Third Sunday of Advent, cycle B

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Today's gospel is the same scene as last Sunday's. Last week Mark told the story. This time it's John. Notice that there is nothing here about camel's hair or eating bugs dipped in honey. The Gospel writer tells us that a man named John was sent by God to testify concerning the light. The Gospel writer emphasizes that John was not the light.

Maybe John had received a special revelation from God. But then again, maybe not. John, after all, if we are to believe Luke, was the son of a Jewish priest. As you may know, the priesthood was hereditary, so John would have not only had the right to be a priest, he would have that as a duty. And we know that priests began their careers at a very early age – generally the teen years. The other thing that maybe points to John's priesthood is the fact that he is baptizing with water. If you were a gentile and wanted to become a Jew, part of the process requires a ritual bath which was arranged by the priest. In Orthodox Jewish communities even today the ritual bath is still used. Our ritual of baptism probably was derived from this tradition. I think the Pharisees saw the symbolism in what John was doing. When they asked him by what authority he was baptizing, it seems that they expected something like that, which was reflected in the guessing about his identity. They expected someone would come along and revitalize Israel, but surely it would be someone important.

John's job was to testify to the light. In his experience as a priest, I wonder if he became disillusioned. If he studied scripture, he must have read that Isaiah had quoted God as saying, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” and yet every day priests were being paid to sacrifice animals – paid with money earned by hard labor. Maybe John had become disgusted with so many of the priests who really believed in nothing but enriching themselves; we know that most priests were Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection. We also know that the high priests were very tight with the authorities. John may have looked at the Pharisees as an alternative, but it wasn't much better. In their efforts to keep the law they were spending enormous amounts of time and energy working out exactly what the law was for every conceivable situation. And they were trying very hard to get everyone to do what they were doing. When John compared what was actually happening with what the prophets said God wanted of his people, he could see how Israel was missing the mark and when he preached and baptized, he was trying to jump-start a new Israel.

We've seen other prophets like John, people like Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela – people who looked at the world they lived in and saw that this was not the way things were supposed to be. And this vision became the force behind their heroic attempts to change the world, sometimes being imprisoned or even killed as a result.

But there is another type of testifying. Maybe an example is the kind of witness the apostles gave. The apostles had been through a marvelous experience. They had walked and talked with the Son of God himself; they had seen his miracles, they had listened to his preaching, they had been his friends and witnessed his life, death and resurrection. And this was the subject of their testimony. When you read the sermons of Peter and Paul and others in the New Testament, the subject is Jesus Christ and him crucified. When the authorities told the apostles to quit their preaching, Peter replied that if they were silenced the very stones would cry out.

Because of our baptism, we are also to be witnesses. Because of our confirmation, we are given the strength to witness. Jesus promised that when we were put on the spot he would give us the words we needed to say. We Christians who are adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus, who can claim God as Father, are in the world to testify as John did, so that all might believe.

And we also are supposed to witness in both ways. We too can look at the world and judge it; we can see how things are and how things should be. Being this kind of witness is hard, and can get us into trouble. It's a lot harder to publicly stand up for Christian values today than it was twenty years ago. But Jesus promised that those who were persecuted for his sake would inherit the kingdom of heaven. One way we can all witness is to learn why the Church teaches what she does, about same sex marriage, about abortion, about physician assisted suicide, about any of the current hot topics. When we understand these things then we are prepared to give an account of ourselves, as Saint Peter urged us in his first letter. Another way of course is to put our Christian principles into practice in some way, so that we are giving some of our time and some of our treasure to promote the kingdom of heaven.

But the other kind of witness, the testimony of the wonderful things God has been doing, is also our responsibility. When we look at our own lives, especially through the rear view mirror, we can often see that God was there when we didn't know it. Think back to the big turning points in your life, some of them good and some not so good. We can be sure that God was there, offering us grace, helping us grow, drawing us closer to him, because that's what God does, even though it hurts sometimes. And when we look at the Church to which we belong, the Church Jesus left us, that's something to be grateful for as well.

The early Christians told the world how things should be, and many died for that. And they told the world about the wonderful things God was doing, and because of that, the Church grew. If we Christians were brave enough to testify, think of how much better off the world would be. Isn't it time we realized that like John the Baptist we have also been sent by God to testify to the light?