Camel hair, locusts and honey

For the third week in Advent we consider John the Baptist. He was so significant that we shall devote the whole of this week to him. Today the focus will be on his early life and ministry; later we shall be considering how his words pointed to Jesus and then his sacrificial stand against unrighteouness.

John is depicted as being a pretty rugged man, living in the desert wearing clothes made from camel hair, and eating locusts and wild honey. He had that air of an Old Testament prophet, which indeed he was. In fact, John was the person about whom Isaiah had prophesied 700 years previously, regarding someone who would prepare the way for the Messiah. He was the last prophet of Old Testament times and the first of the New Testament era, living in one and ushering in the other.

John was clearly someone special. The fact that he was going to be born was announced to his father, Zechariah, by an archangel, Gabriel, in the Holy of Holies at the Temple. The angel clearly explained that this boy, who was going to be born to two elderly parents (and the mother, Elizabeth, was known to be barren anyway), was going to be a national figure, filled with the Holy Spirit even before he was born. He was the one chosen to prepare the country for the coming of the Messiah. A week after John's birth, his father was inspired to prophesy that the boy would grow up to be a prophet, charged with ushering in the Kingdom of God, declaring the way of forgiveness, salvation and peace.

Once he had grown up, he started to live alone with God in the wilderness of Judea, which is where he began his famous lifestyle described above. Sometime late in 27 AD or early 28 AD the word of God came to him and he started his ministry of calling people to repentance for the forgiveness of their sins. He baptized them as a sign of their declaration of turning to God. He explained to people on an individual basis what they needed to do to live lives pleasing to God now that they had publicly renounced their sins. On the other hand, he spoke harshly to those who were just coming to be baptized for show, to appear to be putting themselves right before God, but not actually repenting at all.

There had been a dearth of prophecy in Israel for around 400 years, so the appearance of a major prophet made quite a stir. John developed a huge following, but also didn't shy away from the fact that he was making some seriously powerful enemies along the way. We don't have a lot of his words recorded, so it is easy sometimes to overlook his significance; however, the level of spiritual activity involved in the preparation for John's birth had few parallels: he was the voice crying in the wilderness prophesied by Isaiah; he was in some sense a second Elijah, walking in the footsteps of that great prophet; Gabriel, who was normally in the Heavenly throne room, came to Earth especially to make the birth announcement to Zachariah. And, of course, Jesus himself had a view: he was more than just a prophet - never was a greater human born than John the Baptist (Matthew chapter 11. verse 11; Luke chapter 7, verse 28).

Jesus went on to say that, on the other hand, anyone in the Kingdom of God was greater than John. This seems like a bit of a harsh comment about the greatest human in history who was faithful to God throughout his life and eventually martyred. The point was, though, that like the prophets throughout the Old Testament, he didn't live to see Jesus' death and resurrection or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in fulfilment of a prophesy by Joel. As Christians, living in the fulness of Jesus' grace and filled with God's Holy Spirit as standard, we live in a totally different realm from that which even John the Baptist experienced or could really understand. We should consider the life of this great man of God and what we can learn from him, but also realize the potential that we have to live as people under the New Covenant, for which John was but the herald.

Jesus' best friend

All Christians are friends of Jesus, but when he was living on Earth the person who became closest to him in practice was John, one of the sons of Zebedee, whom Jesus called 'sons of thunder'. That gives an idea of their character. When some villagers in Samaria weren't keen on helping the disciples, the brothers asked Jesus if they should call down fire from Heaven to burn them up - Jesus told them not to be ridiculous. They still ended up angling for the best positions in Heaven after living constantly with Jesus, the ultimate servant-leader, for over two years. When it came to the crunch, though, John was the only one of Jesus' core team of 12 male disciples who stayed with him at the cross, along with several of the women. Of course, after receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, he became a changed man, full of power in the Spirit, willing to preach boldly in the face of opposition, and with a strong message of the importance of love in the Christian life.

John, although being a fisherman by trade, turned out to be quite a writer. He seems to have had some help with at least the final editing of his Gospel story of Jesus' life, and perhaps there was someone around to proofread his three letters to churches and individuals; however, his final book, written while he was in exile and by then quite old, was probably all his own work and a bit rugged. His Gospel includes many of the intimate details of discussions between Jesus and various people, including his core disciples, which the other writers either omit or treat much more briefly. This probably reflects how close John was to Jesus. His letters, including the amazing stream of consciousness in 1 John, take forward some of the key messages of Jesus himself, including the paramount importance of love, our freedom from sin and the fact that Jesus is our go-to person for forgiveness when we fail to live up to his standard.

John was faithful to his friend throughout Jesus' life and death, and a reliable custodian of his message after Jesus had ascended to Heaven. Like Isaiah before him, he wrote about Jesus as the Messiah, in his case as an eyewitness showing how Jesus had fulfilled many of the Old Testament prophecies, including several of Isaiah's. Towards the end of his life, though, in Revelation, John reveals that he was himself also a visionary of calibre equal to that of the major Old Testament prophets. In that book he was entrusted with the main message that we have in the New Testament about the end of the world, which complemented the foresight of Isaiah and others with regard to Jesus' second coming. He was given some remarkable visions of the workings of Heaven which have become a treasure trove for the Church.

The apostle John was a close friend of Jesus who was given insight into the love, mercy and goodness of God, alongside his anger and judgement.

John faithfully recorded in the book of Revelation what he saw in those end-time visions of Jesus himself, together with angels and majestic creatures resembling an eagle, ox, lion or man, but with multiple wings and eyes - nothing like the typical Christmastime depiction of angelic beings (as exemplified above). There are also golden lampstands, bowls of prayers, scrolls, trumpets, plagues, and, of course, the devil along with other demonic beings. He saw God's throne room and the coming of the New Heaven and New Earth. This is a book about the power, majesty and love of God, but held in tension with his judgment and anger. Revelation reminds us that Jesus' overwhelming and unconditional love and grace are in the context of serious consequences for sin if we don't serve him as our Lord and saviour.

Sometimes John was given an interpretation, which he wrote down as well, but at others we are left with just the vision. He understood the importance of not leaving out the bits that didn't make sense to him, or either embellishing the message or providing his own interpretation to try to make it intelligible. Therefore, we are left with a faithful record of what God wants us to know, which he can then use in his own way to guide us through the final period of world history. Let us learn from this man who stuck close to Jesus from the time he first left his fishing boat behind on the Sea of Galilee until his death around 70 years later. As a consequence he lived a life of power in the Holy Spirit as an apostle, healer, church leader and writer of a large portion of the the most powerful religious literature in the world.

A man of many talents

As a young man, Isaiah started to hear God and began to speak prophetically. He also decided to record some of these prophecies in written form. After a few years of faithfully delivering God's word, he was given a vision in the Temple in which he was commissioned by God as a prophet to the nation. From then on, he received a mixture of warnings and promises, many of which he recorded in what became the longest prophetic book in the Bible. He was the man of God chosen to work with King Hezekiah of Judah when Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrians. He was able to assure the King correctly that the city would not fall, so it was safe to hold out against the enemy army. He delivered to Hezekiah the message that God was going to extend his life by 15 years, but also that Judah would eventually fall to the Babylonians, who were at that point not even much of a force to be reckoned with.

Isaiah prophesied over perhaps 60 years, during which his ability to hear God developed, as did his writing style. The latter part of his book, in particular, contains some of the most exquisitely composed prophetic poetry in the Bible. He excelled in delivering stinging judgments from God to Judah and the surrounding nations, as well as bringing much needed divine words of comfort to his countrymen. He was a great and versatile prophet, a skilled writer and a gifted poet.

Isaiah is, though, perhaps most often remembered as the prophet who was entrusted with some of the most intimate and accurate foretellings of Jesus as the Messiah, who would not be born for another 700 years. He predicted the virgin birth of Immanuel (God with us), and that the Messiah would be born into King David's family line, work in Galilee and have someone prepare the way for his arrival. Isaiah also spoke about Jesus' rejection by his people, that he would be spat upon and beaten, the horrors of his suffering on the cross and that that would be to take upon himself our sins and sicknesses as our substitute. He knew that the Messiah's voluntary death would be for our reconciliation with God, leading to the salvation of many people, and that he would die with sinners and be buried with the rich. Isaiah also prophesied about Jesus' ministry during his lifetime: that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit, heal the blind, lame, deaf, and sick, raise the dead, lift up the brokenhearted and be visited by Gentiles. He added that Jesus would ultimately be exalted and become the judge over the Earth.

This was a man who was trusted by God so much that he was willing to relate to him some of the finer points and purposes of the birth, life and death of his son; God entrusted such intimate detail to few other Old Testament prophets. Isaiah was faithful to record this incredibly accurately, even though he could have had only a vague idea of what a lot of it meant, being someone brought up under the Jewish Law rather than the grace revealed fully in the New Testament. Yet it didn't stop there, since he went on to prophesy about the end of the world as well. Let us learn from this amazing man that God our Father is willing to share his life with us in astounding depth if we allow ourselves to get to know him properly.