Sermons Online visit our archives

"Do You Hear What I Hear?" by Rev. Charles Hoffman 

December 15, 2002 Third Sunday In Advent
John 1:6-8

Once more we come to church to find that John the Baptist is waiting for us. And today we see him through the lens of the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John. This writer has no interest in the eccentric side of John's character. He says nothing about his curious wardrobe or his strange diet, but concentrates on John's relationship to Jesus. Apparently, that was an issue for some of the Christians when this gospel was written. Who is greater, John or Jesus?

Last week I mentioned that John the Baptist has the lead role in the drama of Advent. Apparently, there were those who felt the same way during the course of Jesus' life. There was contention over which of the two was foremost. Not everyone was of the opinion that John was merely the forerunner to Jesus. So the writer of the Fourth Gospel goes out of his way to underscore the fact that John saw himself as second fiddle at best. John says that he isn't worthy to be a footman to Jesus, that Jesus must increase while he, John, must decrease.

Of course they did get it worked out in time. But even during the days of John's ministry people were confused as to his identity. In today's lesson they've sent a delegation down from the conference office to find out who John is.

The interrogation party was made up of priests and Levites and they didn't mince words: "Who are you?" they asked. That's a pretty straightforward question; it deserved a straightforward answer. But it didn't get one. Instead of telling the delegation who he was, John told them who he wasn't.

"I am not the Christ," he said.

"Then who are you? Are you Elijah?"

"Nope, I'm not Elijah. Guess again."

"Are you the prophet?"

"No, wrong again. I'm not the prophet."

Now by this time the fact-finding team was getting a little impatient. "Look," they said, "We're just doing our job. They sent us down here to get a simple answer to a simple question. Who are you? Tell us who you are."

And with this, John finally gives his answer. I'm sure it didn't satisfy his audience. "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' as the prophet Isaiah said."

And the delegation said, "We're sorry we asked," because it was not the sort of answer they were after. They wanted specifics and they got ambiguity. The voice of one crying in the wilderness: what could they make of that?

And yet that is John's self-understanding. John is completely one with his work. He does not even know himself apart from what he does. His vocation is his identity. John is consumed by his work. They say that's not good for your health. You shouldn't take your work home with you; you need separation. You've got to be careful or you'll set yourself up for a heart attack. John hadn't heard any of that. He wasn't the Messiah, he wasn't Elijah or the prophet. He was the voice.

And in order to find his voice John had gone out to the wilderness. In the history of religion it's rather a common thing to do. In fact, both Jesus and Paul did the same thing. Paul went there immediately after his conversion and Jesus did the same right after his baptism.

In the years to follow there were many others who retreated to the wilderness or to the desert to hear God's word and thereby to find their own voice. They have been described as people whose ears were inundated by "the assumptions and distractions of the world" (John S. Mogabgab, Weavings, M/J, 2001). So they found a place far from the noise and din; they went to a place where they could at last hear themselves think and where they could listen for what they needed to hear.

A participant in my Wednesday evening Pastor's Study described a trip he took to the Yosemite. He and some others were there for an extended period of time. Someone questioned why they stayed so long and he said that they stayed so that they could see what they were looking at.

It takes time and effort to do that, really to see what is there, to absorb the visual landscape. And the same is true for the sounds of life.

"The spare landscape of the desert," writes John Mogabgab, "can weaken the world's grip on our senses. Slowly we regain our bearings, notice small but telling signs of God's realm, [and] begin to see the patterns of providence. . . (ibid., p. 3).

Listening: that's what we need to learn to do. I read that a bat listens so intently that it can detect the sound of a beetle walking. But most of the world spends much more of its energy talking than it does listening. A good conversation needs both. And a true conversationalist is often not the one who talks the most but rather the one who listens the hardest.

To converse is to listen between the words for the feelings of the heart. Too often people are talked to death when they should be listened to life. It was said of one of the desert fathers that for three years he carried a stone in his mouth so that he would stop talking and start listening.

But in our lives the air is cluttered with voices of all sorts. Truth and lies, information and hearsay, and the managing and manipulation of information all in a never ending assault on our ears. And if you aren't careful you lose yourself in the clack and clatter of competing voices. That's why old John the Baptist and many others both before and after him went off to the desert for a retreat.

Now we all know how difficult it is at this time of the year to find a place of solitude, a place to see what we are looking at or to listen to what we are hearing. And I have to admit that I have fantasized going through Christmas from the outside looking in. I mean, what would it be like to stop, look and listen during this time of the year? What would happen if we disengaged, if we retreated from the expectations that are part of the territory of Advent/Christmas?

I know that I won't do it. It's not reasonable. In the first place, I'm a pastor and in the second, I'm a grandfather. So there's no choice; I have to do Christmas.

But today, as we come to the table of Holy Communion, perhaps this can be for some of us a momentary retreat when we listen however briefly for the voice of God. Who knows what we might hear? What is the voice of Christmas? Do your hear it? Can you single it out from all the competing voices? Do you embrace it?

Here's a common Christmas scene. You see it all over the country: streams of shoppers going into and coming out of the department store while a solitary Salvation Army officer stands by the kettle and rings her bell. You hear the bell but you don't hear it. Or you won't hear it. In fact, you even avoid eye contact with the bell ringer.

I read about a man who had done that for years. And then one day he really heard the bell; he heard it for the first time. Somehow the sound of the bell made him think of Christmas in a new way. He thought beyond those who were caught up in the worry of shopping to those who were worried about their next meal, their rent check, or where they might get a diaper for the baby. He heard the voice. And from that moment on he vowed never to pass that scene without emptying his pocket change into the kettle.

Admittedly, it's a token gift. But what it symbolizes is profoundly significant. It means that he has heard the bell. And the sound that it makes is a certain sound, a sound that evokes a spirit of Christian compassion (see Lectionary Homiletics, December 1996, p. 23).

That's the voice to listen for, and that's the voce to embrace as you make your journey to Bethlehem. Amen.