Sermon for the Third Sunday of Advent – 13th December 2020: Isaiah 61, 1-4,8-11; John 1, 6-8, 19-28

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Pauls Athens

 

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ One of the great Anglican church music composers of the late 16^th century is Orlando Gibbons. His professional life took him via a circuitous route to Westminster Abbey where he was one of the organists. He died young after taking ill on a journey to Canterbury, at the age of 45, and he is buried in Canterbury Cathedral where there is a monument to him.

Gibbons was a fairly prolific composer of both secular madrigals, and of church music. One of the anthems he composed is called ‘This is the Record of John’ and the text is that of the conversation between John the baptizer and the priests and levites in today’s gospel reading.

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ is one of the questions set to music – rather more poetically phrased in the 16^th century than our version this morning, ‘Who are you?’

We started to think about John the baptizer last week as the gospel directs us to John baptizing Jesus in the river Jordan and John proclaiming, as he does in Matthew, Mark and Luke, that he has come to make the path straight.

 

This morning’s version is from another John, the Evangelist, the gospel writer John, also known as John the Theologian. In this John’s account we find the conversation between John the baptizer and the authorities that were sent to quiz him. ‘What sayest thou of thyself?’

They have a set of questions for him. Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? My guess is that they are asking the same question twice, as Elijah was known as ‘the prophet’, but John denies it. But even before this denial there is a question that is unasked, but assumed, because John begins this conversation by protesting that he is not the Messiah. Without it being asked, the conversation pre-supposes that people thought he might be the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God. We all know that the Messiah is Jesus, and that John the baptizer directs us towards Jesus – look, here is the Lamb of God, says John a little later after today’s gospel conversation.

But these quizzlings don’t know this. They are under some impression that it might be John who is ‘the one’. This all indicates that John must have been a highly significant character in the area around Jerusalem, in the Judean desert where he baptized in the Jordan and proclaimed repentance. John may be an interesting ornamentation in the gospel narratives as they tell us about Jesus, but we are only given scant information about John, never enough. The gospels focus on Jesus, but we must not underestimate the circumstances of the time, and the influence of John.

In one book, called ‘When Christians were Jews’ the scholar Paula Fredriksen almost places the ministry of John and Jesus side by side in terms of its characteristics and influence. She says, ‘Both seemed to have proclaimed the coming of God’s kingdom; both seem to have coupled this teaching with a call to repentance. John evidently enhanced his prophetic authority by his extreme personal asceticism; Jesus by is ability to exorcise demons and to heal’. (When Christians were Jews, Fredriksen, Yale press, p35).

All of Fredriksen’s points can be supported with even so little information in the gospels about John. So we should not be surprised that John is quizzed ‘What sayest thou of thyself?’

I am not, I am not, I am not – three denials from John as they seek to work out who he is. Then ‘who are you?’ John cross references with the words of Isaiah, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.’ John knows who he is, and what his mission is, and for whom he does this ministry. It is all for the sake of the one whose sandals he, John, is not worthy enough to untie.

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ ‘Who are you?’ in more contemporary language. John had worked out who he was. I guess it Is one of life’s quests for all of us to be working out who we are, especially in relation to the one we serve in faith – Jesus, who is the Messiah, the Christ.

This search is particularly challenging at the moment, because there are immediate conditions all around us that are to a degree shaping who we are. It most likely is not who we want to be, and we may well feel a resistence to the way in which life has been altered during 2020. ‘I am not the person who wishes to keep distant from other human beings; I am not the person who passes by on the opposite pavement; I am not the person whose face you can only see half of; I am not the person who only wants to bump elbows with friends.’

‘What sayest thou of thyself?’ There is a possibility that all the things we don’t want to be, highlighted by our current social attitudes and protocols, will allow us time to consider who we really are, or even to set some goals for what we would like to become more like as we learn to live in this changed world. Despite everything, human and personal weaknesses, maybe our hope is that we might become more Christ-like, resemble more the person we proclaim as our Lord, that Saviour whose birth we will celebrate in just a few day’s time.

Who are you? Of course each of us is a name, we understand ourselves in relation to others, family, friends, work; but we are also people of faith. How does that faith form us? How does our faith help us point the way to our Redeemer? We are children of God. Yes! We are baptized therefore we have a new dignity. Yes! We are loved by God. Yes! We are crowned as a royal priesthood, to use the words of scripture in one of Peter’s letters. Yes! All of this and more.

However, with these rich blessings we are all called to share in the ministry of John the baptizer; a ministry of pointing towards Jesus; of assisting others to set their gaze with ours towards Christ.

That small question put to John by his quizzlings sets us off on a journey, a journey into sharing the life of Jesus of Nazareth who comes so that we might have life, and have it with fullness.

‘What sayest thou of thyself?