his to His

Jn. 1:35-36

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

As I meditate on some of the quest and calling narratives found in John, I’m stuck on the possessive pronoun his.

By it I’m drawn to John’s undeniable humility. A few verses before this he writes that he’s not worthy enough to get on his knees to do a servants work–tie Jesus’ sandals (1:27). He takes the same position in later chapters clarifying what he means: “I must decrease and Jesus must increase” (3:30).

I believe John’s greatest act of humility though isn’t that he’s just taking a seat or 2nd position; John couldn’t be more bold. In fact, he’s screaming out the explicit truth to everyone that the anointed one has come, giving messianic titles to Jesus left and right. I think we’ve mistaken humility with a reserved kind of attitude which John doesn’t seem to show here.

Seems to me the greater act of humility is how he passionately releases disciples to Jesus.

I write passionately here because the verb “looked” has more of a gazing or staring intently idea. It’s not just that he pointed him out like we would a nice car while waiting for a bus. It’s not a passive comment. It’s much more; he’s looking with great meditation while announcing with intensity that Jesus is the Lamb of God.

There’s nothing passive or shy about John.

Humility, then, isn’t sitting back or somehow just not speaking up. Rather it’s to intensify and to be even more adamant about the goal of bringing people to Christ.  To hunger to believe that our purpose is to lift up Jesus. And this is exactly how these disciples see John’s face and hear his voice at this very moment.

You see John understands that the people he’s hovered over for so many years never belonged to him. God had given them to him to teach, train, and love. But John knew they always belonged to Jesus. He preached to be ready for him (repentance). And now the time had come for him to simply hand them off. The proof of John’s great work as the one who would prepare the way in the manner of Elijah is the fact that his own disciples would know how to listen for him and correctly respond to Jesus when he commanded them to “Come and see” or “Follow me” (1:39, 46, 51).

It’s hard work to hand people off to Jesus. To prepare the space for them to encounter Jesus. To point out time and time again Messiah in His word. To explain how to find him in a broken world. It’s hard to spend energy on people and then just give them away at the whim of some calling they’ve received from God.

Yet that is exactly what it means to really prepare the way for Jesus. It means we spend, spend, spend, and then spend some more and then say, “Go and do it now.” And hopefully, they’ll do it better.

I guess I find John’s humility amazing because what it really means is that as a youth worker my end goal isn’t just to hit them with a stunning message nor is it to help them just get ready for college. It’s more than gathering them for a study or an event. It’s to worship with them; to be passionate about pointing out who Jesus is in life with them. It’s this endless passion to boldly prepare people’s hearts; to constantly give them away to Jesus no matter how much we’ve poured into them. And like John, we are to LOVE sending them off no matter how hard it might be to let go and no matter what it costs us.

Man, that’s challenging.

At some point those who lead or mentor or parent need to recognize that none of what we have was meant for us to hoard. It was placed in our care to prepare and to be given away to someone much greater.

Our kids don’t belong to us. They never did. They belong to Jesus.
They’re His.