As a card carrying
Christo I have always been happy to worship in any space where Jesus is front
and centre and am struck by the variance and beauty in how we all believers
testify to the everlasting truth of his message. Since moving to Lagos, much of
my corporate worship has been happening in the local Catholic Church. However,
one of the marked differences is the commemoration and veneration of saints and
today is the feast day commemorating one my personal favourite, John the
Baptist, whose feast day is today.
Oftentimes John is diminished to the role of ultimate warm
up act. After all, he may have been baptising people in the River Jordan, but
he wasn’t the main event, the promised and expected messiah, and admitted as
much himself:
“I baptize you with
water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I,
whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
and with fire” Matthew 3:11
However, what I love about John the Baptist most, apart from
the freestyle wild hair he is often portrayed with in paintings, his minimalist
fashion choices of camel tunic and equally singular diet of locusts and wild
honey (grasshoppers are a delicacy in Uganda where I am from), is his
fearlessness coupled with purposefulness. Here was a man who was quite happy to
be the contrarian. The voice calling out in the wilderness, the one who could
have kept quiet or chosen to blend in with the crowd in spite of having
received the revelation of Jesus’ imminent arrival. But he didn’t as he knew
much was at stake than his own personal safety or comfort and instead:
“He came as a witness
to testify concerning the light, so that through him all men might believe.”
John1:7
Whilst believers today might not have Jesus turning up to
see us in action and ask to be baptised by us, we do have the same opportunity
as John to testify and be a witness to the light. Being a witness isn’t just
about conventional evangelism, it is about others, particularly those beyond
the comfort of our church communities seeing the Holy Spirit and Fire baptism that John so vividly evokes living in
us. It is what we see when the congregation members at Emanuel AME Church in
Charleston, return to worship and praise God after the tragedy of the massacre
last week, or when we choose to do what is difficult but marks out the transformation
and new life that resides in us as followers of Christ.
It is only when we do the extraordinary, when we go against
the grain that others can see what is tangibly different about a life led with
Christ at its centre. The sinful nature doesn’t go away, and we are probably
likely do something off-key pretty soon after. However, in this world that can
so often be steeped in darkness, jaded by cynicism and seek to quickly explain
away the good that there is, testifying to the light, being unafraid of having
a splash of the wild-man about you, is the most compelling and powerful thing
you will do in your Christian walk. Try it, honey roast ham baguettes an
optional extra!
