The Advent season is the beginning of the Church calendar for the year and rightly so, for the earthly story of our Saviour begins with His coming to us, born as a child in Bethlehem. Because Advent is the beginning of the year, it is thus during this time that we observe the first of quarterly Ember seasons. During these times, three days of prayer and fasting, the Ember Days, are set aside in preparation for the following Sunday on which ordinations of deacons and priests of the Church traditionally take place. In this manner, the Church expresses her deep concern that her ministers be men of spiritual quality and duly ordained. This is why we have the prayer and Bible readings in our prayer book on this Sunday. They all have to do with the ministers of the church and they prepare us to participate in the first Ember season.The Scriptures teach us much about the qualifications for the clergy, through both instruction and example. In our Gospel reading today, one of the best examples of a faithful minister in the Bible is set before us, and that is the example of John the Baptist. What are we to learn about a faithful minister of the Gospel from this passage in Matthew 11? We learn primarily two things:
1. A faithful minister prepares the way of the King, by calling people to repentance; and
2. A faithful minister encourages people to trust in this King by pointing them away from himself to Jesus.
In Matthew 11, Jesus quotes the prophecy by the prophet Isaiah of the mission which would be given to John when he said, For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. John was the harbinger of the Messiah, He who would be the Prophet, Priest and King of God’s people. How was John to fulfill this task? By preaching a message to the people – the message of repentance from sin. Now, why that? How does a message of repentance toward God and away from sin prepare the way for the coming of Jesus? Quite simply, our sin is rebellion against the King. To receive the King, we have to reject our rebellion. If we are to have someone as our king, by the very nature of the relationship, we must vow allegiance to that king. We cannot have our rebellion against Him and own Him at the same time – that would be nonsense.
Now as John called Israel to this repentance that they might be prepared to receive their King, he was famous, and still is, for acting and even looking very much like the prophet Elijah who had lived in the days of King Ahab and the infamous Queen Jezebel. Elijah’s message had also been a message of repentance. We thus find John, not only dressing and acting like Elijah, but also preaching repentance like Elijah. John seemed to be another Elijah or even Elijah back from the dead. What is interesting is that the prophet Malachi, who lived hundreds of years after Elijah, and hundreds before John, foretold that Elijah was going to come back to Israel to turn their hearts. The prophecy was the last thing we find written in our Old Testaments, leaving us on our tiptoes wondering what is going to happen in the New Testament. Was John the Baptist the Elijah who was to return? What do we make of this?
The issue has been debated through the centuries, but let me briefly explain what the bulk of Protestants understand about this. What seems to be the biggest problem with thinking that John was the person intended by the prophecy is that it looks like reincarnation, and we know the Bible is against that idea. But perhaps more important, when John was asked if he was Elijah, he flat out said he was not. These facts discourage some from thinking that John was the Elijah foretold and convince them that the historical Elijah is still to come, apparently before the second coming of the Lord.
But there is a huge problem with thinking that John was not Elijah. That huge problem is that Jesus said He was! In fact, we would have read of Him doing so if our Gospel reading this morning had been a few verses longer. Jesus says, 14: And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. We also find others plainly identifying John with the Elijah prophecy. The angel announcing John’s birth to his father actually quotes the Malachi prophecy. The angel says,
16: And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.
17: And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Thus John’s father, Zacharias, says of his son later:
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; which is the verse Jesus quotes describing John the Baptist.
So was he or was he not? It seems best to conclude that John was indeed the Elijah prophesied and that the prophecy was to be taken figuratively. The same historic Elijah was not to literally come back, but God would send someone who would be another Elijah to His people. He ministered in the spirit and power of Elijah.
What about John’s statement that he was not Elijah? Well, in that the Jews were looking for a literal return of the historic Elijah, for John to say he was Elijah would have been to confuse the issue. He was not the Elijah they were asking him about, so he said, “No.” This must be the interpretation, otherwise we accuse Jesus of not knowing what He was doing with His own servants. He was the one who had given the prophecy to Malachi; he was the one who had sent the angel to proclaim John’s birth, and he was the one that had brought John into the world to prepare His way before Him. He said He was Elijah and that should settle it.
Let us go back to John’s message. He preached repentance to prepare the way of the Lord for his people. He did not preach to prepare his own way into the lives of the people. The whole story he was involved in was about someone else – not him. It was about the Lord. He was there, preaching, so that the Lord could come into the peoples’ hearts. This is what a faithful minister, and a faithful church, will do.
Brothers and sisters, this is all we are to be about. The Church is to be gathered in the name of the Lord – not someone else’s name. This is what bothers me about people who advertise their churches by pasting their own faces on the advertisements. It’s as if these people are presented in the advertisement as the reason for coming: Come to our church so you can see and hear us. It’s just like a musician’s picture appears on an advertisement for one of their concerts. The advertisement is an appeal of people to come and hear the musician. The church advertisements seem to be an appeal to come and hear the preacher and apparently also his wife. That’s probably not what people intend with such advertisements – I give them the benefit of the doubt –even though we know that there are churches that are indeed centered around some personality – but it’s what the advertisements seem to say nevertheless. It’s the impression they give.
The Church is not to gather in the name of any man; we are to gather in the name of the Lord. It’s all about Him. It is His way we want prepared, not someone else’s. We want Him to have His way – His reign – in the hearts of the whole world, that He might be honored and loved and glorified and that the world may be delivered and healed. John is such a wonderful example for us. His fulfillment was in knowing that people were getting to know someone else.
Comments