December 14, 2008 | 8:00 a.m.

Testifying to the Light

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 126
John 1:6–8, 19–28

There are many of you who think to yourselves: “If I had only been there! How quick I would have been to help the baby!” . . . Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor.

Martin Luther

This week I was sitting at my computer one day, instant messaging with a friend when I should have been working on this sermon. When I told my friend that I needed to be writing my sermon, she typed, “What’s it about?” And I typed, “John the Baptist . . . strange guy.” And she typed, “What do you mean?” And I typed, “You know, ‘wearing clothing of camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey’ . . . strange guy.”

Although some of you might have articulated it differently than I did, I think many of us have the impression that John the Baptist was a rather unusual guy. All four of the Gospel writers tell us something about this unusual character. Luke tells us that John is the son of the priest Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth. John is born only by the grace of God when Zechariah and Elizabeth are quite advanced in years. This story line actually appears elsewhere in the Bible, and the intention is precisely to show us that something strange or unusual is about to happen. What happens is so strange, Zechariah is so floored by the extraordinary circumstances of his son John’s birth that he is actually struck dumb for a few months before John is finally born.

It is in Mark’s Gospel that we first learn about John’s appearance in adulthood. Mark is the one who tells us that John wore clothing of camel’s hair and a leather belt and ate locusts and wild honey as he baptized people in the wilderness.

And then it is Matthew, along with Luke, who adds a piece to Mark’s version of the story, telling us that as some people came to be baptized, John got up in their faces and made this strange exclamation: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come?” That passage always reminds me of a lovely man named Haworth Parks, who was a member of the first congregation I served. Haworth came up to me on the first Sunday morning of my very first ministry internship and said, shaking a long bony finger at me, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the wrath to come?” And Haworth said to me, “Pastor, what does that mean?” Over time I figured out that Haworth was messing with the new kid a little bit. I don’t remember what I said, but I’m pretty sure it was close to, “I don’t know, sir, I just started this morning.”

John the Baptist certainly has the potential to come off as a strange man. And so it’s interesting that in the fourth Gospel, the Gospel According to John, the account from which I read this morning, we don’t hear any of these stories that might suggest that John was a strange man. In John’s Gospel, we don’t learn much about him at all. All we know is that “there was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light.” No birth story, no camel’s hair, no locusts, no “who warned you?”—just a human being who came as a witness to testify to the light.

In today’s reading from John, we learn that John is a witness. Lamar Williamson, a biblical scholar, reminds us that “witnesses [are people who] say what they have seen and heard or attest to the truth of another’s testimony.” In other words, when we learn that John is a witness, we are being told that it may not be of much importance who John is, but we know that his mission is to attest to the coming of the light. Importantly, we also learn what John is not: that John is not himself the light; he is not the Messiah. The text is very clear about that.

So why is this important? What’s this whole story actually about, and what does it have to do with people like us, in Chicago, in 2008? That’s the question I began to think about when I was messaging with my friend and made that offhanded remark about John the Baptist being a strange guy. I’ve always remembered the part about John being different. Was I really getting the point?

It’s funny the way that our experiences shape the way we interpret a biblical text. As it turns out, I experienced something a couple of weeks ago that made a big difference this week in the way I came to a new understanding of these passages about John the Baptist, this unusual man who was sent to testify to the light. So let me tell you about what I’ve been thinking about: a more contemporary witness who came to testify to the light.

The church lost one of its great saints two weeks ago when a man named Bill Placher passed away unexpectedly at the age of sixty. Dr. Placher was one of my religion professors at Wabash College. A theologian and an elder in the Presbyterian church, Professor Placher’s career was marked by significant contributions to the academic life of the church. He had an uncanny ability to take even the most cumbersome of theological arguments and make them understandable to the average student, minister, or member of the church; it was an invaluable gift. Bill was my greatest mentor as I began my theological studies and eventually found my way into the ministry, and so last Saturday, along with many others, I made the drive to Crawfordsville, Indiana, to attend Bill’s funeral. It was a beautiful, meaningful service; the sermon was particularly memorable, given by the Reverend John Van Nuys, pastor of the Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church, where Bill was a member for years. The pastor told us that, much like our own Dana Ferguson, Bill did not want a eulogy; he had asked specifically for a sermon about the good news of Jesus Christ. And Bill’s pastor preached that sermon, but in so doing he reminded us of two very important lessons from Bill’s life. I’ll call those two lessons Bill’s humility and his humanity.

Everyone who knew Bill well knew that in terms of the things of this world, he often lived a rather simple life. Over his sixty years he had traveled widely, met amazing people, and attended the best schools. He was a widely sought-after teacher and lecturer, but when it came to the everyday things, Bill lived quite simply: he dressed simply, lived in a small house that some would call rather sparse, drove small cars with the most basic features, and across the board—considering the tremendous success he enjoyed as an academic—he lived way within his means, and he gave generously. Bill’s way of teaching and mentoring, his way of being a colleague and his way of being a friend, mirrored the gentleness and thoughtfulness of his material existence. And at his funeral it was remarked, and all agreed, that the reason Bill was able to live contentedly in such a simple way was because to a greater extent than many of us, Bill knew who he was. He was comfortable in his own skin, so he never needed to make a show in order to prove anything to anyone else. That was the humility part.

The humanity part, though, was that Bill was comfortable in his own skin not only because he knew who he was, but because he knew who he was not. Bill did not think of himself as perfect; he did not think about the simple aspects of his life as sacrificial. Far from it: Bill firmly believed that he, like all the rest of us, was a sinner, in need of God’s forgiveness and grace. Bill’s pastor reminded us of this in the sermon that day, “because,” he said, “if you remember Bill only as a saint, someone much different than the rest of us, in whose steps we cannot possibly follow, you missed the point of the way he lived his life. Bill’s humility was not intended to be an impossible standard, rather, it was just another sinner’s way of trying to do his best. It was a way of living in which we are absolutely called to follow.”

Three years ago, Bill preached for the worship service at which I was ordained to the ministry. As a part of that sermon, Bill recalled a great quotation from our father in the faith, John Calvin: The word can be preached “through people like us and sometimes even by those of lesser worth than we. . . . When a puny man risen from the dust speaks in God’s name, at this point we best show our piety and obedience toward God if we show ourselves teachable toward [God’s] minister even though he excels us in nothing” (Institutes, 4.3.1). In other words, God is best glorified when we don’t draw too much attention to ourselves, so that all of our listener’s attention might be directed to the glory of God.

The simplicity of Bill’s life had a way of giving glory to God because Bill knew how not to draw too much attention to himself. At the same time, Bill was a genuine, flawed human being, and he lived in a way that all of us can certainly follow. Each of us in our own way can figure out ways to use the particular life we have been given to give glory back to God.

At the end of the day, I don’t know if John the Baptist was a strange guy or not. But I think it’s important not to get stuck in thinking too much about this particular character. It doesn’t seem to make much difference if he ate locusts and wild honey, wore clothing of camel’s hair, and stood in a riverbed in the wilderness crying out “Who warned you?” In the end, what seems most unusual about John the Baptist has little to do with his family of origin or personal habits and a great deal to do with the fact that he dedicated his life to being a witness to the light. He decided that in the midst of all the busyness of life that was the most important thing, and then, through his own interesting history, his own quirky existence, his own flaws and shortcomings, John the Baptist found a way to give glory to God.

Advent is a time of year when so many things demand our attention. So many things are supposed to look a certain way. There’s so much to be done, and there are so many ways to become distracted from the real message, because we pay too much attention to the messengers. But the message is this: that the God who reigns over all that we see and do not see, who governs the very breadth and depth and height of the universe, became a humble, human one of us, arriving in the form of a delicate child. He will teach us a new way to love God and love one another, and he will live and die for no greater reason than to lift us out of our humble human places and help us find our own ways to give glory to God.

This Advent season, I invite you to think about the fact that in all kinds of small ways, your actions and words can give glory to God. Furthermore, I invite you not to worry about whether or not you are qualified to give glory to God, for not a one of us is qualified. Bill once wrote, “When we think of the blessings God has showered upon us, we want to do the best we can in gratitude, but God will love us and God will get done what needs doing even when we fail most spectacularly.”

“A voice cries out in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” In this season, may God grant that something of your life will prepare the way of the Lord.

All to God’s glory and honor and praise. Amen.