“THERE STANDETH ONE AMONG YOU”
Saint John 1: 19-28
Rorate Coeli: 22 December Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
These really are not my words: “And this is the record of John.” These are the Holy Spirit guided words of Saint John the Baptist as recorded by the blessed Apostle and Evangelist, Saint John, son of Zebedee. It is not John the Baptist, not John the Evangelist, not pastor, but “The” “One:” “there standeth One among you.” This is the Gospel of The Lord!
On one level, the Jews, using their priests and Levites, were the close-fisted protestants of the day. They were so fixated on the trees of rabbinical Torah commentary and man-made regulations, that they missed the forest of Scriptural Faith—i.e. The Messiah in their very midst! Not just words, feelings, and precepts about the Messiah…but His actual true and physical presence! Those who hyper focus on the Law and the “self,” working diligently to “keep” the Law, will always miss the treasure of good news. These “religious types” will not hear and listen to the content of the Word but rather quibble, carp, criticize, and challenge, the messenger.
“Who art thou” they barked at the Baptist. What do you think you are doing? They didn’t want him Baptizing because good and loyal Jews, i.e. Jews that followed the Pharisees, that worked with the Sadducees and Sanhedrin, didn’t need full and complete, AND PUBLIC, repentance. They did not want this John to be preaching Law and Gospel, Repent and Believe. And most importantly they did not want John pointing to that Galilean rabbi with any declarations of Messiahship. “We from the ‘consensus squad’ want some identification, John!”
Every Lutheran pastor has had visitors, and sometimes, sadly, even parishioners, snarl at them: “who do you think you are, ‘forgiving’ sins? Only God can forgive sins!” Similar attacks are made against the gracious Sacrament of Holy Baptism for infants, and, well, frankly, any bold and declarative pronouncement a pastor may make that exercises his Office as “holder of The Keys” of losing and binding.
The Baptist didn’t use philosophy, rhetoric, or even persuasive “apologetic” arguments. As God says “let your yea be yea and your nay, nay,” John “confessed, and denied not.” God’s truth, when imparted by The Word and by the Sacramental Word, given and placed in believing hearts by The Holy Ghost, simply moves and constrains all Saints to speak Truth; to speak Christ; to Confess! John however, though a Saint, is not just one of the Saints, but the greatest. Though he denied, when asked if he was a re-incarnation of Elias—the greatest of the Old Testament Hebrew Prophets—or the Prophet resurrected, he was only being literally true. For though Elijah as Elijah, (his parents, his father is never mentioned in Scripture), and John the son of Zacharias, are two distinct and different Saints, John the Baptist is indeed Elijah, as Jesus speaks: “but I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise, shall also The Son of Man suffer of them. Then the Disciples understood that He spake unto them of John the Baptist” [Mt. 17. 12-13]
Should this surprise any Christian? No. If the parish pastor stands “in the stead and by the command” of our Lord Jesus Christ to forgive or retain sin, per Saint John chapter 20 [v. 23] so too our present day Gospelers, and God-Speakers stand in the office of Elias—that self-same office which reached its pinnacle in John The Baptist.
What keeps this wonderful pericope from being merely interesting Biblical history and genealogy is The Word: The Word of God.
God’s Word does not float airily in the aether to descend at whim on everyone, no one, or only some. The Word is not an immediate revelation like a bird dropping dung on one person in a crowd rather than any others. No. The Word is mediated. The Word comes by preaching. You know this, you know what Saint Paul writes. Preaching comes from a preacher and a preacher (Pastor) is one who is called and ordained. The Church recognizes no self-appointed or self-designated ministers of the Word. That is the way of sectarianism and false-teaching.
You too are fellow Christians. You too must always be ready to: “give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” [1Pet. 3.15].
Where’s the Cross? The Cross is in John’s life and his words. His was not the way of glory and riches; power and success. John is the voice! But his voice is not the one being accepted, whittled down, softened, and sugar-coated, in palaces, stock-exchanges, capitol rotundas, and college lecture halls. His voice is rather in the wilderness. It is to strip the bark off the dead tree. It is to plant the root and stem of Jesse! The message of the Cross, foolish and shameful to Greeks and Jews, to pagans and heathens, will one day resound in all places, but it won’t be, because it has been watered down or compromised. The Word of the Lord endures forever despite what the mainstream, social-justice, accommodating quislings and traitors say and do. “Make straight the way of The Lord.” Esaias preached it. John preached it. It is preached in The Church today. We preach Christ Crucified. Jesus is The Way. No one comes to The Father but by Jesus’ Way of the Cross—suffering, denial of self, repentance, and joyful forgiveness and restoration—New Life! All because Jesus Himself kept the Way of the Law and allowed His own body to be laid out straight on the straight wood of the tree…until His punctured and torn Body could no longer remain straight, but slumped in death.
Where is the Cross? It is in The Master’s Words of Peace and loosing. He was bound tight to The Holy Cross to bear your foul and black sins; your even blacker old nature heart. Though none are worthy, or meet, to even bow down to unfasten the latchets of His sandals to make His precious feet ready to be anointed and cleansed, He allows you by His Gracious invitation, and His action-in-you, to permit make you bow down at His Altar that He might loose you again from the weight of sin and feed you the weight of glory—in the peace that passes understanding. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”
Where is the Cross? The fruit of that Tree of Life is here now for you. “These things [are] done in Beth-Jesus beyond Jordan, beyond the Kansas River, where [Jesus] through John, Peter, and all His New Testament shepherds, are baptizing, absolving, and providing Holy food.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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