The Unexpected Continues
By The Rev. Meghan Dow Farr, ’13
Ministry doesn’t always go as we plan. God doesn’t do what we expect. Sometimes we have doubts. That’s okay. We, like John the Baptist, are called to point outward continuously to the light, to Jesus Christ. When we have been washed with Jesus in the waters of baptism and equipped for ministry with gifts from the Holy Spirit, we are called to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. And despite the unexpected, we respond: I will, with God’s help. Amen.
The unexpected is a theme that carries us into this week. Events are unexpected. I am reminded of a professor of Old Testament who asked his class of new seminarians who they thought was the greatest Old Testament prophet. They argued among themselves between the usual suspects—Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel—until one student timidly raised a hand and asked, “What about John the Baptist?”
Certainly that was an unexpected response—at least to the other students in the class. What about John the Baptist? Now, John was certainly not an Old Testament prophet, as his story is found in the New Testament. By the time we meet John, 400 years have passed since the people of Israel last heard from God through the voice of a prophet, during the days of Malachi. However, John does in fact look and sound very much like the prophets we know from the Old Testament.
During troubling times in Israel’s history, God would appoint prophets to deliver a message of warning—foretelling what would befall the people if things didn’t change. Through the prophets, God called people to repent and return to Him. John the Baptist lived in the wilderness near the Jordan River and called people to baptism for repentance and the forgiveness of their sins. He warned of the coming judgment, “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” When the people asked what else they should do besides be baptized, in language reminiscent of the prophet Amos, John tells them they must share clothes and food with those who have none, and to be fair in all their dealings. They were then told to repent from their ways and return to the Lord.
Like many Old Testament prophets, John was not well received by the religious and political leaders of his day. The religious leaders in Jerusalem sent representatives to the wilderness to question John if he was Elijah or a prophet like Moses. John later refers to other Pharisees that come to see him as a brood of vipers. Clearly not a man concerned with winning friends among the powerful. In fact, his “cut to the core” way of telling it as he sees it landed him in hot water with Herod Antipas. Herod had married his brother Philip’s wife Herodias.
Eventually, Herod would have John imprisoned, and Herodias worked out a way to have John beheaded. But John also brought an exciting message—one we hear from many of the Old Testament prophets. Just as Isaiah brought hope to Israelites captive in Babylon by foretelling of the coming Messiah who would save his people, so too did John the Baptist point to the coming Messiah. But unlike the Old Testament prophets who could only hint at that future time when the Messiah would come, John understood that the time was at hand.
In previous lectionary readings, we learn that John the Baptist came as a witness to testify about and prepare the way for the Messiah. Indeed, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all say of John the Baptist, combining language from the prophets Isaiah and Malachi, that John was the voice of one calling in the desert, to prepare the way for the Lord, to make straight paths for him. John understood it was his job to prepare the people for the coming of the long-awaited Messiah. He himself was not the messiah, but pointed to him. John expected the coming of the Messiah in the same way as all of Israel—for him to come in power and might, to deliver them from their oppressors and usher in God’s kingdom.
But what came to pass didn’t happen in the way John expected. Consider John for a moment—here is a man whose father was a priest in the temple. John was raised well. But he moves to the desert and wears clothes made of camel’s hair and eats locusts and wild honey. This was centuries before shows like Bizarre Foods made eating bugs popular. He did so because he knew his calling from God. John understood that he was here for a unique purpose: to prepare the people of Israel for the coming of God’s anointed.
And so he starts preaching this news, and people take notice; they come in droves to see him. They listen. His ministry is growing—he has disciples, followers. People are repenting and being baptized. And still he knows that his sole responsibility is to prepare the hearts of the people. And then suddenly, there is Jesus, standing before him, the one he has been preaching about, the one he has been waiting for. Despite his own great ministry, John has said all along that he baptizes with water for repentance, “but after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” It’s sort of a fire and brimstone message John has been preaching. The Messiah is coming with sword and flame: so be ready, people. And now Jesus is here and he . . . wait . . . what is he doing? He’s wading into the water with the others who have come for baptism. You can almost see John’s jaw drop, and perhaps he shakes his head a little. Jesus wants John to baptize him! No, no, no. John tries to deter him. Perhaps he even tries to push him out of the water a little—back onto the land. “I need to be baptized by you! It’s not the other way around.” All this time John has been calling people to a baptism of repentance, but Jesus certainly doesn’t need to repent. John has called himself lesser and the one to come after him greater. Why should the lesser baptize the greater? So now there is a tension between what John expects and what Jesus requests. John expects Jesus to step onto the scene and take charge but instead Jesus presents himself for baptism by John.
What is Jesus’ answer to this confusion in John—this tension? Jesus says to him, “Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus is acting in obedience to the Father’s will, and John has a role to play in that obedience by agreeing to baptize Jesus. This act of baptism fulfills all righteousness because both Jesus and John are obedient to God internally—through contrite spirits and externally through the public act of the baptism. Jesus joins with the other believers of Israel who have been baptized by John. He begins his public ministry as a repentant sinner just like the rest of John’s followers and just like us.
But Jesus’ baptism will have effects that go far beyond his obedience in that moment. It shows God’s power in baptism, and the ripples spread into the church’s practice and teaching on baptism. God was present at Jesus’ baptism as the heavens opened just as he is still present with those who are baptized in the church today. The Kingdom of God was now present in the form of Jesus Christ. The Spirit descended upon Jesus and equipped him with gifts necessary for his public ministry. And in our baptism and confirmation we are equipped with gifts from the Spirit that we are to use in our own ministries and calling and to bring others to Christ. Jesus was obedient to the Father, and now the voice from heaven proclaimed him as God’s Son and revealed that he was the Messiah, God’s anointed. “Jesus arrives at the Jordan as a humble candidate for baptism and departs as the heaven-proclaimed Son of God.”
What happened that day at the Jordan River was not how John had planned for his ministry to go. Jesus didn’t do what John expected him to do. God rarely does. As I stand here just two days before my ordination to the priesthood, this passage hangs as a reminder that our call to ministry—any ministry be it lay or ordained, public or private—doesn’t always go the way we plan. God rarely does what we expect him to do. And sometimes that causes us to question and to doubt. Even John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus Christ, had questions and doubts. Here in this passage he questions Jesus’ desire for baptism. And even though he probably saw the Spirit descend upon Jesus and heard the voice proclaim him as God’s son, later when he is in prison alone and wondering again about the way he had expected the Messiah to return, John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who was to come or are we to wait for another?” Sitting in jail was an unexpected end to John’s ministry. His calling was to prepare the people for the Messiah, but how could he do that from jail? John had doubts, but Jesus reassures him by pointing to the acts of healing the blind, lame, and deaf, curing the lepers, raising the dead and preaching good news to the poor as evidence that, indeed, Jesus was the Messiah for whom John had been preparing the way.
Despite John’s doubt, Jesus praises him, calling him more than a prophet and saying of him, “Among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” Yet, having fulfilled his calling, John would become less so that another could become greater.
The Rev. Meghan Dow Farr graduated from Nashotah House in 2013 and currently serves as Priest-in-Charge of the Northern Highlands Benefice in the Diocese of Eau Claire, which includes four churches. She is married to Daniel, and together they parent a brood of three wonderful boys, two dogs, and two cats. Mtr. Meghan likes to say she runs on prayer and caffeine, which many of us can relate to.