Sermon: "John the Baptizer is a bridge between the old and the new" Advent 4 2024

22. December 2024
Advent 4
John 1:19-28

And they asked him, saying, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know. It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose” (Jn 1:25–27).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

John the Baptizer is the end of the Old Testament. So, in some ways, he’s the culmination of the prophetic tradition. He’s the last prophet. He’s the ultimate prophet: all the prophets' preaching is summed up in John’s message. But this means that his calling by God is also something like a sword. John is sent, like Elijah, to clear the way. He’s clearing the space and says, “Make way for the Lord.” Level the road. Clear out what’s there from before.

It’s like when John is arrested, and then Jesus goes into the temple, flips over tables, and clears the temple out. Jesus does this once, but John encapsulates all this: repent, clear out, make way, get rid of the old world, plow the field, and get the dirt ready because the seed is coming to be planted in it.

That’s why when you’re baptized, for example, Christ completes your baptism in His baptism by John. The others would get baptized and be told, “Clear out the way, repent of your sins, wash things away, get rid of the bad. Destroy the Tower of Babel. Get rid of all your idols. Make things clear. But there was always something missing. 

You need something from above to come down and plant the seed into the new earth. That’s why Jesus says, “The branch, the branch is ready to get cut. I’m going to cut down that tree. All the things that don’t bear fruit will get cut down.” So, without Jesus, you’re missing the last, most crucial part that completes John’s preaching and baptizing. You need the seed to come down, land in that cleared space, get into the ground and die. Then, it will produce a new shoot that grows into a tree whose branches produce much good fruit.

When Christ comes out of the water, the Spirit of God descends; He comes down and lands on Him. That’s the next step after baptism. That’s the culmination of the new clearing away the old. That’s why baptism is your confirmation; God says, “This is another good one, a fruit that my branches produce.”

So, you can see, in all the different things that John does, he’s clearing away the old to make way for the new. He’s come to destroy what is faulty, what is not working. So John, Elijah, and God’s other prophets often appear as people who judge, who mock, who are hard on you. Their goal is to destroy the system to prepare the earth for the One who comes to build.

Without criticism that cuts and kills, there is no renewing and making alive. For example, John criticizes a lot of people and things. He criticizes the old social order. He criticizes the old political order. He criticizes the religious leaders and the king. He’s calling out hypocrisy. He’s calling people to repent regardless of their social or religious status. He’s breaking down the corrupt system. But that’s what John has been sent to do. He’s destructive — not in a bad sense — but in a good sense, a godly sense.

Rather than working to unite heaven and earth through politics, social justice, or techno tyranny, John the Baptist destroys the ungodly attempts at the union of heaven and earth so that Jesus can create a new one. John doesn’t gather people, that’s for sure. People come to him, and he washes them, but that’s what baptism is. He baptizes people to eliminate what isn’t helpful and to prepare the way for the new.

That’s why, after John prepares the way for Jesus, Jesus doesn’t have that same message. He doesn’t need to preach like John. He hasn’t come to pick up where John left off with his criticisms. Jesus doesn’t need to. John already did that for him, chopping away at the old growth so Jesus can come to herald the new. Rather than, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven is here—it’s Me!” He’s there to save the lost sheep. He’s not there to spend his time attacking the political authorities in the way that the Baptizer does. He does go after the religious authorities quite a bit, but mostly for scaring away and scattering the sheep.

So, John is a bridge between the old and the new. He’s there to announce that the old growth is being cut down. It has to go. It has to be cleared away so the ground can be prepared for this seed coming from above, the seed that will sprout and grow into a tree, and its fruit will feed all of God’s people. And who are God’s people? All the people baptized in the Name of the Tree, Jesus. He’s the Seed from above. He’s the shoot that grows out of Jesse's dead stump. He’s the tree of life that stands in this holy orchard of God’s planting.

Anything and anyone that doesn’t clear out is in His way, and they’ll be cut down and thrown into fire. That’s the way it has to be. They’re of no use. They’re just old, dead growth in the way of the new. It doesn’t matter if they’re well-meaning political authorities, pious religious leaders, or anyone else who comes demanding that people clear out the way, repent of their sins, wash things away, and get rid of the bad. It doesn’t matter if they’re calling for destroying the Tower of Babel, or getting rid of all the idols to make things clear. If the seed doesn’t come down and isn’t falling on the ground prepared for it, it won’t sprout and grow and produce something new. Repentance without absolution in Jesus yields only a pile of dead wood, good only for fire.

That’s why the Baptizer is sent ahead to prepare the way for the Lord. He’s the sword that chops away the old growth. So when the new comes, when the Lamb of God that John points at who comes to take away the sin of the world, it’s clear who Jesus is and what He’s come to do. He’s the “corn of wheat” that falls into the ground and dies, that “bringeth forth much fruit.”

John cleared the ground. The ground is ready to receive the new seed from above. Jesus dies, and out of His dying, He becomes the first-fruit of God’s new creation, and from Jesus to the disciples, and on and on over the years until you too were made to bud and grow and hang onto the branch of the Tree of Life through Baptism in Jesus’ name. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor 5:17).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin