January 16, 2011
I Knew Him Not - John 1:29-42
Pastor: Luke Maybry
DownloadSue Neely died last Monday morning. Many of you knew her. She was very active in this Church for many years. In fact, she made history at Central Steele Creek by becoming our first female elder. She had an enormous presence and ministry among us at Central Steele Creek, which can still be felt today. However, all of that was before my time. I did not know Sue Neely. The best that I can say is that I knew about her, and I didn’t even know all that much about her. Now, obviously, what I do know about her is significant. When I go to a session meeting at this Church, there are as many women there as men, and that’s a good thing. That alone is significant, and there was much more to her than that. I can easily feel the effects of the life that she lived. I know about Sue Neely, at best, but I did not know her. Does that make sense?
If we are completely honest with ourselves, we often feel the same way about Jesus. We know a great deal about Jesus. We have a number of independent sources that tell us about him. We believe some of those sources to be holy writ, in the Bible. We know that Jesus was born in a manger, and that angels sang of his birth to shepherds. We know some of what Jesus taught us. We have his longest sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5-7. We know that he experienced a great deal of opposition, which led to his crucifixion. We even know, and a number of independent sources (most of which are in the Bible but not all) tell us, that Jesus rose from the dead, three days after his crucifixion. Even if we do not believe Jesus to be God, even if we are not Christian, even if we are stark atheists, Jesus’ life has had an enormous impact on ours. Christianity has been the dominant religion in the Western Hemisphere for 1700 years. Our government, our culture, our lives have been immeasurably impacted by the religion that grew around the life of Jesus. We know a great deal about Jesus and we are affected by that.
But do we really know Jesus? First of all, there’s a great deal about Jesus that we don’t know. We have one brief story of his infancy, one brief story from his adolescence, and then we skip to the last year of his life. For the exception of those two brief stories from Luke, we know nothing at all about Jesus except the last year of his thirty-three year life. The best we can say, then, certainly from a historical, factual perspective, is that we know a little bit about Jesus. And yet, we Christians claim to know Jesus himself. That’s huge. We claim not just to know about Jesus, but through the Holy Spirit to know Jesus right now. Or, as we say, we have a personal relationship with Jesus. “He walks with me. He talks with me. He tells me I am his own.” Jesus lives in our hearts, we say. If pressed on that, however, we’re not really sure what that means. Maybe a young child that I heard of recently said it best. She was scared one night as she went to bed, as many children her age are. Her mother told her that she would be fine, that she could call her mother anytime and her mother could come shoe away the monsters. And besides, her mother said, Jesus was right there, in her heart. To which the little girl replied, “why doesn’t Jesus get out of my heart and sit beside me and hold my hand?” Now that’s an excellent question, isn’t it?
John the Baptist is the premier preacher in the Christian faith. Paul and Stephen and Peter all preached, but the Church spends almost an entire season, Advent, talking about John, specifically what John preached about Jesus. Nobody is given quite the attention and adulation that we give to John the Baptist. And yet, twice in this text, John was adamant that even he did not know Jesus. “I knew him not,” he said. You may think that what I just said about Jesus, that I don’t know near as much about him as I thought I did, that I don’t even know him at all in many ways, is not very Christian. I’m a pastor for goodness’ sake. If anybody ought to have an “in” with Jesus, it ought to be me. And yet I just claimed that none of us knows Jesus all that well. Well neither did John. John was Jesus’ cousin. John’s mother, Elizabeth, and Jesus’ mother, Mary, were close. And yet, John did not even recognize Jesus. “I knew him not,” John said, twice.
The thing about John, though, is that he proclaimed what he did know. In this passage alone, John testified or proclaimed what he knew about Jesus six times, even though, according to him, he didn’t know all that much. Furthermore, it’s abundantly clear that whatever John said was big. In fact, at least in this Gospel, the first followers of Jesus followed Jesus not because of anything that Jesus said, but solely because of what John said. Whatever John said, and however he said it, regardless of his not having known Jesus, was big.
I am convinced that most Christians fall into one of two categories. The first category is that we think that we know everything about Jesus. We are convinced that we’ve got Jesus figured out. We know exactly what Jesus would do, and is doing, and will do. We speak for Jesus all the time. If something bad happens, then we say that God somehow planned it, or that God was even behind it. If a woman cannot get pregnant, then God must have a reason, as if the whole thing was God’s idea. Or if she gets pregnant and has a baby and, heaven forbid, the child dies, then God “did that,” for a reason, we say as if we know. Never do we know enough to say that, ever. Or, since we have God all figured out, we can become so sure of our positions, that to disagree with us is to be “Godless.” If you’re not of a certain political persuasion, we say, then you can’t be a Christian, because we are certain of where God stands. People get killed with that line of thinking. Religious wars (which is an oxymoron) happen because people are so certain that they have God figured out. Therefore, compromise or dialogue is impossible. That’s happening at an alarming in this country today and it’s a disaster. We Christians can be “know-it-alls” sometimes. If God is who we say he is, then we can never know it all because only God knows it all. The conviction that God is sovereign ought to lead to humility and mercy. As Abraham Lincoln once suggested, we can never say that God is on our side. The best we can do is to hope and pray that we’re on God’s side. We would be wise to, as John did, admit that there’s a whole lot about God that we do not know. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the Psalmist said.
But we do know something. That’s the other category that Christians fall into. We claim to know nothing at all, when, in fact, we do know something. We have witnessed a few things. I can look back on my life and tell you for a fact that I would not be here were it not for God. There is no question about that. I can look back on my own life and see how God has been active in it. I can look back in my family’s life and see how God has been active in it. I, personally, am either incredibly lucky, or there is a God out there who is incredibly good, because I don’t deserve anywhere near what I’ve got. And, I’ll bet you, if you look back over your own life, you’ll come to that same conclusion. If you look back over our Church’s life, then you’ll see God there. And I haven’t even mentioned the Bible or Christian tradition. The Bible is a whole series of stories about God, about how God was and is and will be active. Even though there is, without a doubt, still so much that we do not know and may never know, we do know at least a few good things.
So we’ve got to speak about those things. We have to tell those stories, over and over and over again. Leah’s father, Fred Robertson, tragically died last May. The most tragic thing about his death, in my opinion, is that my children will not know him, and he will not know them. That continues to break my heart. But I did know him, and so what I can do, what I must do, is tell them about their grandfather. The greatest gift that my aunt, Rosanne Maybry, ever gave me is hours and hours of stories about my people. I was there yesterday. I took my children to the cemetery where my family is buried. I know all those people resting there, even though most came before my time. Rosanne told me all about them. And even though most of them came even more her time, her grandmother (Mami) told her. I know my people. I know who and even whose I am largely because she cared enough to tell me.
What do you know about God? If you want your children or your friends to have any appreciation about God in the slightest, then you have to tell what you know. And while you don’t know everything, you do know something. Theologians call it “analogy,” in which we can speak about God, as opposed to univocal in which we claim to know everything about God, as opposed to equivocal in which we claim to know nothing. If you hit the buzzer quickly enough, that’ll win you a few points on Jeopardy. But it covers a very serious matter, and that is that we do not know everything there is to know about God. We actually know very little. And yet, we do know something. And what we do know, we’ve got to speak. We’ve got to proclaim it. How can we not proclaim it?
Wofford played Davidson last night in basketball, at Davidson. I had tickets to the game, but I was in Campobello and couldn’t go. So, I listened to the game on the radio. I think I tuned in with six minutes left in the game. We were up by nine at the time. For next twenty minutes or so, even though the game was on, I tuned out because we were so far ahead. Next thing I knew, there were 3.5 seconds left in the game and Wofford’s lead had been cut to two. Davidson had gotten hot, especially from the three point line. One of our weakest free throw shooters was at the foul line. He made the first one, in which case Davidson could have tied it up with another three. And then, as I crossed Park Road, he made the other one. It was impossible then for Davidson to win the game. Whatever happened, Wofford was going to win, and I was very happy.
We don’t know much about the world’s story. According to the US Geological Survey, the world is around 4.5 Billion years old. Even if we were experts on human history, we would still have only a very small fraction of the world’s story figured out. In short, we have missed the vast majority of the game. And yet, God is infinitely bigger even than that, even that 34.5 billion years. And so, we have even less of God figured out. But what we have learned is equivalent to Wofford making that last free throw when I was crossing Park Road last night. We have learned, through God’s good grace, that there is no way for God not to win the final battle. We know that. We know that, as Job so beautifully said, “our redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; after my skin and by bones have long been destroyed, that in my flesh, I shall see God.” That’s good, good stuff. We know that. For as ignorant as we are, we do know that. Now go out there and tell a world that desperately needs to hear it.
In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
