Expecting Christ
John 1:6-8, 19-28
There is an old preacher story about a baptism in a river. Among those being baptized was one soul who did not yet believe in Jesus as his savior. There was a hope among his family and friends that a good dunking in the river might wash away his sins and put him on the straight and narrow path. So this person, wanting to keep peace in his family, reluctantly agreed to be baptized.
Standing together in the river, the minister lowered the person backwards into the water, submerging him. After a few moments – perhaps in order to emphasize just how much sin needed to be washed away – the minister raised the person out of the water and asked, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”The man replied, “No, sir, I do not believe in Jesus.”
The minister, surprised by this answer, immediately took the man backwards into the water again, where he held him for a few more moments. Raising him up, the minister asked again, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” Again, the man replied, “No, sir. I do not believe in Jesus.”
Before the man could catch his breath, the minister took him back under the water. For the briefest of moments, the minister considered just holding him under until Peter could ask him that same question at the Pearly Gates. But hope and faith prevailed, and the man was lifted up out of the water a third time. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” The man, spitting and gasping, said, “No, sir. I do not.”
In exasperation, the minister asked, “Well, then, what do you believe?” The man replied, “I believe you’re trying to drown me.”
What did these people expect to happen at a baptism where the man did not believe or want to be baptized? This minister apparently expected that if he did the baptizing, God would have to do the saving. The family expected that if the man got baptized, he would have to become a better man from that moment on. The man expected that if he got baptized, the family would have to get off his back about giving up all the fun things he did that they considered vices.
What these people all had in common was the expectation that the only thing that mattered was what they wanted. The minister wanted God to act on the minister’s schedule. The family wanted the man to change to fit their image of who he should be. And the man wanted to still be who he was all along. Yet, because none of them wanted to be humble before God so they could seek God’s will, none of them got what they wanted.
What do we expect to happen when we live as disciples? Early in my ministry, I expected that people would listen to my sermons, immediately see the insights and wisdom, and then successfully apply them to their lives. I expected that if I preached on something once, then the people would make the changes necessary in their lives to walk that straight and narrow way with Jesus. I expected that if they understood the gospel, they would live the gospel.
These expectations led to two crises in faith for me. First, what was I going to preach on after I had covered all the big issues? And second, after it became readily apparent that some people either were not listening or thought I was just wrong about the things of faith, what was the point of continuing to preach if it wasn’t going to make an immediate and holy difference?
I have a story posted on our church website that helped get me through the crisis. As an aside, there is a lot of really good stuff on our church website, and I would encourage you to visit it often just to explore all the different pages – though you can do this after the service. This specific story is on the “My Presence” page, and it is about expectations.
A couple met, got to know each other, fell in love, and got married. For a while, it was the perfect relationship. But one day, after eating his breakfast, the husband left for work and then did not come home that evening.
There was no sign of him the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Months grew into years.
Every so often a check would arrive at their home, which was just enough to keep the lights on and to take care of the basics.
Then, one day the husband showed up at dinner time. He sat down at the table and asked his wife what was for dinner. “What do you mean, what’s for dinner? Where have you been?” the wife demanded to know.
“What are you so upset about?” the husband replied. “I told you I loved you. I married you. I sent you money. What more could you want from me?”
What did the wife expect of her husband? She expected an ongoing relationship – not a check list of things done once. What does God expect of us? God expects us to love God and to love our neighbors, and we do that by being with God in worship, and by being with our neighbors in ways that affirms God’s love for them. Our commitment of faith is supposed to be an ongoing relationship.
Our relationship with God through Jesus Christ has to be more than a check list. Got baptized? Check. Joined the church? Check. Sent money to support the church? Check. Showed up every now and then? Check. If that is all our relationship with God is, it will be about as satisfying for God as the relationship was between the husband and wife in our story.
My wife Pam is in her last year of teaching before retirement. One of the lessons that Pam has taught me comes from her experience in the classroom: children will live up to, or down to, our expectations of them. This applies to how they behave in class, and how they perform in class.
This insight applies to the church, as well. Our members live up to, or down to, our expectations for them. And to be quite honest, the church has not expected a whole lot from its members for the last few generations. We expect you to show up – when there is nothing more interesting going on. We expect you to give – if you have anything left over and you feel like it. We expect you to serve – even as we downplay the importance and commitment of serving.
Not surprisingly, we have taught our children and youth that “attending upon the ordinances of God” – to use the old expression – is basically optional and is left up to their own comfort levels. What else could we have expect to have happened?
The gospel writers had much different expectations for the followers of Jesus Christ. Scholars generally agree that Mark’s gospel is the oldest of the four we have in our New Testament. Matthew and Luke borrow heavily from Mark, while adding some other common material and some of their own materials. The expectation of the synoptic gospels was that people needed to know what Jesus did and how he fulfilled the scriptures as the messiah.
John’s gospel is the last written of the four. By the time of the writing of John’s gospel, the concern was shifting away from the historical account of Jesus’ life – that if we understand what Jesus did, then the people would do what Jesus did. The shift for the new generation and the new culture was about lifting up the spiritual account of Jesus’ life. It was a shift from “what Jesus did in this life for us” to “what Jesus means for our life together.” We can see some of that distinction in our reading for today.
John’s gospel doesn’t tell us about John the Baptist wearing clothes made of camel hair. We are not told about his eating locusts and wild honey in the wilderness. There is no mention of his birth or his being a cousin of Jesus. The synoptic gospels all shared those details as important to establishing John’s credentials as a prophetic voice consistent with the traditions of other ancient prophets. But they are kind of beside the point for John’s gospel.
In John’s gospel, even the baptizing done by John the Baptist is downplayed, as the gospel writer is only concerned with John’s testimony about Jesus. The people already knew enough about John – itis Jesus that matters. This gospel was written with the expectation that it is Jesus we need to know about, it is Jesus we need to love, and it is Jesus we need tobelieve in and follow.
John’s gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” John’s gospel, echoing the Book of Genesis, declares that Jesus didn’t just come to life in Bethlehem, but that he has always been alive – even before the Creation of the world. Jesus is more than just the baby in Bethlehem – he is the Co-Eternal God.
And with an opening like that, the original readers of this gospel would rightly expect a story that has universal and eternal significance.Those readers would expect a story about God-with-us, and not just a story about a man who was close to God.
When we read the gospels today, we have our own expectations that are different than those held by the original readers. For example, we believe that what John the Baptist did in the River Jordan was baptize people. That’s what we would expect from someone we call John the Baptist.
This is fine, except that John didn’t baptize people – at least, not as we understand and practice baptism. John wouldn’t have called what he did a baptism, either. Baptism is a Greek word. As a Jew, who prayed in Hebrew and who spoke Aramaic, what John practiced was called a mikveh. A mikveh was a ritual cleansing with a spiritual purpose, which was to be done on several occasions.
It was done for women after childbirth or menstruation. It was done for a bride before her wedding. It was done for priests before their service in the Temple. It was done for men on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It was done for converts to Judaism.
A mikveh wasn’t just for living people, though. A mikveh was done to prepare a dead person for burial. A mikveh was also done for new kitchen utensils before they were put into use. These others uses show us that the meaning of the mikveh was to prepare the person or item for God’s holy purposes.
There is a sense of cleansing in the ritual, obviously, but the meaning extended beyond the washing away of uncleanliness. When applied to living persons, the rabbis taught thatthe person’s heart also had to be right before God, orall that was done was the soiling of the water.
This is part of the confusion we find among the priests. Why is John performing mikveh? Why is John preparing persons for the purposes of God if he is not a priest or someone sent from God?
I love John’s answer, though its message kind of gets lost in the translation. John says to the priests, “This is just water. This is just the warm-up act. Instead of focusing on what I am doing, you need to see the big picture! Someone is coming, someone we need to get ready for, someone who is really sent by God.I’m just reminding people to get ready so that they can be used for God’s purposes when God comes to them.” Or, in other words, John tells us that it is time to expect Jesus to come as our Lord and savior!
What do we expect in this Advent season? Do we only expect busy-ness, and Christmas carols, and brightly wrapped presents? Do we only expect egg nog and mistletoe and a Charlie Brown Christmas special? We know how to prepare for those expectations.
Or do we expect the coming of Christ in glory and power? Do we expect peace on earth, and good will towards all people? Do we expect that God will be with us in an ongoing and nurturing relationship? If that is our expectation, and I declare to you that this is the holy expectation, then preparing for the coming of Christ will include humility, service, and vulnerability. It will require of us the risk of loving God and loving our neighbors.
In this season, there will be people who expect everything to be done according to their will. There will be people who will be expecting to be drowned by all the blitz and glitter. And there will be people who will try to live up to, or down to, the expectations of their families.
But the happy people, the calm people, the joyful people expect that Jesus comes to be with us. This is who they expect. This is who they think about.
I want you to be happy, and holy, in this season. And I still believe it is important for us to know what Jesus did, so that we can do what Jesus did, because this is the holy way to be in the relationship God wants us to have with God and each other. So let’s think about Jesus as we sing, and expect him to draw near to our hearts!
UM Hymnal 175 “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee”