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The Third Sunday of Advent Almighty God, the breeze of your love and grace is ever blowing; may we set our sails to capture that breeze, and may it inspire these words and those who hear them. Amen. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. In a small gallery in the Alsace region of France there is a remarkable work of art by an obscure German Renaissance painter known as Matthias Grünewald. Originally a complicated and multilayered piece made to go above the altar in the hospital chapel at St. Anthony’s monastery in Isenheim, Germany between 1512 and 1516, the work is now viewed as a series of separate paintings—a glorious annunciation, a beatific birth scene, a frightening portrayal of St. Anthony fighting off demons in the desert, a rather gruesome crucifixion scene and a triumphant resurrection. Each of the panels has noteworthy features, but it is the crucifixion scene that is related to today’s gospel. In this crucifixion scene, there is a stark and graphic depiction of the dying Christ, and there are the women at the foot of the cross--the things you'd expect to see--but to one side is an unexpected figure—John the Baptist, arm outstretched with one long bony finger pointing at Jesus. Any one familiar with the gospels will be puzzled or even shocked to recognize the figure of John in this scene. According to gospel chronology John died months, maybe even years before Jesus. And yet there he is, not some ethereal ghostly character, but obviously alive, finger thrust towards Jesus. If we pay close attention to today’s gospel, however, we might begin to grasp why Grünewald placed this unlikely figure into his crucifixion scene, because the John the Baptist of today’s gospel, like the John the Baptist in the painting, has one role—and only one role—pointing towards Jesus, witnessing that he—Jesus—is the one, the light, the Messiah, the savior. In this season of Advent, this season of preparation, John the Baptist figures prominently in our gospel readings. Last week we heard Mark’s rendition of the story—how John came proclaiming a baptism for repentance of sins, baptizing with water in preparation for the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Today we hear the story told from the evangelist John’s perspective. It’s a similar story but if you pay very close attention, you’ll find a difference, a subtle difference perhaps but an important one. In this story told by the Evangelist, there is no baptism for repentance, and it is only later that there is mention of another baptism by the Holy Spirit. Rather all the emphasis here is on John as a witness to Jesus, John as the one who points out, “This is the One—this is the Light—pay attention!” When those sent out from Jerusalem to question John ask him who he is—Elijah? Moses?—he takes no credit for himself, does not mention his own ministry except to say that he is “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’“ Everything that John does is undertaken to point to Jesus. If we read on past the ending of today’s gospel, we hear John himself claim that he baptized so that the one who was to come might be revealed to the people of Israel. John says, “…the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” The role that John plays in this story, the testimony that he gives is so powerful, so significant that one commentator refers to him not as John the Baptist, but as John the Witness. John was the first witness, and his testimony was crucial, but of course he was not the only one. The twelve disciples, the bands of followers who became the nucleus of the early church, and the saints and martyrs down through the ages have all borne testimony to the identity of Jesus as the Light, the Son of God, the Messiah. Like John, they have reminded the world that, in John’s words, “Among you there stands one whom you do not know;” like John they have pointed with their words and their actions not to themselves, but to Jesus so that Jesus’ light might shine more brightly in the world. Just a few weeks ago, on All Saints’ Day, we sang that favorite hymn of mine, I Sing a Song of the Saints of God, which reminds us so vividly that, those witnesses, those saints, “they lived not only in ages past, there are hundreds of thousands still.” As we move towards Christmas, as we prepare ourselves again for Jesus’ coming anew into our hearts and our lives, we might do well to think about who our witnesses are today. We might think of witnesses like Dorothy Day whose mission it was to share Christ as she shared her life in solidarity with the poor and downtrodden in worker houses. Or witnesses like Mother Teresa who, even in her own times of darkness and doubt, pointed to Christ’s light shining in the world as she cared for orphans and the sick in the midst of abject poverty. We might think of witnesses like Desmond Tutu who pointed to Christ as he worked not only to end apartheid but also to heal the wounds it left behind. We might think of witnesses like Martin Luther King, Jr. who pointed to Christ as he worked so that justice might roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream, justice and righteousness for ALL of God’s children. And we might think of witnesses like Dan, the elderly gay man who pointed to Christ every single Sunday when he stopped to buy flowers after church on his way to visit AIDS patients in the hospital, or Frankie, the proprietor of the little grocery and deli in my New York City neighborhood who pointed to Christ as he ministered to stressed seminarians with coffee and sandwiches and good cheer, but even more so as he made sure that the kids from the public housing next door had lunch during the summer and a safe place to check in when they needed it. We, too, are called to be witnesses, to point to Christ, to point to the one who is the Light so that others may see Him. We’re called to point to Christ with our words and with our actions and with all of our being, and we’re called to point to Christ as parents and friends and coworkers and partners. It’s not always an easy thing to do in this world, a world that encourages us to point to ourselves, instead, to shine our own lights in the world, to put ourselves first. But the good news is that we do not have to do this pointing to Christ on our own strength alone. We don’t have to rely on our own strength because we have that great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us; we don't have to rely on own strength because we have been baptized into the body of Christ [just as we are about to baptize baby Kevin] and we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. And we don’t have to rely on our own strength because we are nourished here at the altar where we gather each week to remember and to be fed before we are sent back out into the world. Let us pray.
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