John the Baptist Had No Messiah Complex

3 Advent C     December 16, 2018

Zeph 3:14-20  Canticle 9         

Phil.4:4-9    Luke 3:7-18
Lectionary Link

Does it seem strange to you that people in the time of Jesus were asking John the Baptist if he were the Messiah.

John the Baptist lived in the time of Jesus and the Gospel writers tell us that people asked John the Baptist, "Are you Messiah?"

The asking of this question is very revealing.  Why were people asking the question in the first place?  The time of John the Baptist and Jesus was so oppressive that people thought the world circumstances were signs of the end of the world order for humanity.  People of faith believed that there would be the appearance of a heroic figure to intervene for the cause of justice for God's oppressed people.  There was lots of literature to inspire and fuel speculation about such a figure who had been called Son of Man in the book of Daniel, the Lord's begotten Son in the Psalms, the Son of God in the Apocrypha Book of Second Esdras, and who was also called Messiah after the oil of anointing given to kings of Israel.  The heroic figure had other names too, like a Suffering Servant, Immanuel, Prince of Peace, Wonderful,  Counselor, and the Almighty God.

But the figure of the messiah was a hero expected by many.  So if John the Baptist was a potential candidate to be regarded as the Messiah, this tells us that he had quite a high profile among the people of Palestine who cared about such things.  One could even say that John the Baptist was regarded to be a rival messiah to Jesus of Nazareth.

And if John was a rival to the popularity of Jesus, what about the community of John the Baptist?  John had a significant number of followers and they continued to be an identifiable community after John was beheaded by King Herod.  Since Jesus was baptized by John, it could be that Jesus was the senior disciple of John the Baptist, and so he was the natural and logical successor to John the Baptist.  But not all of the followers of John the Baptist became followers of Jesus right away; the community of John the Baptist retained an identity until much later.

In some respects, the community of John the Baptist might be called the Proto-church.  John, as a poor wilderness prophet, could adjust his message and life style to the lives of many poor people in Palestine who did not seem to have significant status in the other various religious parties of Judaism or in the Roman government.  But John the Baptist was popular enough to draw the interest and curiosity of members of the religious parties like the Sadducees and Pharisees.  John the Baptist was in fact a son of a priest, but he was not following in his father's footsteps.

Let take a step back and ponder Christian marketing or evangelism in the early decades of the Jesus Movement. What people were most likely to receive the message about Jesus Christ?  Among the parties that were present in Judaism, the members of the community of John the Baptist were more likely to become followers of Jesus, much more so than the Pharisees or the Sadducees.  And when Jerusalem was destroyed; when Christianity could no longer be Jerusalem based, it gradually became more likely for Gentiles to accept the message of the Gospel than for Jews who lived in the cities of the Roman Empire.

Of all people, John the Baptist gets more Gospel ink than anyone besides Jesus.  He is presented in a much more favorable like in the Gospel than the disciples.  He is presented as one who understood the importance of Jesus while the twelve disciples are often presented as clueless.  John the Baptist even has a marvelous birth story in the Gospel which parallels the miraculous birth story of Jesus.  Did Peter, James or John have a marvelous birth story?

How did the early Christian preacher make an appeal to the followers of John the Baptist?  Not by diminishing the significance of John the Baptist; rather they gave John the Baptist a prominent place in the salvation history which preceded Jesus Christ because they believed that the Jesus Movement was the successor movement of the John the Baptist movement.  They believed that John the Baptist was the prelude to Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Risen Christ.

How did John the Baptist prepare the way for Jesus and for the Jesus Movement?  When the people ask John the Baptist what they should do, his answer was amazingly simple.  I think people wanted to know what were the correct religious behaviors and ritual behaviors to perform.  And what did John say?  Be kind, if you see someone in need, share.  Be honest; don't extort money.  But John, do I need to say this prayer each day?  Don't I need to give this special offering?  Don't I need to wear my prayer shawl in the right way?

John the Baptist proclaimed that right behaviors in your everyday life were more important that the religious behaviors that religious leaders wanted you to perform for the success of their religious community.  The early Jesus Movement understood that John the Baptist was preparation for the message of Jesus Christ to move out of the communities of Judaism and into the Gentile people.  One can see in the presentation of John the Baptist, the theology of Gentile Christianity that Paul wrote about in the letter to the Romans.  The tree of Judaism had been cut down with the destruction of the temple; and the Gentiles Christians were branches grafted into the stump of the tree.  They found that John the Baptist was a key bridge figure to the success of the message and mystical experience of the Risen Christ.

John the Baptist was important to birth of the Jesus Movement and it has been the custom of the church to bring him out each year before Christmas to celebrate his role in our salvation history.

John the Baptist is also a reminder to us before the season of Christmas excess, to simplify our lives, to share with those in need, especially if we possess so much excess.  John the Baptist is a reminder that we cannot substitute religious behaviors, ritual behaviors, or group religious identity for right living.  We can say we are observant in our religious behaviors, but without right living, we are but hypocrites.

The Gospel writers also presented the distinction between the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus.  John came to tell people that life is about the practice of right behaviors in the day life; it is not about having the right religious identity, whether Jew, Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist, Buddhist, Muslim or Amish.  But just knowing that we need to practice right behavior can be daunting.  I can know what to do but experience the total inability to do what I know I need to do.

What did John the Baptist say about Jesus?  He was one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.  John the Baptist did an external washing with water; he was the boot camp sergeant who told us to get our act together; Jesus of Nazareth became known as the Risen Christ, a mystical experience of the Holy Spirit to do an inside job on us to give us the power and the ability to do the right things that we need to do.

John the Baptist did not have a Messiah complex; but he was messianic.  He knew that to be messianic was to bring good news about kindness, sharing and honesty and justice.  And he knew to refer us to the one who could do an inside job on each of us, to baptize us with the Holy Spirit to make us messianic people of hope, love, justice and care.  Amen.