How many of you remember the old game show, "To Tell The Truth?" The show was centered around a person who had an unusual occupation (say a rodeo clown) or who had had a unique experience. Along with that person there were three others who pretended to be the rodeo clown. Panelists questioned the four contestants. The real rodeo clown told the truth but the imposters could say anything they thought might convince the panelists that they were actually the clown. In the end each of the panelists voted, and then the announcer asked, "Will the real rodeo clown please stand up?" and the truth was revealed.
Our reading today from the Gospel of Luke could almost be an episode of "To Tell the Truth," with the question being, "Will the real Messiah please stand up?" The contest, as it were, was between John the Baptist and Jesus. A lot of people thought John was the Messiah.
John's birth was unusual. Like Isaac and Samuel before him, John's mother had been childless into old age before he was born. Such children seemed to be destined for great things. Perhaps his mother's advanced age was a sign that John was the Messiah.
He was a compelling preacher. Everyone from tax collectors to soldiers to everyday folks came to listen to him. They asked, "What then should we do?"
Even though he called them a bunch of snakes, the crowds gathered to listen to John. They lined up for him to baptize them that they might be cleansed not only physically but spiritually. People came out by the dozen to be washed of their sins. Maybe John was the Messiah, the One sent by God to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for the people of Israel.
Unlike the imposters in "To Tell The Truth," however, John did not pretend to be someone he was not. He did not lie. Instead he predicted that one more powerful than he was coming. "I'm not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals," he protested.
As John looked ahead to that more powerful One, he imagined one who would come breathing fire and smoke, a dramatic figure indeed. "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
John's vision sounds like the visions of the end of the world we normally associate with books like the Revelation of John (a different John, by the way.) Its imagery takes a bit of research. Today farmers harvest grain with combines which munch their way across the hills like giant dinosaurs. Combines, as their name suggests, both cut the wheat and thresh from it the grain. In Biblical times, those were two separate actions. After the stalks were cut with a scythe, they were taken to the barns or threshing floors where they were beaten and the stalks lifted up with a giant fork so that the lighter chaff or waste material blew off and the heavier grain fell to the ground. The key agent in this action was the wind, which separated the kernels from the useless chaff. EO tells me that combines today have fans which send air over the sieves to blow out the chaff. He says the trick is to have enough air to blow the chaff but not too much or it will send out the grain too.
E brought me a bouquet of wheat which I rolled in a paper towel. Sure enough it thrashed out the wheat and then I gentle blew on it and the chaff separated out and the grain was left in the towel. Yes, it made a mess on my desk. The children saw what chaff and grain actually look like. Some of you probably already knew this.
As John pictured this dramatic figure, the line of people waiting to be baptized stretched out from the river, like a string of people waiting to get in to watch the new Star Wars movie. One by one John dunked them in the river until finally the last person showed up. John immersed this guy too. Nothing special. Likely John was tired and wet and cold, ready to get out of the river and into a dry camel skin.
Jesus' baptism doesn't separate him from the crowd. There is no Jesus specific ritual. If anything, Jesus' baptism underscores the popularity of John's ministry. Will the real Messiah please stand up? At this point, most people's money would have been on John. Jesus was willing to go along with the crowd.
It wasn't until the water was dripping from his face and Jesus was praying that something happened to distinguish him from all the other sodden figures before him. "When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased."
Instead of smoke and fire we see Jesus praying. Will the real Messiah please stand up? The Holy Spirit blew in to separate the wheat from the chaff; the voice in the wilderness from God's Anointed One; the harbinger from the Savior. The Holy Spirit descends like a dove. Not an eagle or a swan, just an ordinary bird, more like a pigeon. Will the real Messiah please stand up? Only there's no drum roll here, no flash and glitter. A small bird, the poor people's sacrifice, and maybe a glint of light from the sky. That's all. It is not clear from Luke's telling of it whether the voice from heaven was heard by everybody or just by Jesus.
Will the real Messiah please stand up? John had foreseen a time of judgment, that separation of wheat and chaff, of the righteous from the unrighteous. Jesus' judgment did not come with trumpet fanfare nor the pounding of a judge's gavel. It came with a babe for whom there was no room in the inn so that he was laid in a manger, with the baby's cry and a mother's gasp. It came in a man whose bold compassion embraced lepers and ate with tax collectors, who healed the blind and fed the hungry. It came on the hill of Calvary where a friendless man hung from a cross and gasped his last breaths. It came from a cave where a stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
Today is Epiphany Sunday. The word epiphany means revelation or manifestation. It's like a light turning on in a dark room to show the way to the door; it's that first pair of glasses when you realized that there are individual leaves on the trees not just a big green mass. Epiphany is that moment in class when you get it, you really get it, after being bored and confused all semester, and now, all at once you understand what the professor has been trying to say. Epiphany is the aha moment.
We normally associate Epiphany with the story of the magi coming to see the Child Jesus and offering him their gifts. There are many Epiphanies, of course. Our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox Church mark the Baptism of Christ as the first Epiphany. And it is Jesus' baptism which is the moment of asking, "Will the real Messiah please stand up?" and the spotlight shines on Jesus. Not John. Jesus. John was the sign pointing the way, which is what he'd said all along. Jesus, the real Messiah.
Today we gather to baptize EB. As she has been passed from one set of loving arms to another for seven months now, so today we place her in God's loving arms. With Jesus we hear for her God's affirmation "This is my Beloved Child, with whom I am well pleased."
And today we commit ourselves to love E that she may grow in wisdom and stature. We promise to teach her just who the real Messiah is: Jesus, the Christ.