It's About Jesus
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-12; I Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

I was telling Julie the other day how much I love to go to Bible camp. One of my favorite parts about camp as a kid was "Skit Night." One skit I remember in particular was called "Echo Point." In the skit, a guide takes a hiking group to a place called "Echo Point. "What makes Echo Point so special," the guide says, "is that whenever you call out the name of a food, it will echo twice. Listen: Yogurt! (Yogurt! Yogurt!) See? And the guide invited others to try. Tourist #1 volunteered. "Banana!" (Banana! Banana!) Tourist #2 gave it a try. "Salad!" (Salad. Salad.) Then Tourist #3 takes a stab at it. "Baloney!" (Baloney! _________ - only once) And the guide says, "That's strange -- it's never repeated a food only once. Maybe we should wait a minute more. (Pause. Nothing happens.) I'm so embarrassed. Well, I guess we should go back to the base, where the food is so good." And then everyone hears the second echo: (Baloney!)

So far in 2005, each Sunday has been like an "echo" of the last one. It's almost like we're playing "Leap Frog." January 2 we celebrated Epiphany and heard echoes of the lessons we had the week prior in our service of Lessons and Carols. Last week we heard echoes from the week prior, from Epiphany, in our music. This week we hear echoes of the week prior in our lessons. For example, last week we heard Matthew's account of Jesus' baptism, coupled with the first of what scholars call the "Servant Songs" in Isaiah. This week we hear John's account of Jesus' baptism, coupled with the second of the "Servant Songs" in Isaiah. So, I said to the Bible Study group on Tuesday, it seems I could just preach the same sermon again -- an echo of last week -- we are baptized to serve. The pastor is not the paid Christian at the church. By virtue of our baptism into Christ, we are like pencils in the hand of God. But then we might miss the point John is making for us today. And we might forget that tomorrow we, as a nation, commemorate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King. And we might miss the fact that Tuesday begins the week of prayer for Christian unity.

Again, in our Bible Study, we observed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each tell the same story of Jesus' baptism in a slightly different way. And so we asked, "What does that slight difference, that nuance, mean for us? What does John want us to take away from his account of Jesus' baptism?"

For John, it's all about bearing witness. John tells the story of Jesus' baptism after the fact. He's hanging out with his disciples and sees Jesus coming toward him and he yells out, "Here he is! God's Passover Lamb!" And then he describes his experience of what happened when Jesus was baptized. He offers an eyewitness account and explains how it was he came to know that Jesus is the Son of God. Then in scene two of this skit we find in John's Gospel, it's the next day. John's back at his post with two of his disciples. Jesus walks by again, and once again, John says, "Here he is, God's Passover Lamb!" John's two disciples heard John say this and they followed Jesus. That may seem a bit ironic, but that's just as John would have had it. John speaks. His disciples hear him, but follow Jesus.

And so that is the case for us. We learn from John today that it's not about us. It's about Jesus. It's not about me. As your pastor, I may speak. But I don't want you to follow me. I want you to follow Jesus. It's not about you. You may speak. And I hope I listen. But our call is to follow Jesus. My job is to point you to him. That's one reason why in our worship we have the Word and the Sacrament. The pastor speaks in the sermon and then points to the altar and says, "Here he is! God's Passover Lamb!"

After John's disciple Andrew decides to follow Jesus, he finds his brother Simon and brings him to Jesus. As the identity of Jesus is revealed to each individual, one by one they become witnesses. They reveal Jesus to someone else. There's a pattern here. Are you catching it? Almost like the playing leapfrog or the echoing we explored earlier. One by one someone experiences Jesus, and one by one, that experience is shared with someone else.

This is the pattern of witness for the church from the beginning, and it is one that continues into the present. If anyone knows Jesus, it's because there was at least one John the Baptist in their life who pointed them to Jesus and then got out of the way. Who was that for you? Was it a parent, a grandparent, a Sunday school teacher, a pastor? Was it some other person close to you who first revealed to you who Jesus is?

When we talked about this in Bible Study on Tuesday, many of you said that the John the Baptist in your life was your mother. For me, John the Baptist has been a combination of persons and experiences over the years. The image of a prism comes to mind: When the light -- or Jesus -- shines through the prism, those who witness to his light in my life are like the different colors reflected by that prism when the light is shining through it. It's always happened that at different times in my life I needed a different color of light in order to see who Jesus was for me at that time. Sometimes the light I needed was the light of love, sometimes the light of healing, sometimes the light of correction, sometimes the light of forgiveness, sometimes the light of acceptance, sometimes the light of challenge, sometimes the light of gentleness, sometimes the light that comes from a kick in the pants. And always, a John the Baptist has appeared who has pointed me to that part of the spectrum of the light of Jesus that I needed most. And I am already experiencing that here with you -- you who are loving me, forgiving me, accepting me, challenging me, in ways that I need to experience that light. Thank you for being my John the Baptist.

Sometimes a John the Baptist is raised up when our nation needs to be enlightened. Tomorrow we honor the legacy of one such person. Martin Luther King Jr. reflects a part of that spectrum of the light of Jesus that is painful for us to see, because it is a light that reveals sins of injustice and bigotry. But it is Jesus' teaching about love that most influences what Dr. King teaches us about civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr.'s most poignant challenge to us came from his famous "Letter From the Birmingham City Jail" in 1963. One new worship resource the ELCA has produced in recent years is an African American hymnal called This Far By Faith. To commemorate Martin Luther King the book offers these excerpts from his Letter From the Birmingham City Jail, with petitions for how we might pray in response:

• King was convicted of the notion that Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. And so we pray for courage and determination by those who are oppressed.
• Martin warned us that a negative peace which is the absence of tension is less than a positive peace which is the presence of justice. And so we pray that those who work for peace in our world may cry out first for justice.
• King's insight was that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. And so we pray that we may see nothing in isolation, but may know ourselves bound to one another and to all people under heaven.
• King lamented that the contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are. And so we pray that neither this congregation nor any congregation of Christ's people may cower in the face of wrong, but that we may be disturbers of the status quo when that is God's call to us.
• We remember Martin's hope that dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not-too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our nation with all their scintillating beauty. And so we commend ourselves and our work for justice to the goodness of almighty God.

On Tuesday, the week of prayer for Christian unity begins and goes through January 25. It's a wonderful focus for this season of Epiphany, this season of light and bearing witness to the light. The image that comes to my mind as we seek unity among all Christians is the image of people of all races and languages scattered, in chaos. And in the middle of this chaos is a light -- the light of Christ. As one person glimpses the light, she tells another, and he yet another. As they look toward the light, they move toward the light. They move in that direction together. And the closer they get to the light, the closer they get to each other. And they realize that it's not about them. It's about the light. It's about Jesus.

May the light of Jesus reflected in the legacy of Martin Luther King shine in our hearts. May the food for thought and action Dr. King provides us echo in our lives as we go forth pointing to the light of Jesus. And let no one say, "Baloney!" but rather, AMEN! (AMEN! AMEN!)

Pastor Dana Runestad
Second Sunday after Epiphany
16 January, 2005
Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Livonia, MI

Sources:
Reginald Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, pp. 109-112.
Walter Brueggeman, et al, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year A, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, pp.100-108.
Martin Luther King Jr. "Letter From the Birmingham City Jail."
This Far By Faith, An African American Resource for Worship in the ELCA, published by Augsburg Fortress.

Back to home page