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.
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