2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
See TEXT below John1:29-34
This Sunday's Lectionary Gospel reading asks us to recall the moment when John the Baptist proclaimed that Jesus, the sin-bearer, had finally arrived.
What did this declaration mean? In part it meant that Jesus was the one toward whom the Baptizer's ministry had pointed all along: "...the reason why I came baptizing with water,” says John, “ was that he might be made known to Israel." And it also meant that this one bore the Holy Spirit, and that he is the Son of GOD, Messiah. So, Good News!"
What a relief of burden this must have been for the Baptizer when the one toward whom he was directing the crowds finally appeared. This meant John’s work was nearly completed. But this is only part of the story. Think what an affliction of burden Jesus must have felt as the density of his mission came upon his shoulders in the form of a light-weight dove. Did Jesus really believe that the dove symbolized peace? I wonder. What we do know is the sin-bearer would know little peace in his short life.
Thinking down this road a little farther, what must it have felt like to be the sin-bearer? What massive dissonance must have run though Jesus' mind when the people he loved in sacrificial offering either cared little for his movement toward them in atonement or hated him for it. What thoughts must have braced Jesus' mind when the sober light of the desert day brought the realization that the sacrifice that cost so much was appreciated by so few.
This reminds me of one of my favorite books, Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It
." Mclean writes about the conflict in his family as they tried to help his brother overcome his life dominating problems. “You are too young to help anybody", McClean has the father say to him, "and I am too old. By help I don’t mean a courtesy like serving choke-cherry jelly or giving money."
“Help,” he said, “is giving a part of yourself to someone who accepts it willingly and needs it badly.
"So it is,” he said, using an old homiletic transition, “that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.’”
Well, know this, Jesus has what is needed, but do we want it? Do we really wish the life he offers? Do we really desire to take on his yoke and learn of him (Mt. 11:29)? Sometimes we do, but most often we seem to struggle with his easy yoke. Presumably, the yoke is easy because Jesus shares it with us, but in reality we don't want the yoke at all. Most of the time we simply want to go our own way not his.We want the life of ease and plenty, not sacrifice and poverty. So, we pay lip service to the sacrificial Jesus-way of service, but in the end that is what we mostly offer -- talk.
Said another way, it is a monumental task for us to become untangled from our cultural captivity. We are trapped by our affluence and strangled by our self-entertainment. Most of us have never been seriously challenged to see the Jesus-way as different from the American way. Our values may be rightly called self-absorbed.
By contrast there are those who have truly offered themselves to the Jesus-way, and here I have in mind someone like Martha Myers, a 57-year-old obstetrician and gynecologist, who served as a Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) medical worker in Yemen for 24 years. (This information is found here) She was murdered Dec. 30, 2003, when a lone gunman attacked the Baptist hospital in Jibla, Yemen.
"After graduating from Samford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Martha attended the University of Alabama in Birmingham. After her third year of medical school, she participated in the Foreign Mission Board receptorship program, which allowed her to spend two months in Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen. This experience cemented her call to medical missions and specifically her mission to serve in Yemen.
Martha returned home after her receptorship, finished her senior year of medical school and completed her internship and residency in obstetrics at the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile. Following her time in Mobile, she studied at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. After seminary she spent a few months in the Polyglot School Ltd., in London, England, which provided the foundation for her mastery of the Arabic language.
Because of her earlier work with the FMB at Jibla hospital in Yemen, Dr. Martha Myers was sent back to the Hospital, which was an 80 bed facility that treated 40,000 patients yearly. She initially worked six days a week, spending two days in surgery, two days in the outpatient clinic, and two days traveling to villages in the surrounding area to administer inoculations and to teach the people about health care. Her ministry to the surrounding villages came to occupy a majority of her time. She spent most of her days in her Land Cruiser, covering hundreds of miles of rough, almost impassable roads over high mountains. Upon arrival at a village after a long, tiring journey, she would work tirelessly, sometimes even sleeping in the village if it was too late to return home. If called to see a specific patient, she would treat them no matter what time she arrived, often throwing stones to awaken a household at 3:00 a.m. if necessary because she had given her word that she would come.
The FMB had decided to close the Jibla hospital, making December 30, 2002, the last day that the hospital in Yemen was to be open. When the gates to the hospital opened that day, Abed Abdel Razzek Kamel, a member of an al-Qaida cell that had killed a political leader in the capital city of Yemen just a few days before, walked into the hospital compound with a concealed weapon, which he cradled in his arms as if it were a baby. Kamel followed Myers into a meeting and opened fire, killing her and two other missionaries. Kamel's actions were prompted by an earlier visit his wife had made to the hospital. Upon her return, she spoke highly of Myers, noting that no Muslim doctor had ever treated her with such love and compassion. Kamel knew he had to kill Dr. Myers to keep her from spreading Christianity in Yemen.
Martha was killed doing what she loved, in the place where God wanted her to be. It was her wish to be buried in Yemen and her family honored that wish. In trying to stop the spread of Christ's love in Yemen, Kamel served to reveal His love to the world through the broadcasts of Martha Myers' death, which showed her Christ-centered dedication to those in need."
How do we find and live this rule of life? How do we carry the burden of world at war with itself? How do we care for others when we really want others to care for us? Sadly, we have lost a theology of the cross in favor of a theology of triumph -- where we are the hero of the story, rarely the victim and never the villain.
In truth, we must have help. In truth, we must have empowerment from beyond ourselves, from beyond our selfishness, for we can never untangle ourselves.
Our text offers us such hope. St. John tells us that Jesus is marked by the Spirit. This endowment of Jesus with the Spirit of GOD is the driving force behind his ministry. Said another way, Jesus is totally dependent upon the Spirit for his ministry, and he is totally smeared with this anointing of the Spirit.
To think fully about what the text means to tell us is to grasp that no matter what ones believes about the internal nature of Jesus, he is also a person just like we are people, living his life within the parameters of the human condition. And St. John would have us know that his power and sacrifice came from the anointing of the Spirit of GOD. This means his temptations were real; his struggles were real. If not, how is Jesus a genuine example for us?
If he truly is our example, as I am arguing, then he truly is our way to a real humanity? And this true humanity occurs within us and among us because we share the self-same Holy Spirit, and we share the same calling to a sacrificial life. And the only way to enter this calling and the life we share together is through the empowerment from the Spirit in the same way that he had. In this way the Spirit of GOD causes us to become the body of Christ -- which provides Jesus’ continuing incarnation to this world at war with itself. Jesus is here again, at once, alive, in and through his people.
Jn 1:29-34 Gospel
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
He is the one of whom I said,
‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’
I did not know him,
but the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel.”
John testified further, saying,
“I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven
and remain upon him.
I did not know him,
but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me,
‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain,
he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”
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