Who do you think that you are? Have you watched the television programme in which celebrities trace their family trees. I am an addict. And it always amazing to find that people have ancestors who were involved in the setting up of the National Health Service, were settlers in Canada in the eighteenth century, or even could trace their lineage back to royalty.
Lied through her teeth
When I first retired I spent a lot of time tracing my family tree and of course Alans’ . This was in the days before you could do much of it on the internet and we travelled around the country visiting record offices and churches from Cumbria, to Merthyr Tydfil, Burnley to Portsmouth. There were no rich or famous ancestors on either side but a couple of interesting facts. My grandmother lied through her teeth when she got married. She stated on her marriage certificate that her father was dead – he wasn’t – but that could have been because she was underage and pregnant.
It sent me on the wrong track looking for her father. I knew her mother had died, and I wasted a lot of time until I found him having remarried with a new family. On Alans’ side there were two generations of seamen serving in the marines based at Portsmouth and one of them travelled the world, although he was unable to read or write and on his discharge he had both a spear and a shot wound in his back. He must have been running away from something. We think it was up a river in Pegu. Why he later finished up in Bury we have no idea – but I am glad he did otherwise Alan wouldn’t be here.
Who he isn’t
In our gospel reading the Priests and the Levites come to John the Baptist and in effect they were asking him “Who do you think you are?”
John doesn’t need genealogists to tell him who he is. He knows precisely – and more importantly he knows who he isn’t.
We know that John was a cousin of Jesus. It was to his mother Elizabeth that Mary turned when she discovered her pregnancy. In adulthood, John had been living a nomadic life in the desert, preaching and teaching, baptising and gathering quite a large group of followers. He was not popular with the orthodox Jews because of his life style and because he didn’t follow the traditions accepted by the Jewish community. John’s father was a priest, and therefore John was technically a priest. The only way to become a priest was to be a descendant of Aaron – and this was true of his father and therefore of him. But he did not live or behave as a priest in the accepted way of the community. He was therefore somewhat suspect.
Not the Messiah
In our gospel reading, the Jews have sent priests and Levites to question him. Who are you they ask ? He replied by telling them who he was not. Just think how irritating that would be to the questioners. It would be like you asking me who I was and me replying: “I am not Ian Banks.”
John then spells it out that he was not the Messiah, the person the Jews had been waiting for, for generations. The one who would fulfil God’s promise to the Jews.
So, they continued their questioning. Are you Elijah? Why did they ask that? It was the Jewish belief that before the Messiah came, Elijah would return to herald his coming and prepare the world to receive him. Particularly, Elijah was to resolve all disputes, he would settle who were Jews and who were not, what people were clean and what people were not. Elijah would sort the wheat from the chaff before the arrival of the Messiah. He would sort out disputes and bring together families which were estranged. The Jews believed that Elijah would anoint the Messiah as all Kings were anointed ( including Charles III) but John denied he was Elijah.
A bit annoyed
His questioners are getting a bit annoyed by now. This priest, who did not behave like a priest, living in the desert on locusts and honey, was being difficult. So, they ask him: “Are you the expected Prophet?” The belief that a prophet would come stems from the promise in the Book of Deuteronomy which states: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” The Jews never forgot that promise that God would send a super prophet, a prophet par excellence. But, again, John denied that such an honour was his.
“So who are you” they asked. They are getting a bit shirty by this time. They need an answer for the people who had sent them.
Make straight
John replies: “I am a voice crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord.” The quote comes from the book of Isaiah. What a superb image of a man dressed in a tunic and sandals in a desert bidding men and women to prepare the way for the King. The idea stems from the fact that the roads of Palestine were not surfaced and metalled. They were rough tracks. When a King was about to visit a province or a conquerer was about to travel through his domains, the roads were levelled out to make the journey more comfortable. I think that still happens today. Perhaps not roads, but other things tidied up so that visiting royalty are spared from seeing things best hidden.
John in effect was saying: “I am a nobody, I am only a voice telling you to get ready for coming of the King for he is on his way. I am just a messenger.”
He was not wanting to take centre stage, he was happy to be the herald, bringing others, to the Messiah.
One of his heroes
I remember Brian Stannard, one of our former Vicars, telling us how John the Baptist was one of his heroes – the man who did not take centre stage but worked to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus. Telling people, warning people, baptising people for repentance. He was a man who was brave – not afraid to tell the people what they must do to put their lives right with God. A man unafraid to tell Herod what he thought of his moral behaviour – and, in doing so, lose his life.
A man willing to be a supporter, a messenger, a witness for the Messiah
And his questioners, those traditional Levites and Priests, still had more to ask of John. I am sure they were trying to find reasons to stop him fulfilling his calling. They wanted to know why John was baptising people. If he had been Elijah, the prophet, or the Messiah, he might have baptized people but it was not normal for priests in Israel to baptize Jews. Baptism was only for people coming into the faith not for Jews by birth. They were God’s already and did not need to be washed.
Menial service
John’s response was to tell them that he baptises only with water, but there is one already among them, and they did not recognise him, whose sandals he was not fit to untie. John could not have described a more menial service.
There was a Rabbinic saying that a disciple could do for his master anything that a servant could do, but not untie his sandals. This was too menial a task for even a servant but a slave could do this. John is saying he is not even fit to be a slave of the one who is coming.
John is really spelling it out: “The messiah is coming and for his coming you need to be cleansed as much as any gentile.” Powerful, perhaps even foolhardy, words for they would not endear John to his interrogators.
A witness
At the beginning of our gospel reading, we are told that John was a man sent from God to be a witness to the Light so that all men might believe in him.
A witness, someone who in a court of law tells the truth about what they have seen or what they know. John was a forceful witness for Jesus, telling the truth about his coming and how people should prepare themselves.
I don’t know how good a witness I would be in a court of law. I think I would be very nervous – but I am sure I would state what I had seen and heard. But would I stick to my guns when I was challenged by a powerful barrister? I don’t know. I have seen research where people witnessed the same incident and were then asked to describe what had happened. There were nearly as many different descriptions as people watching. Even accurate witnesses give different accounts because they have seen an incident from a different viewpoint.
To tell the truth
We too are sent to be witnesses for Christ, we are to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about Jesus. How good will our witness be? We will each have our own viewpoint of Jesus, we have all encountered him in different ways and each of us will have a different story of his effect on our lives, we are individuals after all. But will we give our witness, clearly, honestly, bravely?
Our witness does not always have to be in words. Our actions often speak more clearly. I was appalled when a colleague said to me after seeing a palm cross in my car “Oh I didn’t know you were a Christian, Margery.”
What sort of witness must I have been for Jesus? Not a very good one.
Let us pray, especially at Christmas time, that we are not afraid to be in the witness stand and speak and act in ways that show we believe that in that birth in Bethlehem the Saviour of the World was born.
May the blessings of Christmas be yours.
“Can I get a witness” was preached by Margery Spencer at St John with St Mark’s on Sunday 17th December 2023. It was based on John 1:6-8, 19-28.