The Outreach Committee
Summary
In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman focused on the significance of Jesus’ baptism as portrayed in the Scriptures and highlighted on our bulletins. She explored why, despite being without sin, Jesus was baptized—an act symbolizing the washing away of sins. Rev. Bowman explained that in both ancient and contemporary times, children of God’s faithful people are initiated into the faith through rites like circumcision or baptism. This initiation is further affirmed when they reach a decision-making age, such as through confirmation in the church. The remarkable aspect of Jesus’ baptism was that he was holy from birth, sinless and needing no repentance. Yet, he chose to be baptized for our sake—to exemplify righteousness, empathize with human weaknesses, and demonstrate complete identification with us. Rev. Bowman emphasized that we are grateful for a Savior who profoundly understands and loves us.
Shifting the focus to John the Baptist, Rev. Bowman recounted his role in preparing for Jesus’ ministry. She drew attention to John’s extensive teachings and actions, urging repentance through baptisms of forgiveness in the Judean wilderness. This message was revolutionary; it challenged people, calling them a “brood of vipers,” to bear fruits worthy of repentance and not rely merely on their ancestry, such as being descendants of Abraham. John’s message was straightforward: share resources with those in need and adhere to ethical standards, especially for tax collectors and soldiers. Rev. Bowman emphasized that John’s call was not about religious formalities but genuine transformation, setting the stage for Jesus. By following John’s example—changing hearts and minds to lead actions of quiet generosity—we prepare for God’s Messiah. The essence, as Rev. Bowman concluded, is to move beyond mere belief to active trust and practice in Jesus’ teachings, which brings inclusion and joy for all, regardless of background.
Well, this morning, as you have heard from the scriptures and can see from the cover of our bulletins, we are remembering the baptism of Jesus. And what Jesus did in being baptized is kind of amazing beyond words. I mean, baptism represents, among other things, a washing away of sin, but Jesus didn’t have any sin, so he didn’t need this. He had no sins to wash away, so why is he being baptized? And of course, this also kind of raises the question of why we baptize babies, because babies don’t have any sins to wash away either.
But the answer is this. In both Jesus’ time and in ours, the children of God’s faithful people were initiated into the faith shortly after their birth. And in Jesus’ day, that initiation came in the form of circumcision when he was eight days old. For our children today, that initiation comes in the form of baptism into the Christian family.
In every age, that initiation has then been followed up with some other ceremony when the child is of decision-making age. In our church, that would be confirmation, a time when a young adult is able to say of their own free will, Yes, I believe what my parents believed when they baptized me. The wonder of all this, though, is that Jesus didn’t need any of this. Jesus was the Son of God.
He was holy from day one, and he had nothing to confess, and he had nothing to confirm. Jesus was willing to be baptized for our sakes as an example for us to follow to complete all righteousness, as he put it, and to identify with us in our weakness and in our need. And thank God we have a Savior who understands us completely and loves us so well. So having said these things, I wanted to shift the focus just a little bit today and focus instead on John the Baptist and his message.
And I need to kind of go back and start back at the beginning of that passage of Luke. If you noticed, the passage that was read a moment ago wasn’t even half the story, actually, just a piece of it. So let me go back to the beginning of chapter 3 of Luke. You can follow along in your Bibles if you’d like to.
This is Luke chapter 3, verse 1, and going on from there to hear what John the Baptist was saying to the crowds and what he was doing. So starting at Luke 3, verse 1, In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and Herod’s brother Philip ruler of the region of Aurea and Draconidus, and Licinius ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. And John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
‘ John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the coming wrath. Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our ancestor, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’ And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.
‘ And even the tax collectors came to be baptized, and they said, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ And soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’ All of these words, all of these words and events led up to and happened just before the baptism of Jesus. So John really is preparing the way for the Messiah.
So what does all of this tell us about John and about Jesus? Well first off, like I said, Luke is setting the stage in this gospel. Luke always, whenever he writes, I mean Luke is coming from outside of Jerusalem, outside, I think, I believe Luke was the only one of the gospel writers who was not born Jewish, okay? So he takes in everything around him as he writes. And so he begins at the very beginning with some historical context. And he tells us that John the Baptist’s ministry and the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry took place during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, which was in the years 14 through 37, as we count it now.
The local leadership included Pontius Pilate, who the Romans appointed over Jerusalem. We’re going to meet him again later, as you know. And also the four sons of Herod the Great, who had been the ruler when Jesus was born. Herod’s four sons, known as Tetrarchs, four rulers, okay? And they included Herod Antipas in Galilee and Herod Philip east of Galilee.
And we remember these two names because in the not too distant future, Herod Antipas is going to start a very public affair with his brother Philip’s wife. And John the Baptist will take issue with this publicly, saying to Herod in Galilee, it is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife. And John the Baptist will be arrested for this, and Herod in Galilee will be the one who kills him. So interesting footnote that we will see about Easter time, if we’re watching carefully.
Herod in Galilee is the one and only person who Jesus ever met that Jesus refused to speak to. Luke 23 9 tells us that Herod questioned Jesus at some length, but Jesus gave him no answer. Watch for that during Lent. So getting back to John the Baptist, okay, so that’s what we’re talking about here today.
Luke describes John the Baptist by quoting the prophet Isaiah. He calls John a voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord. And in saying this, Luke points to Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah. All of history, both Israel’s history and Roman history and the world’s history, come together in the arrival of Jesus the Messiah.
And John’s message to the people is, You brood of vipers. Great way to start off a message, right? This is not how you win friends and influence people, right? That’s good old Dale Carnegie. So what kind of evangelism is this? What kind of good news is this? Why would John say brood of vipers to the people? And what was it about John’s message that made people want to listen to him? Well what attracted people, first off, John didn’t start off with the brood of vipers thing. That kind of actually came along mid-ministry.
But John started off by traveling around the countryside with the message, Prepare the way of the Lord. That is, turn away from where you’re heading, head back towards God, and this is the definition of repentance. And what attracted people was that there hadn’t been a prophetic word from God since the last Old Testament prophet almost 400 years before. The people of Israel were starving for a word from God.
And John was clearly the real thing. And John began to build up a following, and he located his ministry then in the region around the Jordan Valley at the riverside where he began to baptize people for the forgiveness of sins. It was baptism of repentance and forgiveness and purification. The problem was that John started to get really popular.
People started to come and hear him, not because they were looking for God necessarily, but because being baptized by John the Baptist was the in thing. It was cool. It was rad. You know, so here they all come, but they’re not actually listening to the message.
That’s because it’s the cool thing. That’s where the brood of vipers thing comes in. Okay, John says, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance, and don’t dare say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor.’ Because the Jewish people knew that God’s chosen people were to be descended from Abraham.
So if Abraham was their ancestor, they figured they were in good with God. And John says, Don’t even begin to think that way. If we took John’s message into today’s world, he might have said instead something like, Don’t dare say to yourselves, ‘I was baptized as a baby,’ or ‘I went forward in a Billy Graham crusade,’ or ‘I’ve been a lifelong Methodist or Presbyterian or Catholic or whatever.’ These are all good things, but they alone are not enough to get us into God’s kingdom, and that’s John’s point.
What we need is to do things God’s way. We need to see the working of God’s spirit in our lives, of God’s good fruit happening in our lives. And the crowds ask John the right question, What then should we do? And his answer is straightforward. If you have two coats, give one to someone who has none.
And if you have extra food, do likewise. That’s it. Not much, is it, really, when you get down? How easy is that for most of us to give away extra food and extra clothing? I mean, I’m so glad we have the food pantry here, the clothing pantry. And for most of us who give to these ministries, myself included, we don’t even miss what we give.
It’s not that big of a thing. But the pantries mean survival for people, so many of whom we haven’t met yet. This is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. And notice, by the way, what John does not say.
John does not say things like, Join my mailing list, or, Become a member of the JTB club, John the Baptist club, right? We’ll send you some locusts and honey as a free gift, right? He doesn’t do this kind of thing. All that John asks, and all that God asks, is that we change course, return to God, and have a heart for those in need. That’s it. Some of the people who came to John then had some specific questions.
The tax collectors, for example, John said to them, Only collect what’s due and nothing more. Now, that would not have been easy for tax collectors back in those days because the system back then assumed that the tax collector would add a percentage for himself, some more than others, right? But someone who follows Jesus doesn’t pad a bill. And the same with the soldier. It was almost expected that soldiers would help themselves to a little of this and that, wherever they were.
But John says, Be content with your wages. You put it all together, and John gives us instructions from God to feed people, clothe people, don’t use taxes to play favorites. And if you’re in a position of power, don’t take away from the powerless. In all of these things, John was preparing the way for his cousin Jesus, the Messiah.
And Jesus will add one thing to John’s teachings. Toward the beginning of his ministry, the apostle Matthew says what Jesus said, When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, but when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. So when we give, we give quietly, so that only God can see.
So to sum up John the Baptist’s message, we want to prepare the way for God’s Messiah. We do this by making changes in heart and mind that lead to actions, actions that are both generous and quiet. And it doesn’t matter what our religious heritage is, whether Jewish or Catholic or Protestant or none at all. It doesn’t matter where we’re from or what our ancestry is or what language we speak.
None of these things matter. All that matters is that we change course and follow Jesus and practice being generous to those in need. But here’s the rub. It’s not enough just to believe all this.
We need to act on what we know. In the ancient world and in some parts of the world today, if words are not acted on, people say that they’ve never been heard. Repentance means listening to God and then acting. One theologian suggests taking out the word believe and replacing it with the word trust.
For example, For God so loved the world that all who believe in him have eternal life. Try, For God so loved the world that all who trust him have eternal life. Taking action is the difference between actually worshiping Jesus or just worshiping what we know about Jesus. In the end, John the Baptist’s message, which sounded at first like an insult, is actually a message of inclusion and joy.
Bearing fruit is what counts, and anyone can bear fruit, no matter how young or how old, no matter how rich or how poor, no matter how quiet or how outgoing. We can all bear fruit in Jesus, and that’s good news. So when we do these things, John the Baptist brings us the message and the promise of God. One who is more powerful than I is coming, and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
And that’s the best news of all. Amen.
Summary
In this week’s service at Fairhaven United Methodist Church, Rev. Dylan Parson reflected on the journey of the Magi as an example of pilgrimage—traveling for a spiritual purpose to encounter God in a transformative way. Rev. Parson noted the irony that while we are more mobile than ever, modern Christians, particularly Protestants, have largely moved away from the ancient practice of pilgrimage. He shared how pilgrimage has been a significant spiritual discipline for millennia, emphasizing the importance of both the journey itself and the sacred destinations. Drawing parallels to his own spiritual journey to England to follow the footsteps of the Westleys, Rev. Parson highlighted how physical places can hold transformative spiritual power. This theme resonated with the story of the Magi, who undertook a difficult and dangerous journey to worship the newborn Jesus, demonstrating a faith and devotion that King Herod and the religious leaders of Jerusalem failed to show.
Rev. Parson connected the Magi’s pilgrimage to Isaiah’s prophecy, where God’s light attracts people from all nations, much like the star over Bethlehem drew the Magi. He pointed out how the light of Christ doesn’t need to be advertised; its inherent radiance draws people in, even those far removed from the faith. This magnetic power, he suggested, is why Christmas continues to resonate deeply in a post-Christian culture. Rev. Parson encouraged the congregation to perceive and reflect this light, allowing it to transform them and shine through them to the world. Just as the Magi returned home changed by their encounter with Jesus, he challenged the congregation to leave this Christmas season spiritually renewed and ready to carry the light of Christ into the darkness of the world. In closing, he asked: will you, like the Magi, let Christ’s glory transform you and shine through you? May it be so.
As I was thinking this week about the journey of the Magi to go and worship Jesus, I realized something that I think is kind of ironic. We are more mobile than human beings have ever been in history. And yet we, at least Protestants, have largely moved away from the idea of pilgrimage, from doing pilgrimages. And pilgrimage is such a significant aspect of religious practice for billions of people.
It has been for thousands and thousands of years. And it’s quite a simple thing. It’s not the same as tourism, first of all. It’s traveling for a spiritual purpose, to be changed, to encounter God in a new way by taking a sacred journey.
And the effort of the journey, meanwhile, you know, how difficult it is, the time you have to spend away and so on, that is, of course, just as important as the place where you get. The journey is, in many ways, the point. So Muslims are required at least once in their lives to make what’s called the Hajj to Mecca. This is a very specific pilgrimage.
You do specific things when you get there. And every single year, that sees over two million people converge at once in that desert city of Mecca. Early Christians, too, loved to go on pilgrimages. Beginning just a few centuries after the ascension of Jesus, many would travel to the Holy Land.
Most Christians were not in that region anymore, so if they wanted to see where Jesus was coming from, they had to go. And whenever that was too difficult of a journey in these days before trains and before roads and planes, there were many more local pilgrimage routes around the world. Most would link together, let’s say, important monasteries or churches in a country. They would end at some sacred site or object.
There’s still lots of these in France and Ireland and Germany. One of the most important routes a lot of people still travel today, I know a couple people who have, is the Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James. It’s a long path across the north of France and Spain, and it ends at the burial place of the Apostle James, Jesus’ brother.
The trip I took to England with Stormy this summer was intentionally a pilgrimage, too. We traveled in the footsteps of the Westleys, the early Methodists, for a spiritual purpose, to be inspired by it, to be renewed by the things that God did in those places. There’s a power that seems to rest in holy places. I think that I really am changed in some way by having stood in Westley’s pulpit in Bristol, or by praying in his personal prayer closet in his London house.
There’s something about that that works on your spirit. Nonetheless, for whatever reason, relatively few contemporary Christians ever really make a pilgrimage, you know, near or far. But I think it’s clear from the epiphany, that is, the encounter of the Magi this morning with the child Jesus, that pilgrimage is one of the earliest spiritual acts we see in the New Testament. The Magi know that there’s something holy to be seen, to be experienced, that God is calling them towards, and so they go seek it out.
The Magi, who by the way are not Jews, they’re certainly not Christians in any way we’d recognize it, they end up being the first Christian pilgrims. I mean, I suppose you could make a case for the shepherds, but they didn’t even have to leave their own zip code, right? The Magi go. And the Magi are something of a combination between priests, scientists, and astrologers. They’re part of a religion called Zoroastrianism, which is centered in Persia, now Iran.
And they know the created world inside and out, especially the stars and the planets. Their faith is very focused on the movement of the stars and the planets. And they’ve noticed something new in the heavens. A star over the land of Judea.
And so they pack up their caravans to travel across great rivers, empty deserts, hundreds of miles of dangerous wilderness to go and see the one whose birth is signaled by the sign in the sky. To my read of Matthew here, it’s unclear whether they’re looking for the newborn king of the Jews because they know these prophecies of the coming Jewish Messiah, or just because a star has risen over the homeland of the Jews and that means there’s a king to be born. But regardless of what background they’re coming from, they know that it’s important enough to go see for themselves. And so these people, who are again not Jews, not even from the same corner of the world, they’re traveling hundreds of miles.
This is no small journey. Somehow get it in the way that the reigning king of the Jews, Herod, along with many of the people in Jerusalem, don’t. They don’t see the importance. They are troubled by this star.
And the Magi eventually arrive in Judea after their long quest, and they’re asking around about where specifically they might find this newborn king. You know, the star’s over Judea. Where do we go from here? And Herod hears about this and he’s completely caught off guard. Apparently he’s been too focused on his own concerns to notice the brand new star that has risen over his little kingdom.
More evidently is he particularly familiar with the promises of his own religion, because after all, he doesn’t need a savior. He’s doing pretty good. So why would he be waiting for the coming of the Messiah, except as a potential threat? He doesn’t notice because he doesn’t care. Instead, he has to call in the religious experts.
He has to call in the scribes, the chief priests, and asks them, Hey, where is the Messiah supposed to be born anyway? He doesn’t know. And they cite him, the prophet Micah, that’s who Matthew is referring to here, who hundreds of years before pointed to the little town of Bethlehem and says, You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, who by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel. So Herod himself sends for the Magi. He calls them to come to him because he knows they’ll find the child whom he then plans to kill as a challenger to his throne.
And Herod ends up being here kind of the opposite of a pilgrim, if such a thing is possible. He’s too incurious about God’s work to even notice the star, first of all. And then he’s too fearful to even go see this threatening toddler by himself. He sends other people.
He directs the Magi to Bethlehem using the information from his scribes, and he’ll stay safe in his palace while others do his dirty work. Thank you very much. But the Magi do go to Bethlehem, and they do make it to Jesus. And they bow down before this child.
They offer gold and frankincense and myrrh, these gifts of incredible value. And they honor him. They’re deeply aware of his importance, his power. They don’t understand any of it yet.
But since God has come to them in a dream of warning, they don’t go back to Herod. They travel home a different direction. They avoid Herod and his plot. And they have accomplished what they set out to do when they left Persia.
Nothing more than to go see and honor this child, who’s not going to remember any of this, of course, to offer him some of their own wealth, to experience the joy and the glory of his presence because they just know that he is special. Jesus is worth traveling to see, even as they return home with nothing tangible. They didn’t take anything with them, only a memory, only the reality that they’ve been transformed in some way because of what they have seen. Jesus is worth the pilgrimage for them.
And here, I think, is where the prophet Isaiah comes in our other reading, in the beautiful prophecy of chapter 60 this morning, where he’s speaking to Jerusalem, a metaphor for all God’s people. Isaiah says, Arise, shine, your light has come. The Lord’s glory has shone upon you. Though darkness covers the earth and gloom the nations, the Lord will shine upon you.
God’s glory will appear over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to your dawning radiance. And Isaiah gives us, like Matthew does, this image of all the peoples of the earth being drawn in by Jesus, by the star, by the vision of God’s salvation poured out into the darkness and the gloom of the world. The Magi perceived that light thousands of miles over the western horizon and went to go touch the glory of God, to feel the sunlight of God on their skin for themselves.
They had to be there. What God is doing in the coming of Jesus has an attraction to it. It has a power, a magnetism that goes out in the world and pulls people in. It’s a lighthouse over stormy seas.
God is calling people to God’s self. The coming of salvation, the promise of a new thing causes the world to respond, to stream toward it just as the Magi do. Mary doesn’t have to advertise Jesus. She doesn’t have to tell anybody who he is.
She doesn’t have to sell his importance to the people around her. She doesn’t have to tell the Magi a thing about him when they come. It doesn’t seem like she does. His arrival into the world causes a disturbance that those who are paying attention notice.
They go themselves. They see. Notice there’s an interplay here in Isaiah where the light is talked about both as God’s glory but also as yours. Arise, shine, your light has come.
The Lord’s glory has shined upon you. It’s come to us. We’re given it. This light of hope, of promise in Jesus that then through us spreads out further as the light catches.
The light has shined upon you and then light shines from you. It’s a light that’s not generated in us but reflected by us, that belongs to us. The good news shines from us and is attractive to those who notice it. It causes them to want to see the source of it for themselves.
And so I wonder if this Christmas season you have been able to perceive and receive that light for yourself. Our annual journey through Advent, through Christmastide, this lead up to Christmas Eve is something of a pilgrimage after all, right? It’s a trek through time, through scripture, of anticipation that ends with us meeting the child Jesus once more, drawn to him in that star over Bethlehem. And if you, like King Herod, have found yourself too caught up in your own business to notice the star, there’s still time to notice what God has done, coming to bring light to all the nations. Look up.
The power that drew the magi in is still at work on our hearts without a doubt. This is so noticeable every Christmas season. Why do you think that Christmas still has an unbreakable grip on our totally post-Christian culture? Think about how weird it is that you can hear ancient hymns over the radio and in the mall one month a year. Think about how strange that is.
But the star still calls. Why do you think it is that people who don’t set foot in a church any other time of year find themselves in the pews on Christmas Eve ready to hold up the candle during silent night? We’ve drawn close to Jesus once more during this season in a special way. Hearing the promises of the angels, the song of Mary, remembering the priceless gifts the magi brought him, our light has come. Will you let it shine upon you? Will you take it home with you, into the world with you, that people will see God’s radiance in your radiance? Because I am sure that when the magi got home, people knew that something had happened.
Christ’s glory has come, his glory cutting through the darkness and the gloom that so often blankets our world. So can you return from this Christmas pilgrimage, transformed and changed like the magi, having seen the face of God in Bethlehem? May it be so in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.