Testifying About The Light...

This week, we are looking at the opening section of an account of Jesus life that is recorded for us in the Bible called the gospel of John. Yesterday, we saw a man named John introduce us to a man named John the Baptizer. John the Baptizer was sent by God with a mission that was designed to accomplish a specific objective. And that mission and that objective was that John the Baptizer would be a witness that would testify about the Light and point people to the Light. This morning, we see John record the testimony of John the Baptizer when it came to who Jesus was as the Light, beginning in John 1:19:

This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." They asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" And he said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." Then they said to him, "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" He said, "I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, 'MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,' as Isaiah the prophet said."

Here we see John give us a front row seat to a conversation that John the Baptizer had with a group of people that John referred to as the Jews. Throughout the gospel of John, John uses the phrase “the Jews” to refer to a group of Jewish people who were self-righteous religious people who were opposed to Jesus and who were far from God. These self righteous religious people who were far from God sent a delegation of pastors, elders, and deacons on a mission to find out what John the Baptizer was up to.

You see, John the Baptizer spent his time just outside of Jerusalem proclaiming a message from God. And John the Baptizer’s message was straightforward and to the point: repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now the word repent literally means to feel remorse that results in a change of one’s mind and heart. To repent means more than simply feeling sorry for something you did; to repent means that you feel sorry for what you did and the sorrow that you feel drives you to change something in your life. When John refers to the kingdom of heaven, he is referring to the royal reign of God.

If John the baptizer was communicating this message to us today in the language that we use in our culture, his message would sound something like this “Repent, recognize and feel remorse for how you are living life. Change your attitude and your mind towards the trajectory of your life, because God is coming soon. The kingdom of God is approaching and will be here soon”. And as people heard about John the Baptizer and his message, throngs of people were going out to see him and hear his message. So the self righteous religious people wanted to find out who John the Baptizer thought he was.

Upon arriving, this delegation asked John the Baptizer “are you the Christ?” In other words “are you the Messiah”?  You see, hundreds of years earlier, God promised the Jewish people that He would send a rescuer, a redeemer, a Messiah, who would deliver the Jewish people from oppression and establish them to a place of prominence in the world. And it is John the Baptizers response that we see him begin to give his testimony. John the Baptizer begins to testify about Jesus by denying that he was the Messiah. “I am not the Messiah”.

The delegation then asked a follow up question: "What then? Are you Elijah?" The delegation wanted to know if he was claiming to be the fulfillment of God’s prediction and promise that had been made some 400 years earlier in the book of Malachi. In the book of Malachi, the prophet had predicted and proclaimed that before the end of God’s story here on earth, Elijah would come to announce that the Messiah was coming. John the Baptizer responded to their question by simply saying "I am not."

Now this led the delegation to ask a third question: "Are you the Prophet?" The delegation wanted to know if John the Baptizer was claiming to be the prophet referred to in God’s promise to the Jewish people in Deuteronomy 18:15. There God had promised that someday in the future He would send a prophet that was greater than Moses who would teach and lead the Jewish people. And once again, John the Baptizer responded to their question by simply saying "No."

Now, as you might imagine at this point the delegation was becoming very frustrated, as they were no closer to knowing who John the Baptizer was then when they started. And in their frustration, the delegation exclaimed "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?" John the Baptizer responded to their frustrated question by quoting a section of the Old Testament book of Isaiah that was written some 600 years earlier. In Isaiah 40:3, God called the Jewish people to prepare for their return from exile by preparing the roads that they would be traveling on from Babylon back to Israel for the large traffic that would be on them as the Jewish people returned home.

John the Baptizer quotes this Old Testament proclamation by God as having a long term fulfillment through his ministry, which was be a witness that would testify about the Light, who was coming as the Messiah. John here is calling the Jewish people to be ready, because the coming of the Messiah is near. John was calling the Jewish people to prepare themselves by clearing any obstacles from their lives that would cause them to miss the Messiah when He comes. John then allows us even more detail into John the Baptizer’s testimony about the light, beginning in verse 24:

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, and said to him, "Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" John answered them saying, "I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. "It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Now to fully understand what is happening here, we first need to ask and answer two questions. The first question that we need to ask and answer is “Who are the Pharisees?” The Pharisees were the leaders of one of the largest religious denominations of the Jewish people.  These were the religious people; they went to church and had their lists that they followed and tried to convince others to follow on what it meant to be right with God.

The delegation, which had been sent by the Pharisee’s, then confronted John the baptizer over his practice of baptizing the Jewish people who were responding to his message. You see, when people heard the message of John the baptizer, they responded by being baptized in the Jordan River as they confessed their selfishness, sin, and rebellion. But why were the people responding this way? 

To understand why they were responding this way, we first need to understand what baptism is. Baptism is a public proclamation and a public identification with an inward reality that has occurred in our lives. All Jerusalem was going out to him and were being baptized as a public proclamation that they were identifying and aligning themselves with John the Baptizer’s message.  The people of Jerusalem recognized their need to repent from their sin and change the trajectory of their lives back toward God. These people recognized their need to be right with God before the Messiah, the promised one of God, appeared to usher in the kingdom of God that they were waiting for.

John the Baptizer responded to their question with an amazing statement: "I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. "It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie."

Now this statement, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded like this: “You guys are confronting me because I am baptizing people with water. You don’t need to worry about me. Who you need to worry about is someone who is already here who you do not know about yet. He will follow shortly behind me and I am not even worthy to perform the most lowly duty of the lowest slave for the One who will be following me. That’s who you need to be looking for and worrying about”. And one day after this confrontation, we see the One who would follow John the Baptizer, the One who was the Light, enter into the story.

Friday, we will look at that entrance…