Readings:
Sermon:
If you look back in your life, I wonder if you can think of times when you were in at the beginning of something?
Perhaps over Christmas or the New Year you have been part of one of those intergenerational conversations that drive young people mad – until they themselves become old people? The ones that start ‘can you believe that we used to live without mobile phones / the internet / social media’? Or ‘we remember the time when pubs all closed at 10.30 / shops didn’t open on Sundays / when bananas were an exotic treat!’?
We look back and remember all the little clues and events that came to add up to something momentous, of lasting significance. I remember the pre-marketing campaign, “the future’s bright, the future’s orange” and having to discover that it was for what we now know as a mobile phone network – and no, I couldn’t understand why there was such a fuss about it – until much later.
John the Baptist was in at the start of Jesus’ ministry and today’s reading is rich with the jigsaw pieces of all that is coming together. I will name a few, but I want to encourage you to gaze into this reading, like someone gazing into a crystal-clear pool, and notice all the things that are there to be seen.
Despite being related to Jesus, possibly even his cousin, John tells us that he knows who Jesus is, because the same urge, voice, being, call it what you will, that had called him to his ministry of baptism, had also told him to notice the visible, tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, descend ‘like a dove’, on to someone he was baptising with water and by this, he would know him to be ‘the Son of God’.
We are so used to hearing the names of Jesus, we can easily overlook them in this passage. John the Baptist names Jesus as ‘the Son of God’ and as ‘The Lamb of God’, names that would have been considered heretical by the Jewish leaders. This is momentous. This announces Jesus as the Messiah, the one long watched and waited for.
No surprise then that two of those who had been following John the Baptist now latch onto Jesus. It seems they don’t approach him until he speaks to them, asking them the question “what are you looking for?” They don’t really know the answer, other than to learn – ‘we want to hang out with you, teacher’, they say.
What, this year, in 2023, do you want, from knowing Jesus? I know that I want to hang out with him, to learn, to imbibe his very being.
And here in our rock pool of theology, we find too our introduction to those early first disciples. Immediately one of them, Andrew, goes to call his brother Simon, who is immediately anointed with a new name, Peter, ‘the rock’, on whom we know the church is to be built.
John had to learn, to hear the voice that called him to his work of baptising people with water, preparing the ground for the Messiah. He had to trust that voice and courageously proclaim the Messiah, when Jesus came before him.
Andrew did not delay in sharing his excitement with his brother Simon, he didn’t wait saying ‘first I need to know more, first I need to understand everything’, he went straight away and called him in.
I hope that you have memories of looking into a rockpool or stream and being surprised by the riches and diversity of what you saw there. Things that made you want to look again, find out more. I have told you about some of the things I noticed in this reading. As you read it again, what do you most notice? What is your attention drawn to?
Thank God for John the Baptist. For his willingness to listen to the promptings of God, for his courage to speak truth even when it was dangerous. Thank God for each of you too for the ways in which you live out God’s call in your life and for all the possibilities that lie before us in the year ahead. May you know the excitement of the early disciples.
Questions:
- What in this reading, full of riches, most catches your attention today?
- Imagine yourself turning away from John the Baptist to follow Jesus, as he turns to you and says, “What are you looking for?”, what would you answer?
- Who would you most like to share the excitement of knowing Jesus with this year?