An (In)Convenient Truth

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A number of years ago, Al Gore released his book, An Inconvenient Truth, a supposed bombshell about climate change and the need for reform in our energy consumption. Regardless of what you think of the book, Al Gore, or climate change, he did hit upon a curious, but helpful way of speaking about the truth.

Often, the truth of a matter is inconvenient. It is unhandy to confront reality in many circumstances. To confront the facts means that you must do something about them. You must change. You must account for your own behavior with regard to them. It is especially inconvenient when the facts of the matter are something you do not want to hear, when they force changes you do not want to make.

Such is the person and work of St. John the Baptist. Even from his very beginning, John was inconvenient to those around him. His conception was announced by the angel Gabriel in such a manner that his father Zechariah doubted the angel's word, and for such was rendered mute for the next nine months. Rather than following social norms, the foretold child received the name John, as was instructed by the angel.

And so, from such beginnings, grew the man upon whom was the hand of the Lord unlike any other in his time. He grew to become “the voice crying in the wilderness” – the new Elijah. He was the forerunner of the Messiah, the one ordained to point the people to salvation.

St. John knew his place, and so he was not entrapped in worldly ways. He dressed in camel hair and ate bugs and honey. He roamed about in the desert and lived by and from the Jordan River. Soft men lived in palaces, rich men lived in cities, but this prophet of the Most High lived in caves. What a shock such a life would have been to those of his time. What a shock it would be to our modern sensibilities.

St. John was, rather, obsessed with his work. He could not be bothered with fine living and rich fare because he had a job to do – to proclaim the coming day of the Lord.

He was obsessed with proclaiming the day of the Lord, even though it was an inconvenient truth. He was destined, prophesied, to do this work. His father had said at his circumcision:

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to His people

in the forgiveness of their sins.

But, the problem is, the knowledge of salvation is predicated upon the knowledge of sin. If you do not know that you have sinned, that you have a mortal problem from which you need saving, then the knowledge of salvation means nothing. And so, John's work began with the preaching of the Law of God, which convicts the hearts and minds of all men, including you.

John cried out in the desert, preaching a Baptism of repentance. Hearing, the people came in droves from Jerusalem, Judea, and all the surrounding countryside, confessing their sins, to be baptized by John in the Jordan. His bony finger stretched out across the desert and pointed to the sins of the people. Greed, gluttony, lust, sloth, self-righteousness, idolatry. All the things that flow naturally unbridled from the heart and mind and tongue of man. He called the religious authorities vipers. He called the people to their knees. He called for repentance in the face of the wrath to come on account of sin.

John was the “voice crying in the wilderness” of whom Isaiah had prophesied. He did not care about his image or his public persona. He did not care about his appearance or his homiletical charm. John was a man obsessed with his job, and his job was to warn the people of the come wrath to come in the great and terrible day of the Lord. This was his concern, and nothing could sway him from proclaiming it. Not religious convention, not a philandering king, not aged and barren parents.

John was so single-minded because of who he was called to be. Zechariah proclaimed his newborn son “the prophet of the Most High”, and indeed he was. He was the voice who called out in the wilderness, calling the people to repentance, to make way for the coming King of Israel. In this role, John had no other, no more important task than to point his finger and cry out, “Behold, the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world.”

John's appearance and figure were unimportant. The thing about John that mattered, that still matters, is his finger. That finger points to the Lamb of God, the only-begotten Son of God, who bears the sin of the world.

And so, you can sing out with Zechariah, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.” The Lord God of Israel has sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be the “horn of salvation” for you. And he sent John before Him to prepare the way, and finally to point his finger toward the Lamb of God.

God sent John to prepare the way, that you might receive the coming Lamb of God, that “we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.” This is the convenient truth of your deliverance. For it was foretold by the prophets from of old. John's preaching was nothing new. He was simply the last of his kind. He merely pointed out the deliverance which was coming in the person of Jesus Christ as He lived and walked among men.

John pointed to Jesus and proclaimed Him the Lamb of God who would bear the sin of the whole world. He identified Jesus as the one upon whom the wrath of God would fall. Jesus, the very Lamb of God, has indeed done just as John foretold. He has borne your sins, your transgressions, your death. They are no longer upon you, but upon Him, and have been nailed to the cross, where they are no more.

John still serves in his capacity as signpost to salvation. He still cries out, “Behold the Lamb of God who bears the sin of the world!” But you need not search for Him. You need not canvass the Galilean desert to find Him. The Lamb of God is not in the confines of a Jewish temple. Rather, you find Him lying upon the altar, where He has promised to be for you. The truth of your salvation rests on the altar, where the Lamb of God gives His body and blood to be your food and drink, to nourish your sin-starved soul. Do you want to find God? Do you want to find the way to heaven? Then look where John points – to the Lamb who was slain who now reigns from the throne of God.

The Lamb of God has borne your sins away, so that now you serve Him in holiness and righteousness, without fear. Fear has been nailed to the cross with the record of your wrongdoings. You serve God, not by regarding John and his grizzled personage, but by fixing your gaze upon Him to whom John pointed.

You now serve Him without fear, because fear is banished. You are free from bondage to sin, death, and Satan. You are now free to serve God by serving your neighbor in love. God serves you with His gifts, fills you with His life, so that you may serve those in need whom He places around you.

You serve Him without fear because the promised redemption is finished. The Lamb of God has come and has borne your sins away. They are nailed to the cross, where the record of them has been erased from memory. There is now no one to accuse you. There is no one to condemn you. Only Jesus, the horn of salvation, to lift you up from the dust, to stand you up from your knees, to call you holy and righteous. There is only Jesus, the Sun from on high who shall visit you, “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.