I went to Sunday school today. I think the last time I attended a Sunday school class– as a student, not as an assistant or a teacher– was in April.
It was nice, for a change, to Not have to have all the answers, or even Most of them. It was nice to be sitting and listening, not teaching.
The class I visited is doing a careful study of the book of John. I love John. Of all the gospel writers, he is the most poetic. Of all of them, he really seems to have grasped that doing what he was doing– writing a believable account of the Man-God’s stay on earth– was Nearly Impossible. That’s why he was poetic, you see. Poetry leaves you room to say things that are impossible to say.
Interestingly, we spent our time on a passage about John– but not the gospel-writer-John. No, this was a passage about John the Baptist. So we had John writing about John.
And in this passage, you have Jesus baptizing people, somewhere (it would seem) at the beginning of his ministry. Yes, it would seem that, at this point in John’s gospel (John 3: 22-36), Jesus had just begun baptizing people. And there was John (the Baptist), not far off, “baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were constantly coming to be baptized.” (I love those details. I mean, honestly. Plenty of water, people coming. What’s a guy to do?)
It would seem that a quarrel sprang up, and this is bound to happen any time you have a group of people and a religious idea of some sort. The quarrel was between some of John’s disciples (yes, he had those, too) and a “certain Jew” (and presumably they were all Jews, but this is a “certain” one, and I wonder about John (the writer’s) forbearance here in Not Saying who the guy was, or if it’s just Poetic License). And the upshot of the argument is that John’s disciples end up telling John that Jesus was baptizing and that “everyone” was going to him.
(And I think to myself here: “Really? Everyone? Everyone? I mean, John (the writer) just got finished saying that John (the Baptist) had people who were “constantly coming to be baptized,” so it couldn’t have been Everyone.)
What did John (the Baptist) say to this, do you suppose? How is he to respond? John (the writer) isn’t telling (Poetic License and all) what the mood of John’s words are, but he doesn’t seem surprised. He tells them that he’s been telling them this all along: “You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.'” So how great was the Joy that seized him as he spoke? Was his face shining? Did laughter pour from his eyes?
“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of Joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”
Yes, this was the expectation: that Jesus would come. And this was the reason for John’s life. And so this was the reason that, even as an unborn baby, John leapt in his mother’s womb to hear Mary announce she was pregnant.
So this news of Jesus’s success on the waterfront wasn’t a surprise at all. No. It was good news. Very Good.
Still, it comes as No Small Comfort to me that John– even This John– also had his moments. Or maybe he had Just One. But there it is, in Matthew’s gospel and also in Luke’s, when John is sitting in prison because he dared to mention that maybe it wasn’t a great idea for King Herod to have his brother Philip’s wife. Yes, John was imprisoned by Herod and eventually beheaded. And while he sat in prison, he sent a message to Jesus: “Are you the one who was supposed to come, or should we expect someone else?”
See? It wasn’t always Joyful Confidence. Not Always.
Odd coincidence, but the sermon at our church today was on position in the family of God. Not a jostling kind of position, though. It was about knowing what we know and acting on it. Serving God in the way He has called you to serve, doing what He wants you to do.
I think that John’s answer to his disciples that day is Exactly That. He knew what he was supposed to be doing and he was doing it. But what about that scenario tricks us into thinking this is easy?
I wonder what it was like for John the Baptist that day, at the end of the quarrel, when the last soul emerged dripping from the water, when the crowds had all gone home and the disciples had turned in for the night. What was it like for him, standing there in the dimming light, in his camel’s skin and leather belt, a bit of honey hanging from his beard?
Did he turn his face to that distant river and, sighing, make his way to Him, tramping on weary but insistent feet to sit at the feet of that Other, that cousin-brother-Father-man? And what would he say to Him, the Fulfillment, the Answer, the Rest, with His flesh so solid and real, and no halo visible above his tangled hair?
Was it Joy that compelled him there, or its promise, or was it sometimes both? Or was it sometimes something other– pure Need? And was their conversation enough to bring Him praise? Was there conversation at all? And could they hear, above the water’s rushing, a gentle song escaping from the rocks and the applause of trees?
