| John the Baptist |
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Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill
by the Reverend Robert Atwell This time last year, taking assembly in St Paul’s School, I took as my theme Advent and the preaching of John the Baptist. Can anyone think of a famous prophet? I asked my wide-eyed audience. Eventually a hand went up. Yes, I said, who was a great prophet? ‘Mohammed’, came the answer. Absolutely right, I said. Can anyone think of another prophet? I pleaded. Silence. So much for church schools I thought to myself. John the Baptist is the only figure in the Gospels who appears in his own right, independently of Jesus. In fact Jesus called him the greatest of all the prophets. John the Baptizer, as the word should more properly be translated, certainly had all the hallmarks of a prophet: weird clothing, strange diet, a man who wasn't afraid to speak his mind. Unlike the majority of his predecessors, John refused to travel to the city, to Jerusalem to deliver his message. Instead, like some latter-day Moses figure, he made the Judean desert his home. It lies due east of Jerusalem and runs for miles and miles until it descends to the Jordan valley. Wilderness is a better word than desert because unlike the Sahara there are no sand-dunes. The landscape is rocky and barren and devoid of vegetation. It is not the sort of place you would dare venture off the main road. And yet people did - in their hundreds and thousands. There was something magnetic about John. Baptism or ritual washing is common in many religions. Muslims wash before praying and Hindus will travel hundreds of miles to bathe in the waters of India's sacred rivers. Ritual washing carries with it the idea of seeking enlightenment, a desire not merely to be outwardly clean but inwardly so. In Judaism ritual baths or miqvas were common. They are still required for women after childbirth or for pagan converts. Judaism has never been a proselytizing religion, but anyone who wants to become a Jew has to undergo a period of instruction in the keeping of the law, the torah. If you are a man you have to be circumcised, and the culmination of the initiation process is a ritual bath - a baptism. And here comes John, demanding not only that gentiles be baptized, but that Jews be baptized as well. Everyone is in need of spiritual cleansing and enlightenment, he says. This was revolutionary talk, and it was why the word ‘Baptist' got glued to his name as a sort of surname. No wonder the chief priests sent their spies from Jerusalem to find out what he was up to. ‘Who are you?' they ask. ‘Are you the messiah? Are you Elijah or one of the prophets? We need an answer for those who sent us.' The answer John gave was typically obtuse. ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord".' John is quoting words of Isaiah. He has become so identified with his message, so at one with God's own word which he has been given to proclaim, that we no longer see the man behind the message, or hear the tune of his own voice behind the thundering witness of God's spirit speaking through him. John is not interested in himself - only in the God whom he proclaims. He and his message have fused. He is merely ‘the voice'. And in this is a challenge for us. Too often when we bring a message, people perceive us and our message as two separate things. We are not sufficiently identified with our message, with what we've got to say, with the result that it doesn't carry conviction. Our speech may be eloquent, even impressive, but because what we say doesn't ring true with our lives it sounds a false note. I was talking with a market research guru this week who said that, in his opinion, the three most successful straplines in recent years have been Mikhail Gorbachev's, ‘Perestroika'; Desmond Tutu's description of South Africa as ‘The rainbow people of God', and Tony Blair's invention of ‘New Labour'. What was John's strapline? 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' You'd think that people would have been alienated by that, but they flocked to hear him. The prospect of judgement makes me feel uneasy. I must confess that when I'm driving and I see a police car in my mirror, I instinctively look at my speedometer. The symbols of secular justice - the police, law courts, judges, magistrates - intimidate me and they are meant to. So the prospect of being before the judgement seat of God is pretty scary. Judgement shows up my dark side, and I don't like it thank you very much. Nowadays, doubtless in reaction to the hell-fire and brimstone preaching of our Victorian forebears, we play down God's justice and emphasise his mercy and forgiveness instead. And that is right because it is what God himself wants. But that doesn't give us permission to evade the reality of God's judgement. Perhaps though we should re-think it? After all, when a judgement is made, what is happening? Last month I was a witness in court for the prosecution following a robbery in Primrose Hill which I and Jody Scott witnessed six months ago - in fact on the very day that the Bishop of London came to open St Mary's Centre. Courts are very imposing. Whatever the structures and formalities, at heart people are endeavouring to discover the truth. Did the defendant steal that money? Did he attack that woman in Meadowbank? Let's get to the truth of the matter. Judgement is a process of revealing the truth. When we think of God's judgement, we should think of it in a similar way. God knows our hearts, our purposes, our failings, our hopes and fears, our evasions, and above all the lies we tell ourselves which are always the worst ones. God is not ignorant or prejudiced. In fact, he is prejudiced in our favour. He actually loves us. We should think of God's judgement not so much in terms of a heavenly courtroom, as of revelation. It is a meeting with the God who knows and loves us. In this encounter all the veils are drawn away, and we see both God and ourselves in the light of truth. And however much pain that may cause, it is a wholesome and healing pain if in our deepest heart we are open to God. Because ultimately, as scripture says, ‘the truth will set you free'. John the Baptist's life calls us to integrity. Here was a man completely transformed into a living message, into a vision of the coming kingdom of God. Like John we need to absorb God's abundant love until we are marinated in it. John calls us to repent. We need to abandon self-deceit to see ourselves as God sees us, and in that encounter is liberation. |
