Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-february-21-2023
John 1:19-28
John the Baptist Denies Being the Christ
19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
24 Now some Pharisees who had been sent25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Yesterday’s Reflection focused on the introduction to the Gospel of John – its first eighteen verses. Today’s reading is the next ten verses of that gospel, and it focuses on ‘the other John’ – John the Baptist. Like the gospels of Mark and Luke, the Gospel of John tells us about John the Baptist at the beginning of the story. But what this gospel tells us is a little different.
The Gospel of John doesn’t give us as much information about the ministry of John the Baptist as we get in Mark and Luke. Some scholars remind us that the Gospel of John was written 25 or 30 years later, and suggest that those who compiled the later gospel might have assumed that most of their readers were already well aware of what John the Baptist preached and what he did. The Gospel of John focuses on two aspects of the story of John the Baptist. The first is that he served as “a witness to the light’ – he pointed out Jesus to others and caused them to follow Jesus. The second aspect of the story of John the Baptist in this gospel is that he denied being the Messiah himself.
Apparently, lots of people in the ancient Hebrew world had a sense that there was something not quite right about their relationships with God. I say that because the gospel accounts – and also the ancient Hebrew historian Josephus – all say that a lot of people from Jerusalem and all of Judea walked through the heat and dust of the Ancient Near East to experience the ‘baptism of repentance’ John was calling them to. The ministry of John must have hit a nerve of some kind.
It also seems apparent that this mass movement of people attracted the attention of the religious authorities in Jerusalem, because today’s passage says the leadership sent representatives to question John. The scholars say that by the time the Gospel of John was published, the church and the Jewish leadership were often in open conflict with one another. So when the gospel says “the Jews of Jerusalem” sent people to talk to John the Baptist, it probably means the Jewish leadership. By all accounts, the population at large seemed to think well of John the Baptist.
In any case, the delegation sent to John must have begun by asking him if he understood himself to be the Christ – that is, the Messiah. When John says no, the priests and Levites next ask John whether he is Elijah. This was actually a logical question, for several reasons. First of all, John is reported to have adopted the same exotic clothes and diet as the prophet Elijah – camel’s hair clothes and a diet of locusts and wild honey. And second, Elijah had not died – he had been taken into heaven in a chariot of fire. And third, it had been foretold that Elijah would come back to announce the coming of the day of the Lord. (That prophesy is actually in the last paragraph of the Old Testament.)
In our passage for today, John denies being Elijah. But it’s possible that the real meaning of the ancient prophesy was that someone would come ‘in the spirit of Elijah.’ In the 17th chapter of Matthew, Jesus seems to be saying that John was Elijah.
But in today’s reading, John says ‘no,’ that he’s not Elijah. So the delegation from Jerusalem next asks him if he is “the prophet.” It had been foretold that a prophet in the spirit of Moses would be sent into the world, and that’s probably the unnamed prophet the Jewish leaders had in mind. But John denies being that prophet, too. Instead, he says he is “the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’”
Next, the Jewish religious leaders ask by what authority John is performing his baptism. And John says that his authority comes from the one he’s come to announce – the one whose way he has been sent to prepare. John says that the one who would follow him is the real authority figure. John says he’s not even worthy to untie the sandals of the one who would come after him.
The scholars point out that for decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus – and maybe for a century or more – there were people around who considered themselves disciples of John the Baptist and who claimed that he had been the Messiah. So those who compiled the Gospel of John might have wanted to make sure people understood that John the Baptist himself had denied that he was.
John the Baptist is consistently portrayed in all of the gospels as one who was sent to get the world’s attention so that it would be prepared to hear Jesus when he began his ministry. This gospel stresses that John understood that his role in God’s plan was to keep the world’s attention focused squarely on Jesus, not on himself.
I think you could make a case that John is also meant to be a kind of model for the rest of us. Maybe we’re also meant to be preparing the way of the Lord into the lives of those around us. Maybe we’re meant to genuinely embrace and express the “good news” we say we believe – that God has done a great thing through Jesus, and given us new life as members of his family. We don’t get that new life because we deserve it or earn it, but just as a gift out of God’s gracious love. And our part is to express our thanks by doing our best to live in a way that pleases God.
That’s a different vision of the life of a follower of Jesus – a life of joyful thanks instead of a life of avoiding punishment. And my sense is that if we can learn to live out that new vision of joyful thanks, we’ll bring joy to God’s heart, and we’ll ‘prepare the way’ for a lot of those around us to come to know and love Jesus as we do.
Let’s pray. Lord, we ask that you to use us as you used John – as witnesses to our Lord Jesus, and as messengers who go before him to prepare the way into the life of the world, and into the lives of those around us. Help us to be agents of your grace, helping others to see the world, and especially their relationship with you, in a whole new way. Amen.
Blessings,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 102 and 133: Deuteronomy 6:16-25; and Hebrews 2:1-10. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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