Sermon 112
Sermon by Ian Scott-Thompson on Sunday 13th
January 2008
Matthew Series 2 – John the
Baptist
Have any of you been
reading through the Bible with me? Going
through Matthew has been great fun.
Today is part of a Sermon Series in the early chapters of Matthew:
1. Last Sunday Liz Tilley Matthew 2. 1-12 Wise Men
2. Today, IST Matthew 3. 1-13 John the Baptist
3. Next Sunday James Cooke Matthew 4. 18-25 The
First Disciples
4. A fortnight after, IST Matthew 5. 1-11 Beatitudes
300 years without
prophecy, since Malachi: God had fallen silent.
Birth of John and Jesus shook the nation a little; with angels, and the
wise men. But now, thirty years later,
John appears like a wild-man, and grabs the headlines. His message is Repent, get ready, be
prepared. A bit like the tax advisors
have been saying – the deadline is coming!
Or like a royal herald – the King is coming! Or like a concert promoter – the pop-star is
coming! Rachel went to the Millennium
Dome to see the Spice Girls on Friday.
They had a build-up to the
start, with silhouettes of singers. “One
– is not much fun” building up to “Four – we need one more” and so on. Building the anticipation! Preparing the people. Or, as Isaiah puts it, almost like a motorway
construction bulldozer flattening, levelling and grading the route for the
royal cavalcade to ride along.
John was weird:
weird clothes, weird diet. Is the
leather belt significant? Locusts –
yummy! One of Jenny’s student friends wants to be a hermit so he can live on
chocolate-covered locusts! (some scholars think the word means beans from the carob
tree, not locusts)
Despite his weirdness, or
perhaps because of it, John became quite the fashion. More importantly, his message was heard. People began to repent and turn to God.
John wasn’t a pastoral
sort of person – “You brood of vipers!” he says to the Pharisees. What a welcome greeting!
v9 “Out
of these stones” twelve stones was a familiar image of the twelve tribes:
patriarchs used to build an altar out of twelve stones.
v10 “axe at the root of the trees” was an image of judgement, destruction of
v11 John
makes clear that he is merely the herald, the warm-up act, the opener. Not worthy to be the Messiah’s servant, to
“carry” or “untie” his sandals. He
is “more powerful” than John, and brings the true baptism and judgement.
At the end of our passage,
Jesus enters as the punch line to the story, the fulfilment of centuries
of Jewish expectation.
Jesus said that John is
the greatest born of woman; but even the least in the Kingdom is greater than
he (Matthew
11.11). Are Christians not born of
woman? Of course they are. Are the patriarchs not in heaven? Of course they are. But this is Jesus’ shorthand for “This
Present Age” and “The Age To Come”. John the Baptist is the culmination of the
Old Testament, the build-up to Jesus. He
didn’t bring the Law like Moses, or prophesy like Isaiah. But he is greater than they, because he
introduces Jesus himself.
Hour-glass
view of history. John is like the last section of the top
half, through which all the law and sacrifices, the prophecies and promises
flow.
Jesus is central. Everything in the OT builds up to its climax,
its fulfilment in him. All the prophets,
the teaching, the stories, the characters, the promises of God come to a focus
in Jesus.
After the Incarnation,
everything stems from him. The life,
death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus mark the beginning of the
Napoleon said:
"I know men, and I tell you that Jesus was no mere man."
That’s what I’d like you
to take away from this morning. Respect
for John the Baptist, because of his position in history. But as he himself said repeatedly, “After me
will come one who is more powerful than I.”
The real honour, the central place, the glory must go to Christ himself.
We are not about the
Church as such. We are about Christ.
Bishop of Durham (David
Jenkins):
It's right to lay your life down for the Lord Jesus Christ; but it's daft to
kill yourself for the Church of England.
So let’s continually refocus
on Jesus Christ himself. He is the
central point of history and life itself.
Let us give him that place and that honour which is his by right.
Amen.