"Waiting for the Light" (A first-person storytelling sermon for Advent 3)

Chetwynd Shared Ministry

December 17, 2017

Scripture:  John 1:6-8, 19-28

(Note:  I presented this sermon away from the pulpit and my script so what I said probably doesn't match exactly what is written here; but this is the essence of the story that I told.)

My name is Miriam bat Ya’akov.  Don’t go looking for me in that book that you read from every week – you’re not going to find me in its pages.  But I was there.  I was there by the River Jordan.  I met this man, this John that you read about.  I listened to what he had to say, and I was baptized by him, right there in the river.

My family lived in Jerusalem, the biggest city that I have ever seen.  But even there in the city, we had heard about John.  We heard that crowds of people were going out to listen to him.  We heard that he was saying amazing things.  It has been so many years since God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy has sent a prophet to our people, we thought that maybe John might finally be the one.

And so we decided that we too would make the journey from Jerusalem to hear him for ourselves.  My parents and my two younger brothers and I prepared for the journey and we set out.  From Jerusalem we headed north and east to Jericho, and then from Jericho we continued east until we reached the river where John was preaching.

Now that was a dangerous journey.  Everyone knows that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is somewhere that you don’t want to linger.  It’s downhill all the way, but with tight corners and big boulders beside the road, it is a perfect place for thieves and bandits to hide.  But we made the trip safely – it probably helped us that so many people were travelling together – it seems like half of the city of Jerusalem was heading to the river to hear John speak!  All along the way, we kept meeting families we know.

It took us a couple of days to reach the river – with my younger brothers, we couldn’t travel too quickly.  But when we got to the river, it wasn’t hard to find John, because there were crowds of people around him.  I don’t think that I have ever seen so many people gathered in one place, not even in the temple at Passover when our people travel from all over the world to celebrate.

But whenever John started to speak, it was easy to hear him because people quieted right down.  My first thought when I saw him was that he was Elijah, one of our prophets from hundreds of years ago.  The scroll of Kings that is read in the synagogues and in the temple tells us that Elijah wore clothes made of hair and had a leather belt around his waist; and here was John wearing clothes made of camel hair with a leather belt around his waist.

I started to wonder if this John person was really Elijah, returned to earth.  After all, Elijah never died, but was carried off in a whirlwind to be with God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy.  And the prophet Malachi wrote on his scroll, “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”  So if this John was really Elijah come back to earth, that would mean that God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy is going to be coming to earth soon too!

For longer than I’ve been alive, for almost 100 years, our land has been governed by the emperor in Rome rather than by our own people.  And yes, people talk about the “pax romana,” the Roman Peace, but it isn’t really peace.  There isn’t any war these days, but that doesn’t mean much since everyone is living in fear.  If you dare to disagree with the rulers, you will be put into prison or worse.  And there are always rumblings of revolt underneath the so-called peace.

But people are talking that maybe God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy is going to send a Messiah to us – an anointed one – anointed like a king – anointed to free us from Rome and free us from the fear that we are living with every day.  If John is really Elijah come back to earth, then this Messiah might be coming next, and then maybe God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy will come to earth!

My family and I, we listened to John.  He kept saying that he wasn’t the Messiah; that he wasn’t the one we were waiting for.  But he did tell us that we were to get ready.  He read the words from the scroll of Isaiah – “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the ways of the Lord.’”  He told us that we had to change our ways; that we had to turn back to God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy.

Even now, telling you about it, I can feel the fire of his speaking running through me.  I so long for God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy to come to earth, I was willing to change anything, to do anything.  And so I made my way to the front of the crowd, and John asked me if I was ready to repent, to change my ways, to turn back to God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy.  I said “yes!”  I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops!  Yes!  And so I went with the people who were being baptized, and John pushed me under the water, and it was like I was re-born to this new way of living and being.

A few days after we arrived there at the river, there was a commotion.  A group of officials had arrived from the temple back in Jerusalem, and boy-o-boy did they make a show out of their arrival.  The priests back in the temple had heard about John, and this group was sent to test out what John was saying.

They kept quizzing him.  Who are you?  What are you doing?  Who gave you the authority to teach and to preach and to baptize?

They asked him – are you the Messiah?

He answered them – I am not.

They asked him – are you Elijah?  I guess they were thinking the same thing that I was!

But he answered them – I am not.

They asked him – are you the prophet?

He answered them – I am not.

He was really good at telling them who he wasn’t!  When they pushed him even more, he answered using the words from the scroll of Isaiah that he had been reading from – “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the ways of the Lord.’”  He still didn’t answer their question directly!

But then they started quizzing him about who gave him the authority to be teaching and baptizing.  The authorization certainly didn’t come from their group at the temple!

That’s when John started to talk about one who is going to come after him.  He said that he was even lower than a servant or slave in comparison to this one coming after him.  He wasn’t even worthy to untie the strap of the sandal of this one coming after him.

I’m really starting to get curious about who this one coming after John is.  If the Messiah is going to be a king, anointed with oil like our kings in the past, coming to defeat the Romans, then why wouldn’t John be able to be the Messiah’s servant?

I wonder what God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy has planned for us?  John didn’t tell us how long we were going to have to wait.  He just said that this mighty and glorious one is coming after him.

Ever since that day when the officials from the temple came to question him, John has started talking more about this one coming after him.  He calls this one “the light.”  I don’t know what he means by that.  He says that he himself is not “the light” but he has come to tell us about “the light.”

I wonder if this light is God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy?  After all, in the beginning, God-Whose-Name-Is-Holy said, “let there be light” and there was light.

For now, I’ve told my family that I am going to stay with John and this group of people who are with him.  I want to wait and see who this one to come after him is going to be.  And while I’m waiting, I’ve started telling people around me about this one who is coming; this one whom John is calling “the light.”  I’m so excited about this that I can’t keep it to myself – I have to share it too!

Won’t you wait with me?  Won’t you join our group of people who are waiting for the light to come into the world?  Won’t you help me to spread the good news about the light?  John says that the light is coming – let’s wait together!

(The Christmas Tree in the front of the church, lit in anticipation of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.)