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One of the things I did when I served at St. Peter’s Cathedral out in Helena, Montana, was start a 20s&30s group. It was not a project I planned to take on, but the chance to do so ended up falling in my lap. It just so happened that some families offered to host a group of young adults for dinner, and I took that opportunity and planned other dinners as well, one each month. A core group of us formed and it was a productive time for all.
But then the spring was coming, and I knew it would be time for me to start seminary soon. I didn’t want the program to end with me, so I started praying, really hard, that someone would pop up to take over.
That praying paid off when soon a young woman, we’ll call her Sarah, approached me about taking the group over. I thought it would be a wise decision to go ahead and hand the reigns over to her while I was still there, and I’m very glad I did so.
After I passed off the leadership to Sarah, she sat down with me and told me about several ideas she had for what the 20s&30s could start doing. To be honest, I was really skeptical of some of those ideas, and I almost said something about them. But then I thought that if I was going to hand over the 20s&30s to Sarah, I needed to take a step back and let her lead, which was the exact right thing to do. The change was just what the group needed. More people came out of the woodworks, so to speak, some who had never come to our group before and others that hadn’t come since the first two sessions. I had started the work, and Sarah improved it.
And the group continued without me for, I believe, at the next two years. After a while, most of the members moved away or aged out, but the last time I was in Helena, some of those members had moved back into town, and there was talk of starting the group back up again.
It is hard, but a necessary thing to prepare for your replacement. That’s something we see with John the Baptist in particular. Both this week, as well as last week, we hear how John the Baptist is merely the one to prepare the way. He’s not doing the work he’s been given to do for himself, but for the greater glory of God.
John the Baptist’s ministry always had a shelf life. He wasn’t going to be serving forever. What he did, therefore, was to help prepare others to see the signs of the one to come. When that one did come, John the Baptist even sent his own followers to go and make sure so that he would know if it was time to rest or to keep going.
We are called, in that vein, in our reading from James to be patient and to strengthen our hearts for the coming of the Lord. Would that in doing so, we were a little more like John the Baptist and helped strengthen the hearts of other as well.
Because, you see, we too are called to prepare for those who come after us, as John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. We are called to realize, as John the Baptist said last week, that those after us will likely be more powerful than us. The ones after us will likely have better ideas than us. They certainly will build on what we have already done and make it better and stronger.
Our goal as Christians is to proclaim the Good News of Christ Jesus in the world. As a part of that goal, we are called to prepare those who will follow us in that task. We are called to raise the next group of leaders, and when those leaders come, we are called to step aside so that they can soar.
In this season of Advent, ask yourselves how you are serving as a John the Baptist in the world. A John the Baptist doesn’t work for his or her own glory, but for the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A John the Baptist is preparing the way for another, and when that other comes, a John the Baptist steps aside. How are you raising up the next generation of Christian leaders in this church and beyond? Are you giving them the space they need to lead us now?