, 1980. It's the second in a series of six sermons entitled The Characters of Christmas. This sermon deals with John the Baptizer and covers Matthew chapter 3, 1 through 12. For Advent this year, we are taking a series of meditations on the characters surrounding the Christmas story, the people who entered into that great first coming of our Lord Jesus amongst us. And we began last week by looking at Zachariah and Elizabeth, the parents of the little boy who grew up to be John the Baptizer. We made the comment that the Christmas story really begins with them, that its first miracle is that of a miracle-working God visiting a miracle-doubting priest and restoring to him the faith in God's ability to work wonders and do mighty things, which somewhere along the way he had lost.

God gave to Zechariah and Elizabeth in their old age a son, and a remarkable son it was. This morning our attention focuses on him. John, in many ways, is a pivotal figure in God's holy history.

From one perspective, he's the last of the old covenant prophets. Even though, as I said last week, it was approximately 400 years since Malachi had spoken. 400 years of silence in which there was no prophet in all of Israel.

John really partakes of that line of ministry. He is the last of the prophets of the old structure the old covenant and in another sense he's the first fruits of the new. He's the forerunner of that which God is just now beginning in sending his son into the world.

John is the figure usually associated with Advent. His is the ministry of preparation. He calls us to repentance, to readying our hearts for the coming of Christ into our lives.

It's interesting that Jesus extended to John the highest praise that he ever gave to any human being. And yet he turned right around and said, I tell you nonetheless, the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven experiences a greatness that exceeds John's. In other words, as mighty a figure as John was, he was prior to the atonement being complete on Calvary. And within the framework of his earthly life, there was a lack of fulfillment.

It was pointing to something not yet finished. And therefore, even the least of us who come after that and put our trust in Christ are experiencing here and now a grandeur and a splendor that John still anticipated. So a very interesting figure, a very remarkable figure, and, as I suggest, a pivotal figure in God's holy history.

What do we know about John and what can we learn from him? Actually, we're told rather little. We're given just four fleeting glimpses into his life, and I think we can summarize it very quickly this morning.

The first glimpse comes, interestingly enough, before he's even born. You may remember the story. His mother Elizabeth is six months pregnant carrying John when the angel Gabriel goes to one of her kinfolk.

It's often said that Mary was her cousin. We don't know that for sure. We don't know what the relationship was.

But a kinswoman of Elizabeth, the angel who has come to Elizabeth, then goes a half a year later to Mary and says yours will be an even greater privilege, an even higher blessing, an even more wondrous supernatural visitation of God, you will have the incredible honor of bearing Messiah. You will be the one that God has chosen to bring his son into the world. And then he adds a footnote and he says, and by the way, your kinswoman, Elizabeth, is also with child.

It's interesting to note Mary's reaction to that. You might well suppose that she would sit back and she would say to herself, well, you know, Elizabeth ought to be coming to me. I certainly am the one who should receive the greater homage.

No one has ever been privileged as Mary was privileged. But that's not her reaction. She immediately gets up and with haste, it says.

She runs to attend Elizabeth. She goes to be a servant. And we read that as she entered Elizabeth's home and she greeted her, the baby, John the Baptist, still in his mother's womb, leapt for joy at her approach.

I want that to grab your imagination for a moment this morning. I want you to really see what's being said. A six-month-old fetus leapt for joy at the approach of an embryo who was to become Messiah.

Have you got that? It seems to me that for the Christian, that settles forevermore any argument about whether or not the unborn are truly human, and whether or not they ought to have the full protection of law. If John the Baptist had nothing else to say to us, he would say, you are never too young to be a human being, and you are never too young to begin to respond to the grace of God.

There are an awful lot of Christians who talk about some sort of an arbitrary age of discretion. I don't know if you've heard that phrase. They say that you've got to be 7 or 10 or 13 or some other age before you can really begin to respond to God.

John the Baptist would say, no, not so. I don't know what your experience has been. and mine has been that I have yet to meet a little child who needs to be taught to believe in God.

Maybe you've met such a child. I have never yet met one who needed to be taught to believe in God. In fact, it's the other way around.

From a very, very early age, so much that's out there in the world begins to conspire to teach him to disbelieve in God. And what a great shame. Jesus at one point said, let that man who would put a stumbling block in the way of any little one, beware.

It would be better for him to have a millstone hung about his neck and cast into the sea than to create unbelief in the heart of one of these little ones. Now obviously, the decision, the response, the commitment, the faith, the belief of a little tiny child needs to grow and mature and it needs to be affirmed and reaffirmed and confirmed over and over and over and over again. A childish faith is not adequate for an adult.

But don't ever say that a child is too young to begin to respond to the grace of God, to begin to put his trust in the Lord Jesus. If John had nothing else to say to us, that would be a mighty powerful witness. You are never too young in the sight of God to enjoy full personhood and to begin to respond to his grace.

Well, that's the first glimpse, just a fleeting moment. And then we don't hear anything more about this man for 30 years. And people have speculated, did he become an Essene?

Did he join the Qumran community? We don't know. We're not told.

Suddenly, 30 years later, John bursts upon the scene in one of the most dramatic ministries that's recorded in the Bible. He looks an absolute wild man. He dresses in a hair shirt, leather girdle, eats locusts, wild honey, and begins pronouncing God's judgment up and down the face of the countryside.

What a message. I would bid you not read this in the King James translation. It really loses something.

He says, you bunch of snakes, you filthy whitewashed tombs, you stinking, rotting, dead men's bones, repent. Nice little sermon for Sunday morning, right? I'm always glad that Stewardship Sunday comes before we get to John's ministry.

but remarkably remarkably that message of hell fire and damnation has such an anointing from God that we read multitudes came out multitudes came out to hear this man it says all Judea came out to hear John to be baptized by him John was not just in one place by the way he went up and down in the countryside and he may have gone much further afield than that there's just a suggestion in the book of Acts chapter 19 there's a community of John's disciples all the way over in Ephesus on the coast of modern day Turkey and we don't know whether he went there or whether some of them had come down and heard him and taken his message back to Ephesus with them But it's quite clear that John preached boldly to everybody, was no respecter of persons, was not intimidated by anyone. And his message was the same, repent. Specifically, it's mentioned he preached to tax collectors, he preached to soldiers, he preached to Pharisees, he preached to Sadducees, and finally he preached to King Herod the Great.

And that's what did him in. he accused Herod of incest with his brother's wife and Herod clapped him into prison and eventually beheaded him but that is one fearless man it didn't matter whether you were the down and out or whether you were the religiously elite it didn't matter if you were Jew or Gentile it didn't matter whether you were despised or powerful it didn't matter if you had military power or political authority John said repent John's message was in essence that you can't even begin to understand the love of God until you first have at least some notion of the holiness of God now stop and think about that sometimes we really soft pedal that but if you try to talk about the love of God without some idea that he's a God of high and holy standards who holds us responsible before him, then love just degenerates into sentimentality. And John says the king is coming.

He's coming in righteousness and you better get your life in order. You better tear down any mountains of pride or vain glory. You better fill up any valleys of self-pity or despair.

You better get things straightened out, friends. because the king is coming. And he's going to need to march on a path of holiness.

I think that most of you are aware by now that John was not the one who invented baptism. That baptism was being widely practiced and as a matter of fact Jews baptized Gentiles who wanted to become Jewish. That puts John's ministry in rather a different light.

what was new about him was not that he invented baptism but that he said even you Jews need to repent and be baptized there's no inside track to God simply because you are descended from Abraham you need to repent God would view you as the worst alienated estranged dirty Gentile unless you have come to personal repentance It cuts no ice with God that you've got a good pedigree. God has no grandchildren. God has children.

You've got to come to Him for yourself. That's the second glimpse. John's incredibly powerful ministry calling men and women to repentance.

You may remember how it ends. He's baptizing hundreds, thousands of people, and all of a sudden, there appears Jesus. He says, that's the one!

That's the one I'm talking about! Behold the Lamb of God! And Jesus comes and insists that he be baptized.

And John's first response is to be absolutely horrified. He says, you should be baptizing me. But Jesus insists.

He says, no, I need to submit to your ministry. and as he emerges out of the water of baptism God declares him quite different from all the men and women that John has been denouncing and haranguing for their sin John has been saying you need to repent God is very angry with you Jesus comes up out of the water and God himself says this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased and from that moment on John's ministry is eclipsed by Jesus and that leads us into the third glimpse it's recorded only in the gospel of John chapter 3 we read a discussion arose between John's disciples and a Jew over purifying and they came to John and said to him Rabbi he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you bore witness, here he is baptizing. Now, as a matter of fact, Jesus was not himself baptizing, but some of his disciples were carrying on the same kind of baptismal ministry that John himself had been engaging in.

And what's happening is that the huge crowds of people which had been hanging on John's every word were suddenly defecting and giving their allegiance to Jesus instead. And John answered and said, No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.

He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. And therefore this joy of mine is full.

He must increase and I must decrease. Isn't that a lovely, lovely statement? John's whole ministry now is coming to a conclusion.

But he's not jealous of it. He's not hanging on to it. He says, that's the point of my ministry.

That's the one that I came to announce and herald and proclaim. And it's right that he increase and that I step aside and give him the glory. John understood, you see, that when the king arrives, the herald steps out of the way.

That as bright and splendid as the morning star might be, it fades into insignificance when the sun rises. And he steps aside. The fourth glimpse, and the final one, might strike you as rather curious in the light of all of that that's gone before.

John is thrown into prison, as I already said, for denouncing King Herod. And as he sits there in prison, the days turn into weeks, the weeks turn into months. He languishes in prison.

And a terrible, annoying fear and question begins to form in his mind. He says, what's going on? How can this be?

If Jesus really is the Messiah, and if I'm his herald, what in the world am I doing here in prison? I ought to be at his right hand, and we ought to be storming the countryside, bringing in the kingdom. I thought Messiah was supposed to set the captives free.

What am I doing in prison? And so he sends word. Are you the one?

Or somehow have I made a terrible mistake? Think about that. This man knew from before he was born that he was to prepare the way for Jesus.

His whole ministry points to Jesus. When Jesus arrives, he welcomes him and steps out of the way to give Jesus the glory. And now there he is in prison alone.

Are you the one? And I've always been thrilled with the way Jesus responded to that question. Notice that he doesn't rebuke John for asking it.

Jesus does not rebuke honest, searching inquiry. He has no time whatsoever for people who want to play theological games. None.

But for the person who is searching honestly to know the truth, Jesus welcomes their inquiry. And Jesus welcomes John's question, and he says, you go back and tell John the things that you see and hear. The lame run.

The blind see. The deaf hear. The lepers are cleansed and the poor have good news preached to them.

And blessed is he who takes no offense in me. Notice. No condemnation.

He answers John's question and does not merely say, Yes, I am the one. Take it on faith, John. He gives him proof.

And he gives them proof in precisely the terms that John would find most recognizable. He's paraphrasing the very message of Isaiah that John understood himself to be proclaiming. This is what Messiah will do.

He meets John exactly at his point of need. And then, as I said, he turns around and gives to John the baptizer the highest praise that he ever gave to anybody in John's moment of greatest weakness. Doesn't that encourage you?

And so I've been thrilled with the way Jesus handled the question. But, you know, I've got to tell you that I'm also thrilled that John asked that question. I wonder how many of us would.

You know how it goes when Christians have doubt, fear, question, confusion, disappointment, anxiety, bereavement, illness, unanswered prayer. Maybe you can't identify with any of that. And that terrible question begins to rise in our mind and heart.

what do we do with it? So often we either suppress it deny that we're really asking it pretend it isn't there and hope it's going to go away and try to convince ourselves as Mark Twain once put it that what you know ain't so I believe it because I believe it because I believe it or worse we capitulate to our doubts I just wonder if maybe the best thing John ever did was when he had doubts about Jesus, he took them to Jesus. Could I suggest that you might do that?

When you've got a problem with God, go to God. When you've got a problem with Jesus, go to Jesus. So, four quick glimpses into the life and witness of John.

Four questions for us that emerge out of them. Do you leap for joy when Jesus approaches? I mean, do you really?

Do you leap for joy or are you respectably religious? Do you understand that Jesus cannot bless that which is unholy? He cannot bless that which is a contradiction of His own character.

He cannot bless that which violates the express will of God and what He said in His Word. If you're living in compromise, you cannot enjoy blessing. Do you know that?

Are you prepared to bring your life into conformity with what He said? Do you come to Him in repentance? There may be relationships that you've got to do something about.

Areas that somehow they've just not come under Christ's Lordship. are you prepared to step aside and let him have the glory I mean do you know that that's the purpose of your life is to glorify Christ that that's what you were made for and that as a matter of fact you will not find your true fulfillment and joy you won't know what it is that you were created for until your life begins to reverberate in harmony with His glory. He must increase and I must decrease.

And finally, if and when you're assailed with doubt, with problem, with confusion, with darkness, with disappointment, with whatever it is, rather than sitting on it or giving in to it. Will you run to Jesus and let him prove himself again and again and again and again. Let's bow our heads.

Father in heaven, thank you for this remarkable man given the privilege of being the forerunner the herald of the Lord Jesus himself Lord we would hear his witness this morning and we would follow in his train for your name's sake Amen