God Among Us

At the end of last year, I was preparing a sermon centered around John the Baptist. And in preparing for that sermon, one specific text struck me in a way it never had before. In John 1, the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent a delegation out to John the Baptist and asked him to declare who he was; specifically, asking if he was the Messiah, to which John clearly explains that he was not the Messiah. And so, rationally, they asked him why on earth he was doing everything he did. And this was John's answer: “I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.”

And what really struck me about those verses was that phrase “There standeth one among you, whom ye know not.” There is some debate about how literally we are supposed to interpret that. But at face value, it means that Jesus was standing there in the crowd and that as the Jewish delegation stood there talking to John, there was one nearby whom they did not know but who was the final answer to their question.

And that struck me in a strange way. When we read the gospels, our focus is always on Jesus. He is the main character of the gospels (as He is the main character of the entire story of this world) and He always stands at the center of the stage (as He stands at the center of the universe). And it is not just our perspective that sees this. Jesus was usually the center of attention; usually in the middle of a crowd. People suffered hunger in the wilderness to hear Him; they climbed up trees and dropped down through roofs for the chance to get close to Him. After a certain point, even those who despised Him could not afford to ignore Him. Some people thought He was unusually good; some people thought He was unusually bad; and some people thought He was unusually crazy. But everyone thought He was unusual.

But that day, before His ministry began, seemingly before His baptism (there is some difficulty in reconstructing the chronology), there was nothing to set Him out from anyone else. There had been nothing unusual about Him aside from the events surrounding His birth, which probably only a handful of people knew about. 'Jesus' was an extremely common name and Jesus (aside from character) must have seemed an extremely common man up to that point. He was an average Joe. People have wondered why the Gospels record almost nothing of the life of Jesus until the beginning of His ministry. And aside from the obvious point (that the apostles were not with Jesus during that time and so wouldn't have known anything about it), I suspect the reason is simply that it wouldn't have been worth writing. His life, up to that point, had been perfectly normal and uneventful. The record of those lost thirty years would probably be painfully commonplace and would come down to a list of carpentry work. He may have stood out from the other men of Nazareth because of His unusual character—having a morally perfect man living next door would, you think, be almost more remarkable than any sort of miracle. Perhaps that is what lies behind the strange attitude of Jesus' brothers; perhaps they felt condemned and resentful by the contrast. But from the words of the people of Nazareth in Luke 4, it seems that most of the people in town had never thought of Him as anyone different or unusual.

And, certainly, that day as He stood among the crowd thronging the banks of Jordan, there was nothing that marked Him out. There was no aura shining from Him; no angels hovering around His head. We don't know whether there was anything usual or striking about His physical appearance—whether He was tall or short or beautiful or ugly—but even if there was, it probably wasn't enough to really set Him apart from the rest of the crowd. Nobody saw him then as anyone unusual. If we had been there, we wouldn't have been able to pick Him out of the crowd. On that day, He was just one of the many.

And I can't help but wonder how it felt for the official representatives to hear that declaration of John--that there was one standing among them whom they knew not. What would it be like to look at a crowd of ordinary, mundane people and know that one of them was something more than ordinary; to look at a milling crowd and know that one of them was the Promised One; the long-awaited one, the one chosen to bring about something new and unheard of in the world—to know that one was the Messiah. We don't know how much these people understood about the Messiah, but if they had read their scriptures carefully, they would have known the Messiah was something more than a man. And that is the striking thought—what would it be like to look at a sampling of ordinary men and know that one of them was more than a man; to know that God Himself was standing somewhere in the crowd; was perhaps rubbing elbows with you at that moment? How would you look at a crowd if you know that among them was One whom you knew not?

Apparently, that delegation was not especially struck by the idea since, as far as we can tell, they turned around and went straight back to Jerusalem without another thought. Apparently, they did not take John's words seriously enough to think much more about it. Perhaps, they could not believe such an idea—believe that the Messiah could be among them without their noticing. If a man told us there was an elephant in our house and we knew it not, we would probably be inclined to dismiss the claim without consideration.

But they were wrong. Someone was among them that would change the course of history; someone that would shift the very momentum of the world. To this day, even His enemies cannot ignore Him. His Name is still spoken, whether as a blessing or a curse. But that day... that day He was just another one of the crowd. Today, we know Him as the Son of God; but that day He was only another son of man. 

The year 2020 was a very unusual year in many ways and produced a number of unusual cultural phenomena. One of those was the sudden popularity of Innersloth's Among Us. Spurred by the limitations of quarantine, this PC/Mobil game took over the cultural consciousness for a few months. The game centers around a group of workers on a spaceship or research center—but one or two of the workers are actually impostors trying to sabotage the mission. And so the crewmates must try to identify and eliminate the impostors before the impostors can kill off the crew. And each round of the game begins with the ominous and now iconic line: “There is an impostor among us.”

And that day, on the banks of the Jordan, John made his announcement, that there is a messiah among us; there is a savior among us; there is Deity among us. One of those in the crowd that day was now what He seemed; there was one among them whom they knew not. But He had not come, like an impostor, to steal and kill and destroy. He had come specifically for the purpose of being among them; He had come specifically to be unnoticed and neglected; He had come deliberately in order to be exactly like anyone else; for Isaiah had prophesied that He would be called Immanuel, which means God-Among-Us. 

That is the mystery of the incarnation. That God would be willing to lower Himself to living on earth is remarkable enough. But God was willing to become one of us; to live where we lived; to eat where we ate; to suffer the things we suffer; to face the things we face; as one of us—that is the wonder. He did not come as a king to stand above us or as a driver to stand behind us or a beacon to stand before us (though He does also fulfill those roles.) He came as a man and stood, not above us, not behind us, not before us—but among us.

"Because of His boundless love, Jesus became what we are that He might make us to be what He is." (Iranaeus)