Third Sunday in Advent

December 13, 2020 | Sermon Text: John 1:6-8, 19-28 | David H. Brooks | 

I suppose, when 2020 has finally reached the stage where the historians can freely pick over its carcass, one of the stories that will emerge is the failure of expertise. It has not been a good year for those folks. Whether the expertise is in polling, epidemic modeling, economic projections, and more, the simple fact is that the world is…not so simple.

There is great debate over what developing expertise does to a person, but at bottom it seemingly achieves two paradoxical goals:

• The expert can size up a situation and move effortlessly toward a solution. A classic example is a seasoned London cab driver who knows the patterns of the city and can navigate a landscape that is bewildering to mere mortals
• The expert is at a loss when the situation is unfamiliar—the very talents and skills that makes familiar situations solvable become a hindrance in the face of new circumstances, oftentimes because the expert misunderstands just what is happening. A crucial detail is missed because the expert has trained to see in a particular way, and no one can address what cannot (or will not) be seen.

There is a whiff of this paradox in the air as the scribes and Pharisees load up the Land Rover and make the rocky journey out to observe a new species in the wild: the wily and elusive Iohannis Baptistae. John, the focal point of spiritual ferment for many, is baptizing out near Bethany and has caught the attention of those who are responsible for the spiritual lives and health of the people. They want to know just what it is about him that attracts so many people way out into that barren land.

So they ask, “who are you?” I can almost see them standing there, notebooks and journals in hand, ready to take notes and sketch images of this new thing they’ve discovered, clicking their ballpoints as they prepare to fill in the gaps of what they know. And John answers “I am not the Messiah,” which is not the question they asked anyway. “I am not” are John’s first words to them and the conversation goes downhill from there.

“What then? Are you Elijah?” “I am not.”

“Are you the prophet?” “No.”

A terribly frustrating and unhelpful conversation—they have an identification system with three categories, and John doesn’t fit into any of them. So they decide to allow John to categorize himself. And John replies “I am the voice, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness ‘make straight the way of the Lord.’” It is the only claim he will make for himself. I am the thunderclap! I am the noisemaker! I am the alarm clock! I am the one who wakes you up, shakes you out of your stupor so you won’t miss the main event. John comes to make the people ready to receive one who is coming, doing his best to help others shake free of the prison of having already decided what they will and will not see.

And now John comes to us, puts both shoulders on our hands, shakes us like a scene from an adventure movie where the one person is paralyzed because what has appeared in view is too much to absorb: come on! We’ve got to get moving! Snap out of it! Do not forget, one of the key themes in John’s gospel is about seeing rightly, and we must never forget that we do not see. Our sin, our estrangement from God, our self-focused vision means that we believe that we are the experts—about ourselves, about or lives, about the lives of others—and so, like all experts we grow complacent, thinking that our vision is sufficient, our ways are enough, our knowledge is all that matters. We are the opposite of John the Baptizer, who is humble enough to not even claim for his stern simplicity the mark of God’s hand upon him. He points away from himself: there is the Messiah, God’s Son! There is the Lamb of God! There is the one who wipes out the world’s sins! Can you not see him?!

No, we are not experts, certainly not in the things that make for life, true, Godly living. But one is on the way who knows the ways of God, who brings with him the blessings of the Kingdom, who is himself the light coming into the world that we may see rightly. Jesus, in whom the glory of the Father is clothed, in whom the God we cannot see is found, in whom things heavenly and things earthly are joined, is coming—to us, to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves, to teach us what our wisdom would never discover, to lead us to places we would never find, to set us free from what holds us bound, to help us see what is really happening. With Jesus, it’s just that simple.

Amen.

Pastor David H. Brooks

Durham, NC USA

Pr.Dave.Brooks@zoho.com