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INTRODUCTION
Today is the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany. Epiphany itself – the revelation of Jesus as Christ or Messiah to the world, as represented by the Three Wise Men or Magi – was January 4. Then last week was the story of the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist in the Jordan River – often this is a day when we renew our own Baptism, as we did at Christ Church last Sunday. The story of Jesus’ Baptism is more or less identical in the three Synoptic Gospels – this year is the Matthew year in the Lectionary, so we had the Matthew version last week – and the message John the Baptist gives is the same (3:11):
“I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I ….. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Today we have John’s version – John the Gospel writer, that is – in Chapter 1 verses 29-42, which doesn’t directly describe Jesus’ Baptism, but has the same clear statement of what looks like a new form of Baptism Jesus will institute – see the title of our service today, “The one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” – as well as John [the Baptist’s] explicit identification of Jesus as the Messiah, and the calling of the first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew – a lot in the reading, in other words, which we’ll go through in detail in our Reflection a bit later in the service.
GOSPEL READING – John 1:29-42
1:29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
1:30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’
1:31 I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
1:32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.
1:33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
1:34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”
1:35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples,
1:36 and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”
1:37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
1:38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”
1:39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
1:40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
1:41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).
1:42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
REFLECTION
So, the three things in today’s reading which I pointed out in my intro:
- John the Baptist’s explicit identification of Jesus as the Messiah: “the Lamb of God” (verses 29 and 36), and “the Chosen One” (verse 34).
- John’s assertion, in concert with the other three Gospel writers, that Jesus will bring a new form of Baptism, baptizing with the Holy Spirit. (verse 33)
- Jesus taking on his first disciples, the two brothers Andrew and Simon Peter.
Now, to the first of these three things:
“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
John’s description, here, of Jesus as “the Lamb of God”—twice, two days in a row—is actually unique, appearing nowhere else in the bible. Except that Jesus is referred to as “the Lamb” no less than 28 times in the Book of Revelation, written about the same time as the John’s Gospel (90-100 AD), tradition has it by the same author. Either way, “Lamb of God” is an obvious reference to … sacrifice, the blood sacrifice of animals to atone for sin, commonly newborn lambs symbolizing purity, sinlessness. Jesus, in John’s identification, is not just any old sacrificial lamb, however, but a sacrifice to atone for all “the sin of the world”. Thus, Jesus’ looming death on the cross, which John the Baptist is presumably anticipating, will be a blood sacrifice for all human sin, wiping the slate clean for us once and for all.
Now, what in the world does John mean by this?! Well, the context is old-time religion, Old Testament Judaism, with its creationist worldview of … Creation and Fall …. Adam and Eve disobey God—they sin—God judges and punishes them, all of us ever since inherit their original sin and punishment, and there’s nothing for it but for us to keep making blood sacrifices to that judgemental old God to atone for the sins we can’t help but keep on committing, because we’re fallen creatures—totally depraved, as Calvin put it—in the vain hope that we might be able to get back into God’s good books, so that they stop punishing us and start blessing us instead. Help!
We know now, however, that all that is basically false—that we live in an evolved, not a created world, there was no historical Fall, God is not a god of judgement and punishment, even if we believe they let us off the hook through Jesus. Nevertheless, there is some really important truth, in what John says, in what he senses, without fully understanding, that Jesus will bring into the world.
Yes, Jesus coming into the world is very definitely something to do with helping us deal with the problem of sin. But we have to be very clear, first, on exactly what sin really is. The old, traditional understanding, which John the Baptist is very definitely using, which, in fact, all the biblical writers, old and new testament, use, and which is still in widespread use today, is that sin is disobedience to God, the breaking of God’s laws and commandments, for which God then judges and punishes us.
But no, that’s still the old creationist understanding of God, as an omnipotent creator who is in the business of making laws and giving commandments, then gets upset when we disobey them. The truth is that rules, laws, commandments, even ones we imagine come down to us from God on high, are put in place—the good ones, at any rate, not ones which are oppressive or discriminatory—to help us interact with each other and live together, safely, harmoniously, creatively, in family, community, society. We need to focus, therefore, not on our sometime disobedience to laws and commandments, but on what motivates us when we when we disobey—or, indeed, obey, but in the wrong spirit—which is basic, common-or-garden, human selfishness—our natural propensity, which we’re all born with, to put ourselves, our own self-identified needs and desires, first—taking care of number one, hang everybody else!
“Drink, drive: selfish pr_ck”: the big roadside billboards, which I’m sure you’ve all seen, really hit the nail on the head! This, I take it, in fact, is the basic content of all Jesus’ teaching: stop being selfish, if someone asks for your shirt give them your cloak as well, turn the other cheek, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you, love one another, etc., etc.
Can you not see that sinful selfishness is the root cause of all human problems, everything from little kids not playing nicely in the playground, to large-scale wars and even climate change and global warming. People acting selfishly, looking after themselves first—and, yes, maybe looking after their own family, tribe, even nation, first—but still hang everybody else.
So, it’s not forgiveness for sin that we need, some sort of formal pardon or justification from a judgemental old God who is cranky at us for breaking their laws, but help to stop sinning, stop being so jolly self-centred and self-seeking all the time. And this is precisely where Jesus comes in, John the Baptist senses in a profound way, but he cannot help but express it in the limited language he knows, the old-time creationist worldview of Judaism that he is immersed in. Yes, Jesus does come into the world to deal with the profound problem of human selfishness—and this is precisely, in fact, where the new form of Baptism, which all four Gospel writers highlight Jesus as instituting, comes in.
“And John testified”—this is verse 32 in today’s reading, the day after John had presumably baptized Jesus:
“I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”
“… the Holy Spirit … and fire”, we read in Matthew’s account, last week. Jesus baptizes, not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit and fire—much stronger medicine that we need, in other words!
Note that Jesus is not recorded as baptizing a single person in the Gospels, but he does repeatedly promise to send the Spirit after he is gone, and we famously first see the Holy Spirit and fire thing on the Day of Pentecost, ten days after Jesus’ Ascension.
The question is, what exactly does all this mean, what does receiving the Holy Spirit actually do to us? Well, the Holy Spirit seems to be the medium through which God interacts with us, a spiritual intervention in our lives, not a physical one, spirit to spirit, God’s Spirit to our spirit, for one purpose and one purpose only: to help us deal with the problem of our natural inclination to behave selfishly—an amazing injection of spiritual energy into our lives to help us overcome our sinful selfishness, empowering us to be more selfless and do good works in the world.
The word we’re looking for is Metanoia—yes, I talk about it every time I come here, every time I preach anywhere, in fact—the wonderful, gradual spiritual transformation we can undergo, through faith in Jesus, from our natural-born state of self-centredness to a new state of increasing selflessness, freeing us up to live for and serve others. Meta-noia, a radical change in our thinking, our whole approach to life, from self-centredness to selflessness.
But it’s hard, it goes against our nature, to let go of selfish desires and open ourselves up to the needs of others—it requires, yes, faith, belief, trust. Think of a little child undergoing Metanoia, with their parents teaching them vital, basic skills of cooperative living in the world, like sharing, taking turns, playing nicely. It makes no sense to the child—it might be the source of upset, tears, even a tantrum—but as the child places their trust in their parent that things will still turn out well for them, they receive an injection of courage and agency, empowering them to be able to do the more selfless thing, to share, take turns or play nicely. Likewise, all of us in our lives, with our Divine Parent, as we place our faith and trust in them, going against our nature and letting go of our self-interest, receive an injection of courage and agency, Holy Spirit fire/energy coming into us, empowering us to be better, more selfless people, to do good works in the world.
This is the Kingdom that Jesus kept speaking about, a Metanoia Kingdom, the gradual transformation of all humanity, not just individually, but collectively, from a state in which it’s basically everyone for themself, survival of the fittest, might is right, to one in which we live together, safely, harmoniously, creatively, in family, community, society.
Which brings us, finally, to the third matter in today’s reading, the calling of Andrew and Simon Peter—on the basis of John’s identification of Jesus as Messiah. The interesting thing is that they didn’t receive the new form of baptism John was talking about until after Jesus was gone, as we already noted. It took them a long time, in fact, Jesus had to literally die first, before they finally got over their false idea of Jesus being an old-time religious Messiah who would save the people from the Romans and restore Israel to its supposed former glory. Eventually, they twigged that Jesus was bringing something much more important into the world—and they got it, literally, at last, as we know, on the Day of Pentecost: the Holy Spirit, with fire—to overcome our natural-born selfishness and set us free to do good works in the world!
I pray for a good blast of Holy Spirit fire for you all today. Amen!
