Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
This is an interactive manuscript. To follow links, click the highlighted words below.
For almost 5 years, my ministry was all in the realm of interim ministry with 3 different churches. This isn’t what I planned for myself, it’s simply what I fell into. It was a way I could continue to live into my ordination vows while finding a place that would bring me geographically closer to my now-wife.
Now the interim work was really difficult. Even at times when people treated me like I was their rector, I knew I wasn’t. I went in knowing that each of these situations were temporary. Like any work environment there were people who made my service a joy and others who didn’t, but I couldn’t really call them my people.
What made the work easier for myself, and I would argue what led to successes as an interim minister, was the realization that it wasn’t really about me. My success wasn’t measured based on my accomplishments. My true success instead could be measured on how well each parish was prepared for the next rector. Really, it wasn’t about me. It was about who would follow me.
The ultimate interim minister, then, would be John the Baptist. Here is someone whose ministry was never about him. He makes that clear as he’s getting all these questions grilled into him. Even as he grew in popularity, he never made his service about himself.
For John the Baptist, it was all about Jesus.
John’s role was to get things ready for Jesus. That was the measure of success for him. Even his baptism, so core to his ministry that we have added it to his name, was just a placeholder. He was getting people thinking about and repenting of their sins before Jesus came to forgave. That’s what his baptism by water signified, a washing and being made clean. But when it came to real Baptism, as John himself stated, Jesus would have the far more transformative Baptism “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” as the other Gospel accounts tell us.
John the Baptist exemplifies the work of interim ministry. He is preparing for the One who will come after him. He is preparing for Jesus.
For this reason, we should really see all our ministry as interim ministry because none of our ministries are really about us. What they are about is Jesus. We should look to John the Baptist as an example for us. His ministry wasn’t about him. It was about preparing others for the coming of Jesus. We should do the same. We shouldn’t make it about us. We should make everything about Jesus.
This is why we speak of John in this time of preparation, this Season of Advent. John’s role in this season far precedes the advent of Christmas (pun intended).
John is included as part of this Season of Advent not because of his relation to the story of the Nativity of our Lord. If that were true, then we would be reading from Luke’s account of Jesus’ mother Mary meeting with John’s mother Elizabeth before both of their sons were born, not the account of John baptizing in the River Jordan. Even next year when we do get that reading for Advent, it will still be the Sunday after the story of John’s baptizing.
No, this season of Advent is about preparing for Jesus’ coming, Jesus’ Return even. That is what John the Baptist is here to remind us of. He is here to remind us what Advent is truly about. It’s about preparing Jesus to enter our hearts and minds too. Nothing could be greater than that.
In this Season of Preparation, remember that John the Baptist’s role is your role too, not so much in the sense of baptizing in the River Jordan but in bringing others to Christ Jesus. Our work, all that we do really, is not about us. Instead, it is all about Jesus.