In the South there is something known as a tent revival. Pretty simple concept: tent, folding chairs, microphone, heat and humidity, mosquitos, preacher. (Optional: fried chicken and sweet tea.) Of course the key to the revival is having a preacher who can draw a crowd. Brother’ Love’s Traveling Salvation Show, according to the song. John the Baptist would have been a great revivalist preacher. He looked funny — long unshorn hair and beard. He dressed funny – camel’s hair coat in the summer. He ate funny – um, gotta love those grasshoppers. But he could preach and that’s what attracted people to him. He did not offer souffle and sauces but red meat. He did not light a candle, he started a bonfire. He did not elicit an “Amen” but a provoked thunderclap. When John preached you were put in the presence of God. When John preached you knew where you stood. The whining was over. The excuses were over. The hesitancy was over. Are you for God or not? Have you heard John preach?
Jesus did. Jesus heard John the Baptist preach. Jesus was even baptized by John. He picked up John’s message: “Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.” Then this strange thing happened. John stopped preaching and started pointing. “Behold, the Lamb of God.” Don’t pay attention to what me. Pay attention to that guy over there. The way the gospels tell the story John the Baptist recognized that the point of his preaching, the end toward which he was aiming was found in Jesus. If John was all about where you stood before God, then he said you had better stand with Jesus. The evangelist describes that this was a gradual process, a gradual coming to awareness. “I did not know him” at first said the Baptist. I had to have a little push from the Holy Spirit in order to recognize him. “Now I have seen and testified the he is the Son of God.” Pretty dramatic shift – from not knowing him to Lamb of God to Son of God all in five verses. Let’s see if we can use the experience of John the Baptist to illumine our own journey of faith in Jesus.
When John the Baptist said he didn’t know him, he meant he didn’t know his significance. He knew him as a person. The gospels say they were cousins. He knew him as a follower. He knew him as someone he baptized. What he didn’t know was what he meant. I’m reminded of the story of the man who came across someone who was passed out on the sidewalk. He pushed aside the woman who was tending to him saying, “I’m a Boy Scout and I know first aid.” He started to go down the check list: “Okay, first, size up the scene and form an initial impression. Second, see if the victim is responsive. Third, check to see if the person is breathing. Fourth, notice if there is any bleeding.” This point the woman whom he pushed out of the way said, “When you get to the part on your list about calling the doctor, I’m already here.” In a similar way, John the Baptist, though he knew who Jesus was, didn’t really know his importance. In our lives, we can know about Jesus but the moment of faith comes when we understand that we need to know Jesus, to connect with him in a personal way.
At John the Baptist’s moment of insight he points to Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Did you notice the singular: sin instead of sins? The gospels relate that John the Baptist had helped people avoid their sins. He gave advice to the crowds, to tax collectors, to soldiers all designed to keep them from violating the commandments. What John recognized in Jesus was something on a deeper level. The “sin of the world” is not this, that or the other fault or failing that we possess as individuals. It is rather all that inhibits our ability to connect with God. The sin of the world makes us doubt that we are children of God; causes us to feel that God is way up there, inaccessible to little old me; generates a sense that I have to make my own way instead of trusting in God. Jesus as the Lamb of God, as the one who lives completely in God’s will, takes away all that separates us from God. We, like John the Baptist, must see in Jesus that the great divorce of heaven from earth has been closed.
Finally John the Baptist “testifies” that Jesus is “the Son of God.” He says this because he “saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven and remain upon him.” John sees in Jesus the presence of the Holy Spirit. While we might not see doves descending on us we can recognize the fruits of the Spirit in us who have been baptized as Jesus was. St. Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Jesus demonstrated those fruits in the way he lived his life and makes it possible for us to have them in our lives since we were given the Spirit at Baptism. John testified to Jesus as the Son of God because he saw the signs of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience and the rest. We prove ourselves as children of God by living out those fruits of the Spirit in our lives. Often when we hear that someone is “spirit-filled” we can imagine that they make a lot of noise or have happy feet. John the Baptist recognized that Jesus was spirit filled not because of any shouting but because of how he lived. We claim the Spirit of Jesus in our lives when we live as he did – relying on the love and mercy of God and sharing it with all whom we meet.
