Lent Day Three
“John 1:29-34 The Passion Translation ”
29 The very next day John saw Jesus coming to him to be baptized, and John cried out, “Look! There he is—God’s Lamb! He will take away the sins of the world!
30 I told you that a Mighty One would come who is far greater than I am, because he existed long before I was born!
31 My baptism was for the preparation of his appearing to Israel, even though I’ve yet to experience him.”
32 Then, as John baptized Jesus he spoke these words: “I see the Spirit of God appear like a dove descending from the heavenly realm and landing upon him—and it rested upon him from that moment forward!
33 And even though I’ve yet to experience him, when I was commissioned to baptize with water God spoke these words to me, ‘One day you will see the Spirit descend and remain upon a man. He will be the One I have sent to baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
34 And now I have seen with discernment. I can tell you for sure that this man is the Son of God.”
‘I can tell you for sure.’ Don’t you just love John’s certainty in those words? Absolute certainty, about pretty much everything, becomes a scarcer and scarcer commodity the older we get, don’t you think? The simple certainties of childhood give way to the ambiguities of adulthood without us even noticing. The world is full of uncertainties lurking round every corner. After all, how can you be sure that these words were written by me and not generated by an AI chat-bot? I promise you, they were not! (Though that is exactly what a bot would say, of course, so you will have to make up your own minds).
The longer I have gone on in my Christian faith, the fewer absolute certainties I have. It is not that I am losing my faith, but rather that I am learning to live with the ambiguities of a world where I can only partly see God’s face and only partly hear his voice. ‘Eschatological verification’ is a fancy theological way of saying that it will all make sense in the end, and I can live with that. My God is a God of the grey, and not just of the black and white.
So what about John and his absolute certainty then? We have to bear in mind that he had been waiting his entire life for this precise moment. His role on earth was to do exactly what we see him doing in these verses, so we should not be surprised by his certainty. He is a prime example of focussing all your faith and effort on the one thing which really matters.
For the first time in many years, I have recently bought a new camera. It produces good photographs and has a highly sophisticated auto-focus system. The thing is, you still have to tell it what to focus on if you want to get the right result. That responsibility is yours, as photographer, and not the camera.
Lent is a great opportunity each year to choose those things on which you will focus. Forget the uncertainties and ambiguities for a minute – where do you really want to focus your faith this year? John’s focus on Jesus was absolute and unwavering, which allowed him to identify him with such absolute conviction. How’s yours?
Richard Littledale
ichard is an author, broadcaster and speaker, having spent 35 years as a Baptist Minister.and has always had an interest in innovative and creative communication. Richard has been a regular contributor to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2 and Prayer for the Day, Daily Service and Sunday Worship on BBC Radio 4.