A witness to Christ John 1:29 – 1:42 The question about our purpose in life is often raised in times of fear and depression. ‘Why am I here? What difference does my life make?’ These are difficult questions for which there are no simple or single factor answers. The text I read from the Gospel of John helps us here by pointing to a unique personality: John the Baptist, the rough looking, skin wearing, locust eating wilderness Bear Grylls who came to the attention of Jesus Christ. His purpose in life is expressed simply and clearly: ‘He came for testimony. He came to bear witness.’ The answer to the two questions posed. When I was little I used to visit relatives on a farm in Scotland and I was allowed to play with the animals. They had an old milk cow which they milked every day and I was prone to pull at her tail and climb on her neck. And she never moved! She was the epitome of a contented cow, until the day I decided to climb on her back and tried to ride her. At this point she lost all sense of humour. She was never intended to be a horse. God made her a cow. That was why she was here. I suspect that the unhappiest people in the world today are those who have never found their place. They’ve never discovered their niche. Unlike the cow these people are letting themselves be used for purposes for which they are not here. In John the Baptist I want to show you three things. He was a man who had identified Himself His life had contentment His life depended on God’s grace. He was a man who had identified Himself. ‘Who are you?’ they asked. That’s good. That’s a question we all need to ask. Is there a way to describe who we are? Is personhood related to what we do? Is it defined by who we used to be? Is the answer related to God? Am I somehow related to eternity? Who am I? The good news is John knew who he was. He stated it plainly. ‘I am not the Christ, but a voice crying in the wilderness.’ The wilderness was not a pleasant place. In Hebrew history it was a place of long wandering and aloneness. For the people fleeing Egypt with Moses it is where they spent forty years. For Jesus it was the place where he met Satan face to face for forty days. Perhaps we have all been there in the times of our upheaval, sickness, family disintegration, or spiritual darkness. At times it is where we discover ourselves. His life had contentment. He was crying in the wilderness but he was not crying about just anything. I am sure you know a few; there are many today whose lives are obsessed with crying about everything. But John became intent in his heart ‘to make straight the way of the Lord.’ He was to turn the consciousness of the people towards God, for God was about to do a new thing. Is that easy? How do you do that? How do you turn the consciousness of people towards God? John shows us by his example. We are to speak plainly the Word of God as it comes to us. We are to become witnesses and to live our faith courageously. And herein lies our contentment. We are all called to ministry. Maybe not to lead a Church, but in our workplaces, homes, hospital and shopping excursions. Opportunities for ministry approach us in many ways, and we can let them pass us by, or we can move to claim the opportunity and allow God to do through us a brand new thing. Years ago when I started to hopefully show more of Christ in my life and in the ways I treated others, I thought ‘is it safe’ but stepping out of our comfort never is. As I was preparing this I glimpsed over Christmas C. S Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, on television. The children were being told of Aslan, the great lion who is King. One asks another: ‘The king is a lion. Is he safe?’ The leader replies, ‘Is he safe? My, no, he’s not safe, but he’s the king – and he’s good.’ Ministry wherever it is, is not safe, but it is good, and it is for the King. You may, no, you will, come on opposition, but be patient. Come with me to Paris, France, 1954. Elie Wiesel is a correspondent for a Jewish newspaper. A decade earlier he was a prisoner in a Jewish concentration camp. A decade later he would be known as the author of Night, the Pulitzer Prize winning account of the Holocaust. Eventually he’ll be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But tonight Elie Wiesel is a 26-old unknown newspaper correspondent. He is about to interview the French author Francois Mauriac, who is a devout Christian. Mauriac is France’s most recent Nobel laureate for literature and an expert on French political life. Wiesel shows up at Mauriac’s apartment, nervous and chain-smoking — his emotions still frayed from the German horror, his comfort as a writer still raw. The older Mauriac tries to put him at ease. He invites Wiesel in, and the two sit in the small room. Before Wiesel can ask a question, however, Mauriac, begins to speak about his favourite subject: Jesus. Wiesel grows uneasy. The name of Jesus is a pressed thumb on his infected wounds. Wiesel tries to reroute the conversation but can’t. It is as though everything in creation leads back to Jesus. Jerusalem? Jerusalem is where Jesus ministered. The Old Testament? Because of Jesus, the Old is now enriched by the New. Mauriac turns every topic toward the Messiah. The anger in Wiesel begins to heat. The Christian anti-Semitism he’d grown up with, the layers of grief from Sighet, Auschwitz, and Buchenwald — it all boils over. He puts away his pen, shuts his notebook, and stands up angrily. “Sir,” he said to the still-seated Mauriac, “you speak of Christ. Christians love to speak of him. The passion of Christ, the agony of Christ, the death of Christ. In your religion, that is all you speak of. Well, I want you to know that tens years ago, not very far from here, I knew Jewish children every one of whom suffered a thousand times more, six million times more, than Christ on the cross. And we don’t speak about them. Can you understand that, sir? We don’t speak about them.” Mauriac is stunned. Wiesel turns and marches out the door. Mauriac sits in shock, his woollen blanket still around him. The young reporter is pressing the elevator button when Mauriac appears in the hall. He gently reaches for Wiesel’s arm. “Come back,” he implores. Wiesel agrees, and the two sit on the sofa. At this point Mauriac begins to weep. He looks at Wiesel but says nothing. Just tears. Wiesel starts to apologize. Mauriac will have nothing of it. Instead he urges his young friend to talk. He wants to hear about it — the camps, the trains, the deaths. He asks Wiesel why he hasn’t put this to paper. Wiesel tells him the pain is too severe. He’s made a vow of silence. The older man tells him to break it and speak out. The evening changed them both. The drama became the soil of a life-long friendship. They corresponded until Mauriac’s death in 1970. “I owe Francois Mauriac my career,” Wiesel has said . . .and it was to Mauriac that Wiesel sent the first manuscript of Night. What if Mauriac had kept the door shut? Would anyone have blamed him? Cut by the sharp words of Wiesel, he could have become impatient with the angry young man and have been glad to be rid of him. But he didn’t and he wasn’t. He reacted decisively, quickly, and lovingly. He was “slow to boil.” And, because he was, a heart began to heal. May I urge you to do the same? “God is being patient with you” (2 Pet. 3:9). And if God is being patient with you, can’t you pass on some patience to others? Of course you can. Because before love is anything else: Love is patient. The Third point on John was, His life depended on God’s grace. It wasn’t John who was at work. It was God at work in John. His message was demanding but at best only an image of something greater. ‘I baptise with water, but the one who comes after me will baptise you with the spirit.’ John pointed beyond himself to Christ. Redemption is in Christ. And it still is. The greatest need in human life is to relate deeply, personally, intimately with the living Christ. Our need is not met in opinions, creeds, laws and so on, but in our personal experience with Christ. John discovered that life had purpose and that purpose was found within his own testimony, in his sphere of witness. As I have said we have our own opportunities for service and witness, be it at home school or the office. We can let that possibility pass by, or we can today yield completely to its claim. As I was prayerfully thinking over this sermon another sermon seemed to want to come out parallel to this one and in that one I heard John cry out I know You! Have you ever met somebody you’ve never seen before? I remember going to Kirkcudbright to meet one of my mums’ aunts. We travelled to visit her when I was about four and before we moved to Hong Kong. My family knew what she looked like, but I had never seen her before. When I got to her house, I saw her for the first time. Until that day, I would never have known her. I needed someone to show me who she was and what she looked like. Since all my family knew her, I could depend on my family to show me my great aunt. This morning we have talked about John the Baptist. John was doing his ministry in the wilderness, preparing the people for the Son of God. He was preaching to the people about turning away from sin and back to God. John was not sure who the Son of God was, but God told John to look for a sign. God told John that he would know the son of God because he would see the Holy Spirit touch this person. The text from John read Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” I could tell everyone about my Great Aunt. My family showed me who she was. John could tell everyone about Jesus, the Son of God, because His father God showed him who he was. Now John could tell everyone about Jesus. We know Jesus. Each one of us can tell our friends about Jesus, just as John did. This week step out of your comfort zone, it won’t be safe, tell a friend about Jesus and invite that person to Church with you. The Christmas period having just past they will have been told of Him in carols and it should still be fresh. We want everyone to say. I know you! I know you Jesus. But they may not without our help. Albert McMakin was a twenty-four-year old farmer who had recently come to faith in Christ. He was so full of enthusiasm that he filled a truck with people and took them to a meeting to hear about Jesus. There was a farmers son whom he was especially keen to get to a meeting, but this young man was hard to persuade. He was busy falling in and out of love with different girls, and did not seem to be attracted to Christianity. Eventually. Albert McMakin managed to persuade him to come by asking him to drive the truck. When they arrived, Alberts guest decided to go in and was spellbound and began to have thoughts that he had never known before. He went back again and again until, one night, he went forward and gave his life to Jesus Christ. That man, the driver of the truck, was Billy Graham. The year was 1934. Since then Billy Graham has led thousands to faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot all be like Billy Graham, but we can all be like Albert McMakin - we can all bring our friends to Jesus. We can all be Albert McMakin or even a Barnabas. Barnabas I hear you ask? What did he do? Barnabas you may remember sold a field and lay the money at the disciples feet. I am not asking you to do that. Without Barnabas, which means son of encouragement, we would not have most of the New Testament. Barnabas was actually a nickname. How great would it be to leave a legacy where our name reflected what we did? In Acts 9 we read about Paul trying to join the disciples in Jerusalem but they are scared and want nothing to do with him. Not surprising considering his history. But Barnabas stepped forward and brought Paul and the disciples together. From there he was able to go on his first mission journey. On this journey he took John Mark with him who turned back shortly into the trip. When Paul and Barnabas are ready for the second mission journey Barnabas wants to take John Mark again but Paul declines. Barnabas decided to stay with John Mark and encourage him. The result John Mark wrote the Gospel of Mark and even Paul came to respect him. If you cannot be an Albert McMakin, be a Barnabas. Encourage those around you. Like John in the wilderness say I know you I know you Jesus And show it, like Barnabas, by example.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 23:33:05 +0000
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