Reducing John, Not Jesus
Advent 4| John 1:19-28 (29)| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| December 22, 2024
John the Baptist refused to speak of himself when asked by the priests and Levites who he was. He wanted only to tell them that He was a voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord!” “I am not the Christ!” John confessed, demonstrating the power of his preaching that he even needed to dispel that rumor. “Are you Elijah?” they then asked. Malachi prophesies in chapter 4, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.” And Jesus tells us that John is indeed Elijah to come (Matthew 11:14). By this Jesus means that John comes in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). John denies that he is Elijah from heaven. They then ask John if he is a prophet. Jesus indeed calls John more than a prophet (Matthew 11:9). Yet, John denies to be the Prophet, of whom Moses prophesies in Deuteronomy 18, because that Prophet is the Christ Himself, who is our Prophet, Priest, and King.
John does a lot of denying who he is not. He wants to be known only as a voice, because he wants them to listen to his voice. John doesn’t want to talk about himself, he wants to talk about Jesus, for whose way he has been sent to prepare. The priests and Levites are entirely unimpressed by John’s answer. “This guy doesn’t want to make anything out of himself except that he is a voice? Why then are these great crowds coming to hear him? Why are they weeping with sorrow over their sins as he preaches, and weeping with joy over their forgiveness when they leave him? Why is he making disciples by baptizing them?”
John answers, “I baptize with water…” Now, there are many today, who will jump and say, “John’s baptism doesn’t do anything. It’s just a symbol.” And they’ll say the same about Baptism today. “Baptism can’t save you,” they’ll say, “It’s only water. You need the Baptism of the Spirit!” But John is not saying that his baptism is nothing, let alone calling the Baptism into which we are baptized today, nothing! Jesus tells us that John’s baptism was from heaven (Matthew 21:23-27). And John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4). Both repentance and forgiveness cannot come from man but must be granted by God! And John saw the Holy Spirit descend upon Jesus as a dove and he heard the voice of God the Father from heaven declare Jesus His beloved Son when he baptized Jesus. John knew that his baptism was not nothing!
So, why does John say that he baptizes with water, while Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit? (John 1:33) Because John is confessing to be only a tool, an instrument. He’s like a hammer or a saw. He is useful to the one who sent him. It is as St. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 3, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” (vs. 6) John pours water, but the Holy Spirit is sent by Christ. So also, John is a voice which preaches repentance, yet it is the Holy Spirit who comes and changes hearts. And so, we should not despise Baptism today, or the Lord’s Supper, or the preaching of the Gospel, because it is just water, or just bread and wine, or just a man talking. No, the Holy Spirit comes to us through these means. God points us to Christ through these means. Jesus is given to us by these instruments.
We need John’s preaching as we begin to celebrate Christmas. John wants to preach nothing but Jesus. He doesn’t want you to consider himself at all. He’s just a voice. But listen to the content of that voice. It is all about Jesus! Christmas is all about Jesus. It’s not about Santa and reindeer. It’s not about your mom’s special recipes or the movie you love to watch as a family. It’s not about the presents.
And while this may seem obvious, this is a great comfort to hear! Because this also means that we still get to celebrate Christmas even if all these other things are taken away, if you must cancel your travel plans because of bad weather or sickness or poverty, if you spend Christmas caring for a sick loved one or even sitting at a loved one’s deathbed, or mourning the death of someone you lost this year. You can celebrate Christmas without presents, without a Christmas tree and without spending a fortune. It’s not about all that extra stuff. Christmas, and indeed, our entire life, is all about Jesus. What great peace this gives!
Yet, beware lest you dismiss John’s message as being overly simple. Here I must warn you against Gospel reductionism. Gospel reductionism is the practice of eliminating anything in the Bible that doesn’t have to do with the Gospel. It may originally have had a good intention of focusing on the Gospel, but it results in eliminating useful teachings of Scripture and even the Gospel itself! Gospel reductionism is practiced by many liberal churches, which don’t want to offend people by teachings of the Bible that they think are not relevant to the Gospel. And Gospel reductionism is practiced by individuals, who do not want to confront their own sin or ignorance of God’s Word.
Call it what you will, this is a popular practice. “All we need is Jesus!” Doesn’t that sound nice! “Just so long as we believe in Jesus, that’s all that matters.” “Just as long as we all love Jesus! It doesn’t matter what we believe, whether we go to church, where we go to church. Let’s just focus on what’s important: Jesus!” But this is not what John is preaching when he points only to Jesus! Who is Jesus? What has He done? Why has He done it? These are important questions that need to be answered. So, when John reduces himself to only a voice, only a pourer of water, he is not reducing Jesus in any way. Rather, he wants to proclaim everything we need to know about Jesus!
John preaches three particularly important things that lead us to Jesus. First, John preaches repentance. Most people think they know what repentance means. It means to say sorry for doing something wrong. Yet, repentance is not simply saying sorry. The word for repentance means to change your mind. To turn from what you are doing and to live and think differently. Luther stated in his first thesis of his 95 Theses, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), He willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Our Lutheran Confessions teach, from Holy Scripture, that repentance has two parts. First, is contrition, that is, terror of conscience from the knowledge of sin. The second is faith, which believes the Gospel that God forgives us our sins for Christ’s sake. It then says that good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance (Augsburg Confession XII).
This was not the mere opinion of the Lutheran reformers, but what John the Baptist preached. “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance!” (Luke 3:8), John preached to the crowd. “Give your extra tunic to him who has none. Tax collectors, collect no more than you are authorized to. Soldiers, do not threaten or extort money, but be content with your wages.” John preached a change of life! And this is what all of Scripture teaches about repentance. St. Paul tells us to put off the old self and put on the new, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called, to put away fornication, slander, drunkenness, and to put on humility, gentleness, and truth. You have not repented properly if you think that you have finished repenting. Because your old self with its sin and unbelief continues to cling to you until you die, you are not done repenting until you have put your old self off once and for all! St. Paul writes in Ephesians 4 that Christ gave the church teachers of the Gospel so that we may be equipped “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (vss. 13-14) So, when John teaches us to repent, he is teaching us to continue to conform ourselves to Christ our entire lives.
Second, John preaches the two natures of Christ: His divinity and His humanity. He says that Jesus came after him, but he also says that Jesus was before him. How can Jesus come after John and yet be before John? Jesus was born about six months after John and He began his ministry about a year or so after John began his. Yet, Christ is before John, because He is the eternal Son of the Father. He is the Word, who was with God and was God from the beginning. John is teaching that this Jesus is both God and man. This is significant when we talk about only Jesus being important. That is true. But which Jesus are we talking about? The Muslims believe in Jesus. They think He was a great prophet. But they deny that He is God or that He died for our sins. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe in Jesus. But they deny that He is God and they deny that He rose from the dead bodily. Just saying you believe in Jesus or that you love Jesus is not enough, if you do not define what you mean by Jesus. John preaches the Jesus who is true God and true man.
This teaching that Jesus is true God and true man is important for the third thing John preaches about Jesus. John preaches that Christ Jesus is the Redeemer who makes atonement for our sins. In Ruth chapter 4, Boaz wanted to redeem Ruth, so that he could marry her. Yet, she had a redeemer closer than Boaz. Yet that man did not desire to marry Ruth, so he refused to redeem her dead husband’s land. So, he took his sandal and passed it over to Boaz, which is how they legally indicated a passing of the right of redeemer in those days. John says that he is not worthy to carry Jesus’ sandals. He is saying that he is not worthy to be our Redeemer, because John is just a voice. He is only a man, even if the greatest man born of woman. But Jesus is both God and man, He both comes after and is before John. This is why John points to Jesus and proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) Jesus redeems us from sin, death, and hell by taking our sins away from us. He suffered and died for them in our place, thus making atonement for them. Because He is God, His death is a sufficient price to pay for all our sins. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer.
John wants to reduce himself to just a voice, who pours water. John only wants to preach about Jesus. But John does not want to reduce Jesus in anyway. John doesn’t want to reduce Scripture in any way. Jesus is the reason for the season. This means that Jesus is our Redeemer, who has atoned for our sins. It means we are celebrating the birth of our God in human flesh. It means we continue our constant practice of repenting, that is, changing our minds from those set on earthly things to having the mind of Christ. There is a lot that we can eliminate from our lives, that we can reduce, so that we can focus on what is truly important. But we ought never reduce Jesus and His Word. We want only Jesus, and we want all of Jesus. Only He will give us true peace and a merry Christmas. Amen.