John the Baptist – Dr. Kirk Lewis

I Must Become Less

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.

When Doubt Creeps In

Background Passage: Luke 7:18-28; John 16:33; and I Corinthians 15:58

Being discouraged is a common human experience. If you’re not discouraged now about something happening in your life, you haven’t lived long enough, or you’re exceptionally blessed. Truthfully, in my experience, if you’re not discouraged now, just hang on. You will be at some point. Our faith gets tested time and time again by life’s challenging circumstances.

Discouragement feeds off of itself as it drives us to do or not do things that make our situation worse, spiraling into doubt and despair. In the end, we grow frustrated about what has happened or fearful of what might happen.

Noted Christian theologian and author C. S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters in 1942. Screwtape, a upper management demon offers advice to his nephew, a novice demon looking to work his way up in the devil’s kingdom. Screwtape shares his wisdom in a series of letters that offer keen insight into the human condition.

In one such letter, Screwtape advises his nephew to sew fear and discouragement into the hearts of those who follow God, whom he called their Enemy. Screwtape writes, “We want him (the human) to be in the maximum uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled with contradictory pictures of the future, everyone one of which arouses hope or fear. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. The Enemy wants men to be concerned with how they live. Our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”

If we enter our relationship with Christ expecting a trouble-free life, discouragement is a given. At some point, we will worry about what will happen to us. Jesus warns us that our time on earth will have “many trials and sorrows.” He doesn’t leave us there, however. He adds, “Take heart because I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Experiencing discouragement and doubt in troubled times is a natural response when answers don’t come quickly or when the answer is not what we expected or wanted.

You can read passage after passage in scripture about exceptional men and women of faith who grew discouraged at what life threw at them. This week I came across a passage in Luke that I’ve read but not considered deeply. In this passage, John the Baptist’s experience provides a fresh take on how we are to respond to doubts that creep in from time to time.

Can you imagine any time that John the Baptist, that fiery, locust-eating preacher and prophet, would be discouraged and filled with doubt? Here’s a guy about whom Jesus offered high praise. Talking to a crowd about John the Baptist, Jesus said,

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothe and indulge in luxury are in palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” I tell you, among those born of women there is not one greater than John…” (Luke 7:24b-28)

To Jesus, John was rock solid, called by God to set the stage for the final act of God’s redemptive plan. Let’s think about John the Baptist. (To make it less cumbersome, I’ll just call him John from now on.)

Jesus and john were kinfolk. John was born to Zachariah and Elizabeth, Mary’s relative, just months before Jesus was born. It is John whom the spirit made jump for joy while still in his mother’s womb as Mary told Elizabeth about the things God told her about her own baby. He’s safe in the womb and John’s already “preparing the way of the Lord.”

Since they lived in different towns, I doubt that Jesus and John were everyday playmates as children, but I can certainly see them playing together as children when the families gathered. I can imagine John and Jesus having some interesting conversations about life and faith as they grew to be teenagers. I can certainly hear the deeper and more substantial theological conversations as they stood on the threshold of their respective ministries.

This is the same John to whom Jesus came when he felt the need to be baptized in the Jordan River. Hear John make this strong declaration about Jesus in the moment.

“Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!…I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” (John 1:29,34)

It is John who stood waist deep in the Jordan with Jesus, hearing the voice of God declare,

“This is my Son, the one I love. I am very pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:16-17)

If anything could cement his faith and trust in Jesus, that should be it.

It was John whose strong preaching called for repentance, urging God’s people to turn back to him. It was John who told his disciples that Jesus must increase while he (John) must decrease. It was John who chastised the rich and powerful for ignoring God’s word. It was John who was unafraid to call sin a sin, even if it meant confronting Herod, the most powerful man in Judea.

Still, as solidly as John was grounded in his faith and belief, he had a moment of doubt and despair when his life took that unexpected twist.

After calling out Herod for committing adultery with his brother’s wife, the despot had enough. Herod arrested John, shackled him and tossed him into a small, dark cell, until the king’s new wife and step-daughter conspired to have John beheaded.

While languishing in prison, John heard from some of his disciples of Jesus’ growing popularity. They told him about Jesus healing the son of a Roman centurion and raising from the dead a widow’s only son. Here’s how Luke tells the story.

“John’s disciples told him about all these things. Calling two of them, he sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” When the men came to Jesus they said, “John the Baptist sent us to you to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

“At that very time Jesus cured many who had disease, sickness and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” (Luke 7:18-23)

Did you hear John’s question? “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John earlier declared Jesus “God’s Chosen One.” He already testified that Jesus was the Messiah. What caused his apparent change of heart?

I think the reason for his question was personal. John had done the right thing…always. He had dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s just as God led him to do, but he still found himself in prison with no way out. John could no longer do what he felt called to do.

This prophet of God faced a death sentence because he proclaimed what he thought was God’s truth. He wanted and needed to know his suffering was worth it. In his mind, everything he did that brought him to this dark place seemed in vain. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Screwtape was whispering lies that led to discouragement, doubt and despair.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He was supposed to see God’s kingdom restored. He sure didn’t expect to be locked away in prison while Jesus took what seemed to be a less aggressive and less controversial path.

John’s question is one I’ve asked many times when life took its unexpected and nasty twist or when I’ve been confused and confronted with the will of God that runs counter to my own desire. Is Jesus really the one? Is Jesus who I believed him to be? Do I really trust him with my life even in the middle of this mess I’m in?

When struggling with questions of life and faith, most of us don’t go to Jesus…at least not at first. We don’t go to the source of life. We like to wallow in our misery for a bit.

Yet, in his most troubled moment John, whether he knew it or not, teaches us a lesson about what to do when doubt creeps in. When his faith wavered, John did one thing right. In the middle of his despair, John took his doubts directly to Jesus.

John’s disciples posed the prophet’s question to Jesus. Jesus didn’t blink. He didn’t roll his eyes at John’s confusion. The scripture says, “At that very time Jesus cured many diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits…”

In other words, Jesus suggested, “Why don’t you guys just take a seat and watch for a while.” Then he went about doing what Jesus always did. He took care of the people he encountered. When he finished his work, he instructed those two disciples to go back and tell John what they had seen and heard.

That Jesus touched the lives of people was a clear message to John designed to reassure his downcast heart. The people to whom John had also preached were seeing God’s kingdom at work. More than that, however, the work Jesus did as those disciples watched matched specifically several Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah that John, in his wisdom, would know by heart.

When Jesus talked of making the blind see and the deaf hear, John could recall Isaiah 35:5. When Jesus spoke of sharing the good news to the poor, John would hear the echo of Isaiah 61:1. When Jesus talked about raising the dead, John could quote Isaiah 26:19. Each and every one prophesied about the coming Messiah.

You see, as John sat in the filth of that prison, he needed to be reminded of the servant Messiah’s true nature. Jesus loved and cared for the people and proclaimed the good news to them, building upon the repentance John preached. In all he did in that moment, coupled with the references to Old Testament prophecies, Jesus validated John’s good work of preparing the way for God’s anointed. Jesus was exactly who John thought he was. He did those things that John, in his heart, knew the Messiah was called to do.

In the prison of our discouragements, whatever they may be, we need to take our worries to Jesus. To find truth in the answers to all of life’s questions embedded in God’s word. To remind ourselves of all Jesus has done for us and for those around us. To see his work and the impact that work made in our lives and the lives of others. To have our lives, our faith and our work validated through the grace God offers to all of us. Going to Jesus in prayer and studying his word helps us see past the bars of whatever prison in which we we’ve locked ourselves.

At the end of his message to John, Jesus offered an encouraging and kind rebuke to his kin. He told those two disciples to tell John, “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.” Here’s what I think that meant to John, and, by extension, what I think it means to you and me.

Jesus says, “I’m the one. If you’re questioning that, don’t. Don’t look for anyone else. Just don’t lose faith just because I’m not doing things the way you think I should or because things aren’t going your way. Just be who you were called by God to be. Trust my will and my way.”

That’s the rub, isn’t it? In the middle of our discouragement and doubt, we want God to do things the way we think he should. Fit him into our Messianic mold. That’s never the right answer to the troubles that eat at our souls.

I keep going back to that verse in John where Jesus was trying to comfort his disciples at the reality of his sacrifice hit them square in the face.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

“Take heart. I have overcome the world.”

No matter what words old Screwtape is whispering in your ears, know this. With God’s victory guaranteed, no mess we find ourselves in can separate us from his love and grace.

In the middle of our discouragement, we can find peace and take heart in who he is and what he is doing in our lives. And if our prayers seem unanswered, if our lives have taken that unexpected turn as John’s did, we need only to take our fears to Jesus. He is the one. You don’t need to look for anyone or anything else.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” I Corinthians 15:58)

I think John would say amen to that.