Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - celebrant
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
I Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34
The color of the season may be green. It may be Ordinary Time, but the Word we have heard won’t let us let go of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season we have just celebrated. That season still lingers. There is still a taste of it in our mouths and hearts. The John the Baptist we met in Advent is still with us. He is not so much a voice calling us to prepare and repent for someone is coming. Today we see and hear another dimension of John the Baptist. Today he is a witness. Today he testifies to what he has seen. When he gives evidence, he is making it clear who Jesus is. John understands the purpose of his life: he is the first witness who sees who Jesus is and what Jesus will do.
Christmas and Epiphany are the season in which we celebrate God’s love in becoming one of us, a member of our human family. It is a season in which we are reminded again of the way in which God has made his plan known. His plan was to embrace our humanity as a member of his people Israel. But we are reminded that his plan also includes the world. The Son he sends is a light for all peoples. The sin the Lamb takes away is the brokenness of the whole world. God’s plan is broad and inclusive. It embraces as many faces as there are people on the earth. There is nothing minimalist here. God tells his servant in Isaiah, “It is not enough for you to restore Israel, you are a light for all.” My salvation must go to the ends of the earth. As much as Christmas begins with a Child, a son born for us, it expands quickly to a universal vision, clearly hinted at and celebrated last Sunday in Epiphany with its wise men from afar.
John the Baptist’s witness is important. It shows us someone who accepts and identifies this Jesus from Galilee. John has seen him and heard him. He now comes to the realization that his life must be centered on this Jesus— God’s son and God’s Lamb. In this way John the Baptist gives us a hint at what we are all about as followers of Jesus. On a personal level, we are not the light, and we are not God’s gift to the world. Instead, we are to bear witness that it is Jesus who is the Light and he is God’s gift to the world. John says he came baptizing with water so that one day we might recognize the one who will baptize with the Spirit. In a real sense, John is saying that our lives in Christ are a hint to others of the great things that are yet to come. Our lives are to be attractive to those around us. …Crowds are drawn to John at the river. Perhaps we become so attractive that others like to be with us, that they see something of God’s working in our lives. But in the end, we are a sign of Jesus who comes first. Our lives are to be led in such a way that others will see that the Spirit is poured out upon the earth.
There is a wonderful sense in which John the Baptist is able to live for another; he is able to step aside so that God’s presence may be seen by others; John’s life becomes transparent; it doesn’t stop with him. Those who are attracted to him are invited to follow his hand and finger as he points out the person who is truly from God. John is a witness. He risks taking Jesus’ side as it were; he risks identifying him and speak about him. The same challenge is placed on us too: we are asked to renew our commitment to Jesus: God’s Son and God’s Lamb. We are asked to acknowledge that it is he who saves from the restrictions and violence of this world. From the very first moment we encounter Jesus, we encounter him as one who enters into our sin, our brokenness. The weak Lamb will make our sin weak and powerless.
This Sunday we are called to witness. What are we called to witness to? That Jesus and his word are the fulfillment of humanity’s hope to see God face to face and to hear his word, not in dream but in reality, in flesh and blood. We are called to witness that in Jesus God gives us the Lamb of sacrifice that will bring the restoration of communion and love between God and the world, and between all who live on the world; we give witness that God has empowered Jesus with the Spirit, with the fullness of life. And we give witness that Jesus in his turn will baptize with this Spirit; he will pour out God’s love, refreshment and peace upon those who come to him. We give witness that the Spirit of holiness is not confined to God but is truly God’s great gift to the world. In this Jesus, he removes all barriers through the blood of the Lamb. And he opens up for all a call to be holy as he is holy. And God’s son is holy because his son has been faithful to the end. To be a witness to Jesus is to be specific: Through this man from Nazareth God deals with the world in a definite way. It is also to be universal: Jesus will walk a path that will open the way for the Spirit to make its home in every person, to the ends of the earth.
As people who have been baptized in water and the Spirit, we must be careful to be witnesses to the whole truth. We must take care that we truly bear witness to what God has done in Christ, his anointed. And what we see him continuing to do through his Spirit who is at work in the richness of God’s gifts found throughout his world. You are my servants who bear witness to my working of rescuing, healing, binding up to the ends of the world. Yes, we are called and baptized into a life of witnessing..witnessing before the world to what the Father said of the world on the first day:. Behold, it is good, very good indeed.
~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB