As a recovering software engineer, the anthropology of software fascinates me far more than the technology.   Ideally, software is designed to automate and simplify human labor.  Or as Tony Reinke wrote, technology pushes back some effects of The Fall.  But more often than not technology, once deployed, outgrows its design.  Growing beyond automating human work, it defines it. Human work and behavior mimic the software designed to mimic its master.  It is an inevitable turn of events, a constant ebb and flow between who runs the show – man or machine. 

This is true not only of our work, but also our relationships.  Our tech now mediates the mechanics of relationships.  We no longer visit neighbors, we follow them.  We don’t talk to friends, we message them.  If this was a simple equivocation, then ‘OK.’  But social media is more than a new medium for communication.  It has become a virtual kabuki where actors market an assumed identity, not one that actually exists.   Is it any wonder that in such a world, even biological certainty falls victim to how I identify.

The phrase ‘going viral’ used to carry only bad connotations. But social media has made ‘going viral’ the goal of influencers, extroverts, and narcissists of all stripes. It means you are getting noticed. And all of us want to get noticed. Our online identity is digitally rendered. So, setting up a social media profile is no simple matter, less about who I am and more about who I want people to believe I am.

While Brad Paisley’s song, Online is a little off-color, his social commentary rings true when he sings ”I’m so much cooler online.”  Do people who view your profile wonder who you really are and what you are really like?  Now take that one step further.  Do those who view your spiritual profile, your profession of faith and your ‘life and conversation,’ wonder who you really are?  Are you WYSIWIG or is your profile as a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ a tidy bit of historical fiction?

At the beginning of the gospel many came to John the Baptist wanting to view John’s profile.  In John 1, the religious establishment in Jerusalem sent inquisitors to unearth John’s real identity.  But John’s concern was not who he was, but what he was – a witness.   What mattered most what not what John’s life said about John, but what it said about Jesus.

John comes out of nowhere.  Like Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti western, he is an apocalyptic figure.  Dressed in the prophetic garb of Elijah, he was fanatically different from the long line of false Messiah’s who filled the 400-year silence since the prophet Malachi.  His preaching was changing lives.  Those who cared nothing for ritual purity sought real purity – not the cleansing of the Pharisee’s ritual baptism but a spiritual baptism that washed away much more than dirt. 

His whole ministry and identity was as a witness to the ‘Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.”  And in that he is an exemplar for us. John is the last of the Old Testament prophets and the first of Jesus’ evangelists.  He is a radical, a revolutionary.  Surely this extremist is not the paradigm for the “profile of a disciple?”  Is this what we are to emulate?  Jesus later commented on this question when he was asked about greatness.  He said of John.

Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:11

John 1:19-34 reveals John’s profile and as it does, reveals to us what it means to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.   John is an exemplar and not an extremist.   What does our profile look like as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ?   Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine John 1:19-34 and consider our profile as witnesses.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.