Labels That Last
John 1:19-34

Virtually everything you buy at a store has a label. Labels are very important. They make it possible for us to identify the brand, the quantity, and the ingredients of a given product. Without a label we would not know what we are buying. Imagine going to the grocery store to purchase canned goods and none of the cans had labels! It would be impossible to know what you were purchasing. Even if the cans were organized by general categories, like green beans, tomatoes, or spinach, you still would not be able to tell whether it was the generic store brand, a name brand, or a regular or low sodium product. Labels are important because they identify what we are purchasing.

The importance of labels extends beyond shopping. We use labels to identify a person’s religion: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or agnostic. We also use labels to identify each other. We use labels to identify a person’s race: African- American, Caucasian, Latino, Asian, Indian, or Arab. We use labels to identify a person’s language: English speaking, Spanish speaking, Arabic speaking, or Chinese, Japanese, or Korean speaking. We use labels to identify a person culturally and politically: liberal or conservative, moderate or progressive, Democrat or Republican, pro-life or pro-choice, Black Lives Matter or Blue Lives Matter, and the list of labels might go on ad infinitum.

In this morning’s reading from John’s gospel, we meet an envoy from the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, the Pharisees, comprised of priests and Levites. They were on a fact-finding mission to identify and label John the Baptist.

Judaism was very familiar with prophets, but no prophet had arisen in their history like John. He lived in the wilderness, ate a strange diet of locusts and wild honey, and was clad in itchy garments made from camel’s hair.

More peculiar than these descriptors were John’s message and activities. John came preaching a fiery message of repentance and justice. Repent, you brood of vipers, he said. Confess your sins. Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance; share your clothing and food, be honest in your profession, and do not misuse your power (Luke 3:1-14). John also baptized the crowds that flocked to him as a symbol of their genuine repentance.
The delegation from Jerusalem could not identify who John was. They wondered aloud, “Who are you?” They thought John might be the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet. There was a keen longing for the coming of the Messiah in first-century Palestine. They conceived of the Messiah as a military figure who would liberate the Jews from Roman oppression. The Messiah, God’s anointed king, would reestablish the Davidic dynasty. The Messiah would actualize the promises made to the house of David. The Messiah would establish David’s kingdom forever. God would be the Messiah’s Father, and the Messiah would be God’s son (2 Samuel 7:13-16).

The Jews widely believed that Elijah, who ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot accompanied by a band of angels, would return from heaven before the Messiah appeared to perform miracles (2 Kings 2:11). Or perhaps John was the prophet promised to Israel by Moses. Moses had prophesied to Israel, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet” (Deut. 18:15).

John rejected all of these exalted labels. John denied that he was the coming Messiah, Elijah returned from heaven with miraculous powers, or the promised Prophet. When the delegation from Jerusalem pressed John for an answer about his identity, John quoted from the Prophet Isaiah 40:3-4. John said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the Prophet Isaiah said” (Jn. 1:23). John said he was merely a witness sent to testify to the Light who was coming into the world (Jn. 1:6-7).

John witnessed to another person who was already among them. “John answered them, 'I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie'” (Jn. 1:26-27).

The next day, when John saw Jesus coming towards him, John began to label, to identify, who Jesus really was. Jesus was not just another face in the crowd of those who came to confess, repent, and be baptized for the remission of sin. John testified, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (vs. 29).

In Judaism, the Lamb of God was associated with the celebration of the Passover. The Passover symbolized and dramatized Israel’s deliverance from oppression and bondage in Egypt. In John’s gospel, Jesus was crucified and died on the day before Passover began. Jesus was crucified at the same time the Passover lambs were sacrificed for the feast (see John 14:19ff). John’s testimony about Jesus foreshadowed Jesus’ crucifixion and death.

John’s testimony was that Jesus, the Lamb of God, would bring deliverance from sin, just as Yahweh had brought deliverance to Israel from slavery on the night of the Passover. The unknown one among them would rescue us from the bondage and oppression of sin. He would take away the sin of the world.

John also testified that the unknown one was eternal. John said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me" (vs. 30). John the Baptist was born before Jesus, but John the Baptizer recognized what the Apostle John had said in his introduction to the gospel. “He was in the beginning with God” (vs. 2). And yet Jesus was also a man. The Godman was the only one who could breach the gap between a holy and eternal God and a sinful and mortal humanity. Jesus was the lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8).

Finally, John identified and labeled Jesus as the one who gives the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (vs. 33). Not only are we liberated from sin by the eternal God who became a human being and died for the sins of the world, but we are also given the very life of God. The Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity. At the end of John’s gospel, the risen Christ breathes on the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (Jn. 20:22). Just as God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and Adam became a living being, so Jesus has the power to breathe the Holy Spirit on us and when he does, we become a new creation filled with the life of God himself.

The delegation from Jerusalem posed important questions to John the Baptist. It mattered who he was. They wanted to know if John was the Christ, Elijah, or the Prophet. Was John the son of David, the Messiah, who would bring about law, order, justice, and self-rule? Was John Elijah who would heal the sick as he healed Naaman the Syrian, or would he feed the hungry and raise the dead as the prophet of old had done for the starving widow and her deceased son? Was John the new Moses who would bring moral clarity and deliver definitive words from the LORD?

John’s answer was that the priests and Levites were looking for the wrong person and they were using the wrong labels. Instead, they should have been looking for the one who would free the world from sin, the one who was at once eternal God and man, the one who could bestow the Holy Spirit, the very life of God.

We should be looking for the same things. Human labels are important. They help us to navigate this life, but in the end, they are all destined to pass away. What really matters is to be labeled forgiven, liberated from sin, in a relationship with the eternal God through Jesus Christ, and filled with the Holy Spirit. These are labels that will endure forever.

We cannot escape labeling each other. It is in our nature. In the beginning, the LORD God brought all the living creatures to Adam, and the first man gave them each a name. We will not stop using labels but let us be clear about the labels that really matter, the labels that will endure forever: He or she is a follower of the Lamb of God who delivers the world from sin; he or she is in a relationship with Jesus, the one who is fully God and fully human; he or she has been baptized with the Holy Spirit of God. God lives in them now and for all eternity. These are labels that last.

All praise be to God the Father, who has taken away our sin by the death of the Lamb of God. All praise be to God the Son, the eternal Word of God made flesh. All praise be to the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. Indeed, it is a very merry Christmas because of what the Lord has done for us in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Amen.