Bible Text: John 1:19-28 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus
The people who come to John are talking about Christ but they don’t know who He is. This should sound familiar. The word Christ is on everyone’s lips today. People can’t help it. It’s Christmas. I think I heard Merry Christmas from at least ten different people yesterday. Thank God for that. The politically correct trend of avoiding the word “Christmas” was never going to stick. People will continue to say Merry Christmas because that’s the holiday we celebrate in America. And when we say happy holidays, we mean Christmas and New Years, because no one observes Kwanza and even the Jews consider Hannukah a very minor holiday. We celebrate Christmas. So people are saying, Merry Christmas, they have the word Christ on their tongues. But most don’t know the Christ of Christmas and even fewer have any idea what the mass of Christmas is (mass is just a word for Divine Service, for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper). So John said to the Pharisees and priests who are asking him whether he’s the Christ, “There stands One among you whom you do not know.” That’s Jesus. From the time of John the Baptist till now, the word Christ has been on people’s lips, but who this Christ is, what Christmas is, that belongs to those to know who hear the voice of the one calling in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord.
John calls himself a voice. The voice is what sends out the word. And who it is speaking doesn’t really matter. John refuses any title. He’s not the Christ obviously, so he couldn’t have claimed that one. But he could have claimed to be Elijah. Jesus calls him Elijah. He’s not literally Elijah revisiting the earth, but he does come in the spirit of Elijah to prepare for the coming of Christ. He could have claimed that. And he isn’t the prophet, but he is a prophet, and the greatest of them, as Jesus says, but he won’t claim that either. This is because who he is personally is irrelevant. What he says matters.
There are two errors that people fall into when it comes to pastors and preachers, and you see them both here clearly in these questions to John the Baptist. The first is that people think there is something special about pastors, like they have special powers. People will think that a pastor praying is somehow more effective than any other Christian praying. Or that the forgiveness spoken by a pastor is more or greater than the forgiveness spoken by any Christian. The Roman Catholics actually teach this – they call it the indelible character. The idea is that when a priest gets ordained there is a power transferred to him, so that he now has the power in himself as a priest to make the bread and wine Jesus’ body and blood, or now has the power in himself to forgive sins. But the power is not in him. The power to make that bread and wine the body and blood of Jesus is in the word and command of Jesus. And the power to forgive sins is in the word of Christ crucified for you, not in the priest and not in the pastor. That’s why John calls himself a voice.
But the opposite error is to say that pastors have no authority at all. That since it’s the word that matters, we don’t need some position of authority to speak that word. We only need the word. But who is going to speak the word? Why was John speaking it? Why was he out there in camel hair, eating locusts, and baptizing and preaching? Because God told him to. Called him to it. Gave him the words to speak. St. Paul says, “How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent?” Jesus sent out the apostles first and now through His Church he continues to call and send pastors to preach the word. That’s what we heard last week in the epistle reading, “Let a man so consider us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”
John obviously holds an office. He is a prophet, a pastor. But he doesn’t appeal to himself as the authority. He appeals to the word he preaches. Because it’s not his word, it’s God’s, and the word isn’t about him, it’s about Jesus. That’s the pastor’s office, to be a voice for God.
So John calls himself a voice, but it’s a voice crying in the wilderness. John cried in the wilderness literally. But when he says “in the wilderness” he’s not talking about the wilderness of Palestine by the Jordan River. He’s not talking about a certain geographical place or time. He’s talking about your wilderness. This is biblical talk. Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise and into the wilderness because of their sin. The people of Israel wandered the wilderness for 40 years before entering the promised land, because they were disobedient. Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. The wilderness is where the devil is, where the curse is, it’s the world of sin and death and temptation and pain, it’s our world, the wilderness we live in.
No one is going to hear and pay attention to a voice crying in the wilderness if he thinks he’s in a paradise. Where there’s no recognition of our sin, no fear of God’s wrath and judgment, no realization of the curse of death upon us, people aren’t going to listen to the voice of John that calls men to repentance. This is why the voice crying in the wilderness is not always pleasant. God sent John and He sends every faithful preacher to speak the word that shows the wilderness for what it is. And this word is specific. It’s not simply a general proclamation that you are sinners.
John ended up in prison for the specificity of his preaching: he told King Herod that he had sinned by taking his brother’s wife as his own. John said the ax is laid to the roots of the tree, and everyone who does not repent will be cut down. He told tax collectors to stop stealing, soldiers to stop bullying. So what’s your lack, what is it that makes your life a desert? Have you lusted for what is not yours, have you acted on your lust, have you envied what other people have, as if God is not taking care of you, have you nursed your pride and been angry with people for not giving you the attention you think you deserve, have you drunk too much, have you gossiped about others instead of defending them and speaking well of them, have you been afraid of dying, have you doubted God and His promises, have you ignored your Creator, have you been obsessed with the trivialities of the secular Christmas season and worried about money, whatever it is, the voice cries in the wilderness, “Repent.”
Make straight the way of the Lord. That’s what John preaches, what God told him to preach and the message is for you. How can you possibly make straight the way of the Lord? Jesus is the Way. That’s what Christmas is all about. You see the wilderness of your life, the sin, the pain, the death, and you need a way through it, and Jesus comes. He doesn’t demand that you make up for your sin. He doesn’t insist that you turn the desert into a paradise. He knows very well you can’t. He comes to sinners who know their sin and want to do better but cannot find it in themselves to be pure and holy. He comes to mortals who cannot take away the curse of death. And He comes with love and forgiveness and with life everlasting and peace with God. He makes rivers spring up in the desert, as Isaiah says.
Look who this is who comes to you. “There stands one among you who comes after me though he was before me, whose sandal straps I am not worthy to untie.” He is God. He is our Creator. He is the Almighty. He is the everlasting Son of the Father. And He stands among us. Not to condemn us or punish us, but to save us. He became a little baby on Christmas. He came to bear our sins on the cross. The very next verse after our Gospel for this morning, is John’s words, as he points to Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
There stands One among us whom we do know. He is our Savior. He is Christ our Lord. We have His name on our lips this Christmas and we know Him, because He has come to us. He became a child for us, He was tempted in the wilderness for us, He took our curse, died our death, bore our sins, and He gives us life. We celebrate Christmas and we take the name of Christ on our lips and we rejoice always. If you are mourning death this Christmas, Christ has conquered death, if you are lonely, He is with you, if you are dealing with sickness and pain, He has borne that too and will relieve you. There is nothing that can rob you of the joy He brings, life eternal, peace with God. So keep his name on your lips and receive His body and His blood and give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. Amen.