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A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent
The big event is getting nearer and so: Who was John the Baptist? In Mark 1:4 (also 6:14, 6:24) he is called “John the baptizer” (Mark 1:1-8, 6:14-29) because he baptized people in the River Jordan, called crowds to repent.
If you go to Israel today, you can buy a bottle of water from the River Jordan and bring it home and use that water to baptize a child or grandchildren. In fact, you don’t even have to go to Israel. You can buy a bottle of water from the River Jordan online and have it shipped anywhere.
Who was John the Baptist? He was Jesus’ cousin (Luke 1:13-15). He was a Nazirite, that is, one separated from the rest and consecrated to the Lord (Numbers 6:1-21). The Nazirites took the following vows: 1) You are not to eat anything produced by the grapevine; 2) You are to let your hair grow long, and 3) You are not to touch a human corpse.
The ancient prophet Samuel was a Nazirite (1 Samuel 1:22), as was Samson (Judges 13:5).
John the Baptist wore camel’s hair, ate locusts and wild honey. How do you eat a locust? In those days they ate a locust by first pulling off its head, wings, and legs. In China today people eat dried and salted black beetles.
We know that in the time of John and Jesus there was confusion over who was the genuine Messiah. In Acts 5:36-67 two other messiahs are mentioned, and we know of at least five others in the First Century.
In next week’s Matthew text, in Matthew 11:3, the question is asked of Jesus: “Are you the One?” Or should they look for another? In Luke’s telling, John the Baptist says: “He who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie” (Luke 3:16). And in John 3:30 John the Baptist says: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
The Gospel of Mark reports that John the Baptist was beheaded in prison (Mark 6:28).
In the Orthodox Christian world, there are many festivals commemorating John the Baptist. He had disciples of his own (John 3:25). Later followers of John the Baptist were called Mandeans. John the Baptist is honored in Islam and among the Baha’i.
All of this information is “interesting,” that is, it’s colorful, curious, and even amusing at points. It’s the kind of information that may be useful for a college course on Biblical history. At the same time, all this information is also a distraction that leads us away from the main thing, the main event.
The main thing is: Why is John the Baptist? The real question is not who he was, but “why.”
John the Baptist is like “Elijah.” In Hebrew “Elijah” means “Yahweh is my God.” Think of the Transfiguration, who appeared with Jesus on the Mount? Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets. As it says in Malachi 3:1: “Behold, I will send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
But then it goes on in Malachi 3:2: “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”
And then in Malachi 4:5: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”
What is “the day”? The day of the Lord is the great reset. References to “the day” appear over one hundred times in the Old Testament.
The day of the Lord is a day of wrath, as it says in Zephaniah 1:14-18 “. . . a day of ruin and destruction, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness.” On that day there is no way to buy off God: “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord.”
In the Book of Amos, it says (paraphrase): “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! On that day it is . . . as if a man fled from a lion, only to be confronted by a bear; or he went into the house and leaned with his hand against the wall, and a snake bit him” (Amos 5:18-20).
In the New Testament, Paul writes of the day of the Lord “. . . on that day, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:16).
The day of the Lord is judgment. Holiness cannot abide sin and evil.
The day of the Lord is also deliverance, when the Lord creates anew.
Thus, the day of the Lord is both judgment and deliverance. We see this in the Old Testament, in such passages as Joel 2:30-32, where it says: “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”
And in the New Testament, in Acts 2:20-21, which echoes that passage from Joel. It says: “. . . the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
In this way the Day of the Lord becomes “the New Day,” the day of resurrection, the dawn of the new Jerusalem, the creation of a new heaven and earth.
In John 1:29 John the Baptist points to Jesus and says: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
In the town of Colmar, France, there is an art museum which houses a huge painting of the crucifixion by the Reformation artist, Matthias Grünewald. In the center Christ hangs from the cross and to Christ’s left, off on the side, is John the Baptist, forever pointing to Jesus Christ on the cross. That painting is based on John 1:29: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
That’s what John the Baptist does eternally; he points to the cross, to the sacrificial Lamb.
But note: The image of the Lamb is reversed in John 10. There the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep:
- John 10:11: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”
- John 10:14: “I am the Good Shepherd; I know my own and my own know me . . .”
- John 10:17: “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.”
This is the Gospel, the Good News to which John the Baptist eternally points: God’s victory over sin, death, and the devil.
The day of the Lord, that day of judgment and deliverance, comes to each of us the day we were baptized. It is there at the font that, as Luther says, the Lord reaches down and snatches us from the jaws of the evil one and makes us his own (LC, Fourth Part: Baptism, 83).
Amen