Increase and Decrease
John 3.30
We make measurements all the time.
How much water do I need to add?
How long does this shelf need to be?
How far is it to the post office?
How long will it take to get to my holiday destination?
Is this dress or pair of trousers the right size?
Can I squeeze my car into that gap?
Everyday life is a set of calculations and measurements.
We all need a bit of basic maths.
How’s yours?
I want for these four Sundays of Advent
to try and measure our being disciples.
The gospel requires us to measure our lives.
This is what I’ve discovered.
The gospels talk about increase and decrease,
wide and narrow,
slow and fast,
light and heavy.
See it as an opportunity to look at your life and see if you measure up,
and if not, to do something about it.
Advent reminds us that Jesus could come at any moment,
So we need to be awake and ready.
John the Baptist’s disciples are concerned
that the flow of traffic going to Jesus is getting bigger,
and the interest in John is getting less.
John’s agent thinks its time John thought about releasing a new album,
or writing his memoir,
or dating some eligible beauty from Jerusalem.
He needs to get back in the limelight.
Celebrity is fickle,
you constantly have to be making the news,
otherwise you risk becoming old hat, discarded,
yesterday’s news,
a footnote to bigger stories.
And what does John say.
He says he is yesterday’s news,
he is old hat,
he is just a footnote in the story.
It’s time for him to take his bow.
‘I am not the Messiah’ he says.
‘I’m just a friend of the bridegroom,
and I’m full of joy that he is here
and I have heard his voice.
He must now become greater – he must increase,
and I must become less – I must decrease.
Where John could have seen Jesus as a rival,
a competitor,
someone who was squeezing onto his patch,
he takes a different path,
and steps aside.
He’s been the warm-up act,
now comes the performance that really matters.
John knows he is in light of knowing who Jesus is.
The world for a moment had been centred around John,
He was pulling the crowds,
even the authorities were taking an interest,
but at the arrival of Jesus,
he says that his joy
is a life now re-centred around Jesus.
The astonishing truth of Christianity
is that we believe that there is one human being
who is greater than the rest.
We might be tempted to play this down,
to emphasis not Jesus himelf, but his teaching.
But here’s the thing you can’t have Christianity without Jesus.
John was one who understood that.
He understood his whole life in the light of Jesus.
In the world’s eyes John was a failure,
he didn’t find a way to keep the spotlight on him,
he refused to keep standing,
and instead sat down,
and said
‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’
‘I have seen and I testify that this is God’s chosen one’
‘He must become greater, I must become less.’
I wonder what it means for us to live like that?
What does it mean for Jesus to increase
and we to decrease,
I think it means, who is the centre of your life,
around what does your life find it’s meaning?
It’s purpose?
It’s energy?
When Jesus is the centre,
he becomes greater and we become less.
It is to learn the gospel truth,
that there is a Saviour and it isn’t me.
To say Jesus is greater,
is to lift him up,
and of course that is what happens.
Jesus is lifted up,
he is lifted up on a cross.
Jesus is the greater because
he lays down his life,
he washes his follower’s feet.
This is what it looks like to be full of grace and truth.
Jesus is the greatest in the kingdom,
And he is the servant of all.
He is the model of what being human look likes,
without the disease of sin.
The paradox at the heart of gospel
is the one who is greater comes to be less,
the who is rich comes to be poor,
the who is stronger comes to be weak.
We rightly lift Jesus up,
we seat him on the throne,
and he just keeps getting off to be with us,
he keeps kneeling at our feet,
he keeps giving himself away
for the sake of the world,
for the sake of each one of us.
John learns what it is to be like Jesus:
He must increase, I must decrease.
This is the first way to measure being a disciple:
Does your life allow Jesus to increase?
Does it allow the grace and truth of Jesus to be seen more and more?
Does your life limit Jesus, control Jesus?
Or is Jesus bursting out into the way you
talk, act, think, eat, work, play, relate, love?
John’s words are perhaps repeated in the form of a daily prayer.
The new world that Advent announces,
the new hope that Advent reveals,
is both a universal and local.
God is at work in the whole world
and God is at work in us.
The new world, new hope
finds it sign of visibility in a people
that pray
‘Lord Jesus may you increase as I decrease.’
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