Background Passages: John 1:29-31; John 3:23-30; Matthew 16:24-26
The classical music world generally considers Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini as the greatest and most influential musician of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Known for his intensity and his quest for musical perfection, he had an ear for orchestral detail, He was, at various times, the orchestra director for La Scala in Milan, Italy, and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
One evening after a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the audience gave Toscanini and the orchestra a prolonged standing ovation. Filled with great emotion, Toscanini turned to his musicians and whispered, “I am nothing. You are nothing.” Then, in a reverent tone, the conductor said, “But Beethoven…Beethoven is everything!”
For the gifted conductor, he and the amazingly talented musicians of the orchestra shined only as instruments through which the genius of Beethoven could be heard. Their presence and performance were subordinate to the music so brilliantly put together by the famed composer.
It’s a humility that John the Baptist understood in his relationship to Jesus.
In his Bible dictionary compiled in 1901, Dr. William Smith calls John the Baptist “the most theologically significant individual in the Bible” apart from Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, his birth is meticulously recorded in scripture and carried with it a miraculous conception reminiscent of Abraham and Sarah with its divine proclamation and intervention.
John is the only person recorded in scripture, other than Jesus as the fully divine expression of the Holy Trinity, to experience the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit from conception. Luke told us so as he described the angel’s message to John’s frightened father.
He will be a joy and delight to you and many people will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is to never take wine or other fermented drink and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. (Luke 1:14-16)
Prior to Pentecost, God’s spirit came to specific people for a specific time and a specific purpose. When that time and purpose had been accomplished or when the person turned away from God’s calling as Saul did, the Spirit left them. In John’s case, he lived his life from birth to death with God’s spirit ever present in his life.
Born into a priest’s home in Jerusalem, John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin. Separated by the distance between Jerusalem and Nazareth, I doubt that the cousins saw each other much more than once a year when Jesus’ parents brought him to the holy city for Passover. Though they had much in common, they were intensely different people.
If Jesus’ mother Mary was like my mom, she would have lovingly called John an “weird onion” as she hugged his neck. He lived life differently from most boys. John might have teased Jesus about his studious love of scripture and Jesus might have joked with John about his camel-haired sense of style and his penchant for snacking on honeyed locusts. (Matthew 2:4) It would have been a fun relationship to watch develop over the years.
John began his public ministry before Jesus as a “voice crying out in the wilderness” preparing the way for the coming Messiah. He preached repentance to the Jewish people, telling them that the days in which they were living marked the culmination of the law and the prophets and heralded the dawn of God’s kingdom.
As a result of his ministry, people flocked to John’s side, listening and responding to his message. Hundreds, if not thousands, sincerely turned back to God and were baptized by John in the Jordan River. His was a simple, but powerful message. Someone asked him one day if he was the promised Messiah. In his response, you get a sense of John’s understanding of his role in God’s plan.
After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. (Mark 1:7-8)
Now, imagine this day. John stood waist deep in the river, water dripping from his camel-hair shirt, as he baptized one person after another who confessed their sin and asked for God’s forgiveness. As he looked up to welcome the next person into the water, he saw the crowd part as Jesus walked carefully down the slippery riverbank.
In the booming voice of a wilderness evangelist, John declaresdto all who can hear…
Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Reminding them of his earlier proclamation, John said, “This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'” I did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel. (John 1: 29-31)
Jesus smiled as he stepped into the water in front of John and asked to be baptized. Dumbfounded, John couldn’t imagine any way that Jesus’ request made sense. Drenched in unworthiness. John refused.
“I need to be baptized by you, and yet, do you come to me?
I can see Jesus taking his cousin by the shoulders, staring intently but gently into his eyes.
“Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:14-16)
Afterward, John continued his ministry in the wilderness, calling the people to repentance and pointing the way to Jesus. At the same time, Jesus began to teach and preach. His teaching and his miracles drew crowds equal to and sometimes greater than John’s.
While John was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, along the Jordan River, about midway between Judea and Galilee, an argument developed between John’s disciples and a Jew over ceremonial washing. The Jewish man came to John and indicated that Jesus, whom John baptized, had been baptizing also and seemed to be drawing people away from John’s following.
It’s hard to tell whether the man was genuinely curious about what he felt like were competing ministries or whether he was trying to sew discord between John and Jesus. It could be that he was trying to pit one against the other for the benefit of the Jewish religious leaders who perceived both men as threats to their standing with the people.
John’s response caught my attention this week despite having read the passage many times. Listen to it.
A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, “I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.” The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must be greater: I must become less. (John 3:23-30)
Because of God’s spirit within him, John the Baptist knew he played the role of best man in this story. Jesus was the bridegroom and those who believe in him his bride. That Jesus had now burst on the scene brought joy to John’s heart. Then, he said a few words you and I need to say every day.
He must be greater; I must become less.
Those eight words are easy for us to say, but so incredibly hard for us to live. Yet they need to be a constant refrain in our hearts.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we want Jesus to increase in importance to the world, but we kind of want to increase along with him. To decrease, to become less, makes us feel unimportant or forgotten. John took none of that into consideration. He wanted to live in such a way that people didn’t think of him at all. He wanted to live so people would think only of Jesus.
In those words, he challenged us to make Jesus greater in our lives, to take a back seat and let the light shine on Jesus. To let others see Jesus in and through us. Subordinating our will to his. Then, as John expressed, to find joy when we hear his voice louder than we hear our own.
John the Baptist expressed words of humility and I don’t always do humility well. Yet, the way of decrease is deeply engrained in scripture.
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. (Romans 12:3)
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Who, being the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Paul recognized his need to decrease in his life committed to Christ, telling the people of Galatia…
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I lie in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)
If I am to put Christ first in my life, let him increase, that means surrendering my will to the will of God. Becoming more like Jesus as I follow him. Living my life in complete and absolute faith in him.
You hear Paul’s words stemming from Jesus’ own words to his disciples as he explained the life God requires of all believers. It resonates just as clearly today.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. For what good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26)
When I am willing to share the cross with Christ and follow his lead; when I am willing to lose myself in Christ’s shadow, only then will I find the abundant life he promised.
The praise of this world means little absent the presence of God in our lives. Putting him first. “Magnifying his name,” as Paul says when he sent his letter to the Philippian church.
When we use the word “magnify” today, we talk about making something bigger or larger like with a telescope or microscope. It was Paul’s desire that Christ would be magnified (made larger than Paul), so Christ would be honored, exalted and lifted up before all people.
Had he lived long enough to know Paul as the mighty missionary he came to be, John the Baptist would have agreed with him. To magnify Jesus means we must decrease while he must increase.
It is a sobering thought when I realize I’ve not always lived that way. With every temptation to exalt myself, I need to paraphrase the words of Toscanini. “I am nothing. You are nothing. But, Jesus…Jesus is everything.”
Let’s pray that God might help us live with the echo of John’s words in our hearts. “I must decrease; he must increase.”
Amen?
Amen.