Getting Ready

Getting Ready

John 1:29-34

June 2, 2019 • Mount Pleasant UMC

One of the highlights for me when I take groups to the Holy Land is standing in the Jordan River. There are a lot of sites in Israel that are uncertain; in other words, we’re not sure exactly where Jesus was born or where he was crucified, but the Jordan River has been there since time began. We can say with certainty that Jesus saw this river. When I first started going to Israel in 1995, we would remember our baptisms at a place near the mouth of the Sea of Galilee; everyone knew it wasn’t even close to the place where Jesus was baptized, but it was the best (and safest) spot we could travel to in those days. Since 2012, however, I’ve been able to take groups to a newly opened site that is in the desert, closer to the actual spot where John the Baptizer would have been baptizing, where Jesus came to be baptized by him. There is something powerful about standing in the midst of that river, remembering our baptisms in a spot close to where John announced to all who would listen that the savior they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

This morning, in our continued walk through this summer’s Bible School stories, we jump to the New Testament, and specifically to a story about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Our theme this year is “Power Up,” and we’ve been talking about how we get to know God and experience his power in our lives. The fullest expression of who God is, however, is found in the person of Jesus. Jesus himself said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9) and according to the Apostle Paul, he is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). To truly “raise our game,” to be able to “win” in the game of life, we need to know Jesus. That’s what John realized (not in those terms, of course) as he stood there beside the Jordan River and watched Jesus come near.

John is, in many ways, the last prophet of what we call the Old Testament. He is three months older than Jesus, and while we usually say they are cousins, the Gospels don’t specify the exact relationship, just that Mary and John’s mother Elizabeth are related in some way. When John began preaching out in the desert, south of Jerusalem, he attracted all sorts of attention. In fact, it would be hard to overstate John’s popularity; he was the most well-known preacher of his day (cf. Card, Parable of Joy, pg. 12). Some people thought he might be the savior who had been promised, but John knew he was not and said so. When people asked him who he was, he quoted a passage from the book of Isaiah, telling people he was preparing the way for the savior, the Messiah. After all, as Luke tells us, John responded to Jesus while they were both still in the womb! When pregnant Mary came to the home of pregnant Elizabeth, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt (cf. Luke 1:41). What happens here by the Jordan River is simply an adult version of what had happened some thirty years before. When Jesus comes near the place where John is baptizing, he sees who Jesus is and what he has come to do, so let’s listen carefully because the bottom line this morning is this: God sent Jesus to save us.

John calls Jesus by two titles. Jesus is, according to John, the “Lamb of God” (1:29) and he is “God’s Chosen One” (1:34). John is saying a lot in a few words, reaching back into what we call the Old Testament for this rich symbolism. John says first Jesus is the Lamb of God; in Hebrew understanding, a lamb is connected with what was called a “guilt offering.” In the book of Leviticus (remember that book we said last week is where most through-the-Bible readers get bogged down?), detailed instructions are given as to how to bring a lamb before God, and how that lamb would be put to death in the place of the person who had sinned (cf. Tenney, “The Gospel of John,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, pg. 37). A lamb who was blameless would die in the place of the one who was not blameless (cf. Leviticus 14:10-25); the death of the lamb would take away their guilt. The lamb was supposed to be from among the person’s flock, their property. I would bring, in other words, the “Lamb of Dennis.” So Jesus, John says, is the “Lamb of God.” He belongs to the creator of the universe, and this gets at the second title John uses for Jesus.

He is, in verse 34, “God’s Chosen One.” If you remember, as those at the river would have, the people of Israel (the Jews) had always been called God’s chosen people. As far back as Deuteronomy, in Moses’ final speech to the people God had rescued from slavery in Egypt, they had been told this: “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 14:2). That refrain is repeated throughout the Hebrew Bible, and it was deeply embedded in the identity of the people. If you asked the ordinary Hebrew on the street, “Who are you?” he might very well have responded, “I am one of God’s chosen people.” John’s second title reminds us that Jesus has come to be the new Israel. Just as God had first sought to accomplish his purpose through the people, now he is going to do it himself through Jesus. John pronouncing Jesus as “God’s Chosen One” is his way of saying, “This is the one who is going to do what you all didn’t. This is the one who will finish what was started centuries before.”

And what is it Jesus has come to do, according to John? That, too, is two-fold. Jesus is, first, the “Lamb of God” who has come to take away the sin of the world. How does a lamb do such a thing? Well, whole volumes have been written to try to answer that question, so suffice it to say there are depths of truth here that go beyond what we can talk about this morning. But, in a very basic way, the problem is that something is broken. The world is broken and more than that, our relationship with God is broken. What broke things is something called “sin.” When we hear that word, we usually conjure up a list of “do’s” and “don’ts,” the sort of things that your mom or dad told you “good boys and girls don’t do that.” But sin is more about the way we focus our life than it is about specific or individual actions. “Sin” is anything that stands between us and God, anything we do in thought, word or deed that breaks the relationship with God we were made to enjoy. Yes, there are specific actions that are “sinful,” but those grow out of a mindset or a worldview. “Sin” grows out of a heart that is set against God. And sin breaks us and breaks the world.

And when something is broken, it needs to be fixed. The Bible says the result of sin is death (cf. Romans 6:23), and from the beginning, the way prescribed for repairing the break that sin caused is for something to die to pay the price. Here’s one way I think about it: many of you know that twenty years ago this past January, I had my first heart surgery. I had a leaky valve and needed to have it replaced. It was broken; it did not work the way it was supposed to. I was 31 years old at the time and I received a cadaver valve in place of my original leaky one. That meant that someone died so that I could live. Had the valve not been replaced, I don’t know how much longer I would have lived, but probably not long enough to become your pastor. For eighteen and a half years, that other person's death allowed me to live. Now, every analogy breaks down, but I think of it that way. Someone died and that allowed me to live. In our sin and brokenness, we are spiritually dead, but the Lamb of God came to offer his life through death on the cross so that you and I could find life. He gave up his life so we can find our relationship with God repaired, restored, renewed. With other lambs, because their sacrifice was not voluntary, the sacrifice had to be repeated untold numbers of times throughout the centuries. But because Jesus willingly gave his life, the sacrifice was complete once and for all. John (the Gospel writer) will later write these words: Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Now, I know there are some folks who take offense at the whole language of “paying the price” and “atonement,” but as one who has been the beneficiary of life that came because of someone else’s death, I choose to be grateful—for both physical and spiritual life.

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And he is God’s chosen one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. John tells the people gathered by the river that while he was baptizing with water, symbolically washing away their sin, the Chosen One will “baptize with the Holy Spirit” (1:33; Mark 1:8). In two of the other Gospels, John says the Chosen One will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (cf. Matthew 3:11; Luke 3:16), and fire is later revealed as a symbol or sign of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 2:3). So what does this mean? For some traditions, “baptism in the Holy Spirit” is an additional or “second” blessing and the sign that it has happened is when people speak in tongues or a prayer language. But the New Testament says two things about that. First of all, the Holy Spirit is available to everyone who believes in Jesus, not just to a few. Jesus himself promised the Holy Spirit would come to all who believe to help them remember and live out what he had taught them (cf. John 14:26). Second, the New Testament says it’s more important that intelligible words are spoken in the church than unknown languages (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:5, 18-19); Paul consistently lists “speaking in tongues” at the bottom of the list of spiritual gifts. It’s not unimportant; it’s just not the most important as some want to make it.

So what does John mean by “baptism with the Holy Spirit”? We don’t have time to go through each of the seven passages in the New Testament one by one, and we’re going to look more at the promise of the Spirit next week on Pentecost, so let me just quickly touch on it this week. First of all, it’s important to remember that nowhere in the Bible does water baptism save someone. Baptism, as we usually think of it, is a symbol, a sign. It’s pointing toward something else; there is no magic and no salvation in the water itself, not even the water in the Jordan River. I’ve been there and stood in that River several times, and it’s just H2O—usually pretty dirty H2O, for that matter! Rather, what the New Testament consistently says is that salvation comes when we believe in and put our trust in in Jesus as the Son of God. Salvation involves repentance of our sin, becoming a child of God, and being given the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is not a special “second helping” for someone who attains a certain level of spiritual insight. It’s all part of the same whole. “Some parts…are seen sooner than others. They may come in different orders in different people” (Green, Baptism, pg. 134), but they’re all part of the same whole. In other words, when we come to know Jesus, when we repent of our sin, we are then given the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is, after all, what John said Jesus came to do. Why would he withhold this gift from some and not others? Is there a hierarchy within the kingdom of God? Of course not. The Spirit is promised to and given to all who believe.

When we believe, the Spirit comes to live within us; later on in this same Gospel, Jesus will spell out more about the role of the Holy Spirit. He helps us live the Christian life. He will be with us forever (John 14:16). He helps us remember what Jesus taught (John 14:26), and he convicts us when we go off the path we should be on (John 16:8-11). That little voice inside, what we usually call the “conscience,” is really the Holy Spirit, speaking to us about what is right and what is wrong. He does not control us; we have the ability to resist the Spirit’s direction, and many of us do every day. But every time I do, I find myself in a place I didn’t want to be, in a place where I am not honoring Jesus the way I should. You see, ultimately, the Spirit’s job is to help us bring honor to Jesus and to help us know what is true (John 16:13-14). This is the gift Jesus gives to those who believe. There by the Jordan River, John saw that without the Spirit’s presence in our lives, we have no hope of being able to live the way Jesus calls us to live (cf. Green 133-136).

Jesus, then, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and he is the Chosen One who came to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is God’s plan for saving the human race and for giving us power to live life the way it was meant to be lived. He is the reason we gather here on Sunday morning. He is the reason I get out of bed in the morning, to be quite honest. I grew up in the church; like some of you, my family was in the building most every time the doors were open. Early on, I believed in Jesus because my parents believed in Jesus. But during Vacation Bible School after my fifth grade year I came to realize that their faith was not enough for me. I don’t know what was said, I can’t remember even what Bible story we were looking at, but in that basement classroom, Jesus became more to me than someone I knew about. he became someone I knew. He became a friend who has now walked with me for for almost forty years and whom I talk to every day.

I think I initially became a follower of Jesus because I wanted to make sure I went to heaven and not to “the other place,” but I fairly quickly learned that just trying to avoid hell is not a plan that will sustain you. What I have found in Jesus is a friend who sticks closer than anyone else (cf. Proverbs 18:24), someone who guides me into the best life I could imagine (not the easiest life, but the best life), someone who is worth giving my life for because he was willing to give his life for me. If the only reason someone comes to Jesus is to avoid hell, that honestly will not keep them there. It’s not enough. Jesus came to bring hope, not the fear of death. Jesus came to bring life, starting here and now, life abundant. And that’s enough for us. There’s a song that was popular back in the 70’s when I was a kid (some of you might remember it), that put it this way:

If heaven never was promised to me,

Neither God's promise to live eternally.

It's been worth just having the Lord in my life.

Living in a world of darkness,

You came along and brought me the light.

No matter what the rewards are or aren’t, Jesus’ way is still the best way to live.

I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrased John’s speech here. In The Message, John says, “My task has been to get Israel ready to recognize him as the God-Revealer. That is why I came here baptizing with water, giving you a good bath and scrubbing sins from your life so you can get a fresh start with God” (1:31, MSG). John’s job, from the start, was to get us all ready for Jesus. And Jesus’ job, from the start, was to get us all ready for life the way it was intended to be lived. But to bring that kind of life required a death. Jesus came, as I said a few moments ago, to deal with the sin and death and decay that the world was trapped in. He did that by dying on the cross and, in some way I don’t completely understand and probably won’t understand until eternity, on the cross took he the punishment for our sin. Unlike the lambs that came before, he volunteered for the job. And even though the world is still trapped in death and sin and decay, there is a way out, a path away from the brokenness. His offer is available to anyone who asks. It’s open to you, just like it was forty years ago to me. Bottom line: God sent Jesus to save us.

Jesus was born in poverty and he lived most of his life in obscurity, working with his step-father Joseph’s building things, living in a backwater town named Nazareth. Nazareth was so unimportant that it doesn’t even show up on the lists of towns from the first century (Hamilton, Walking the Road to Bethlehem, pg. 20). He was probably somewhere around thirty years old when he began teaching and preaching throughout Galilee, and even then people asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth (cf. John 1:46). He upended people’s expectations for the Messiah just like he upended tables and cages in the Temple market (cf. John 2:13-25). He taught people to love one another, but he also said all that had come before him, the law and the prophets, were not being abolished. Rather, he came to fulfill that law, to live it out perfectly (cf. Matthew 5:17-20).

He gathered around him twelve men, disciples, who would carry on his work after he was gone, and to help them remember the reason he came, he gathered them in an upper room on the last night he spent on earth. There, they participated in the ancient ritual of the Passover meal, a meal that went back to their roots as a people, but Jesus made some tweaks to the ritual. Remember, he came not to abolish, but to fulfill everything that had come before. What he did that night we continue to celebrate; we call it Holy Communion. We continue to carry out this practice because, in these two symbols of bread and cup, we are reminded of Jesus and why he came. We’re reminded that he came to save us, to give us life abundant, to lead us into life that really is life (cf. 1 Timothy 6:19). The bread is his body, the juice is his blood, and the sacrament reminds us that God sent Jesus to save us. He sent Jesus to help us get ready to live forever, starting now, to live the way we were always meant to live. So, this morning, as we come to the table, I invite you to know Jesus, to allow him to shape your life, to save you and make you who God always dreamed you would be.

Every time we share in Holy Communion, I tell you that “all who love Christ, or want to love him, are welcome at the Table.” That’s our way of saying that this is Jesus’ table, not mine and not even the table of the United Methodist Church. It’s Jesus’ table, he is the host, and he welcomes all who want to know him. You don’t have to be “worthy” or live up to some high standard to receive the bread and the cup. You simply have to love or want to love Jesus. The table is open to all who will come. So—come, meet the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the chosen one who baptizes us in the Holy Spirit, the one who came to bring you life. He is here, so let’s come near to him. Let’s pray.