I am stunned by the reality that today marks the beginning of the third week of Advent. How can this be? To be honest, I’m never ready for Christmas by the third Sunday of Advent. Rarely do I buy Christmas presents on time, despite the ease of Amazon prime. Often, it’s our daughter who gets the house decorated by now (she grows impatient waiting on her parents to pull the lights down from the attic). This year, like most years before it, I’m simply moving from one activity to the next: caught up in the energy and busy-ness of the season.
Of course, this year is different from all other years. Instead of prepping the house for visitors, I’m pre-recording worship services. There’s no long wait at the post office to ship presents. There IS splurging for two day shipping, hoping gifts will arrive on time. There are no parties or Christmas cookie exchanges. Instead, our family wonders how we can make this Christmas more unique. We are trying to honor being together and all the people and traditions we miss.
One tradition that I will miss is the Christmas pageant. Christmas pageants are a new tradition in my life. When I was a small child, we traveled to my grandparents for Christmas. Then, as I grew older, we stayed home at Christmas and attended “midnight” mass (no pageant at midnight mass - all the children are in bed by then). After college, working at an Episcopal school, I experienced my first Christmas pageant. Christmas pageants have been an adult experience for me: as a chaplain, priest, and parent. And, I love them. Every year, through costume and music, the story unfolds. Here is the angel Gabriel. Here is Mary, and Joseph, and the donkey. Here is the innkeeper, the shepherds, their sheep, stars and angels. Here is the baby, our Christ. The pageant invites the children, invites all of us, to find our place in the story.
One character who is rarely, if ever, found in the pageant is John the Baptist. Maybe that’s because no one wants to wear camel’s hair? More likely, it’s because we associate John with Jesus’ adulthood. Of course, Luke weaves Jesus and John together from infancy. And mostly, John baptizing Jesus is the story we know. Notice, in John’s Gospel, John is not the baptizer; he is the witness. If John (the Baptist) was in the pageant, he’d be a sole voice, standing the in the wilderness: “Look,” he’d say, “There’s the lamb of God.” Would he be at the beginning or the end - or both?
Forgive me while I chase a rabbit here, there’s a point to the chase. All while preparing this sermon I kept getting distracted: John the Gospel writer and John the baptizer. How to distinguish between each? And, this is how John’s Gospel works: words repeated with different characters and images for a purpose. BOTH John the Gospel writer and John the baptizer are witnesses; they “testify to the light, so that all might believe…” The Gospel inherits John the baptizer’s witness. And we are to do the same: to come, see, and believe. The point is we inherit John’s ministry, like the Gospel writer, and become witnesses.
In John’s Gospel, a witness does more than tell a story or attest to what they have seen. A witness or witnessing leads to belief. At the end of the Gospel we hear: “…these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20: 31). The power of witness is the life it brings to the listener, the reader, to the whole world.
Let’s talk about Jesus for a minute. Who is he and what does he do? He is the light of the world that shines in the darkness and will not be overshadowed. He is the Incarnate Word, present from the beginning, life for everyone. He is the power by which we are children of God, born from God. From him, we receive “grace upon grace” (John 1: 16). By his life, death, and resurrection, our lives are bound to His life. This is God’s life reconciling creation to God’s own self. On Christmas morning, when we sing “Joy to the Word the Lord has come let earth receive her king…,” this is what we sing: that Christ Jesus came to us and for us, and not just for us, for the whole world. This is our witness, our testimony: Jesus, the Son of God, born of a woman, calling us to come and see: healing, forgiveness, and abundant life for all.
Those of us who believe in Jesus the Christ, the incarnate word of God, are witnesses. We have a story to tell of how Jesus transformed our lives. Maybe it’s a story, like Nicodemus, of finding new life, being born again. Maybe it’s a story, like the woman at the well, of finding meaning and value in our lives. Maybe it’s a story, like those at the feeding of the 4000, of discovery: that God, through the life of Jesus, gives us all we need. For me, following Jesus has led me to a life of humility, mercy, and grace.
Without Christ, I depend solely on my self and am ruled by anxiety and narcissism. I wonder, how are you a witness to Jesus?
John the baptizer, the first witness, is the standard for our witness. John the baptizer escapes every name. He is a voice making a way for the Christ. He baptizes with water only to prepare for the One who is greater than all others. Everything he does points away from himself and to the Christ, and not for his sake. He takes up this witness “so that all may believe.”
May we take a moment and examine our lives. How are we a witness to the Incarnate Word? How does the light of Christ in our lives break through the darkness? How do we make the paths straight, a way for the Word of the Lord in the world?
Here, at the Cathedral, we’ve used our resources to benefit our community: building an awning for St. Francis House, offering warm clothing for Dorcas House and El Zocola, and supporting The Stewpot. We’re also working diligently to offer a variety of ways for for our community to come close to God through prayer and worship. There are other ways, of course. Every time we love God and our neighbor we live in service to God’s kin_dom. We are witnesses of Christ’s reconciling love to the world.
May we witness Christ’s reconciling work in creation. May we believe in the transformative power of Christ in our lives and the world. May we know Christ and make him known. Amen.
