The Forerunner
“Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Annas and Caiaphas were high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled And every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough ways smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” Luke 3:1-6
This passage begins with a list of famous and mighty men, from the supreme ruler in Rome to the governors of important provinces to the religious leaders in Jerusalem. While the birth of John the Baptist was miraculous, it did not attract the attention of the important leaders of his day. There were people who had been outside the Temple when the mute Zacharias came out after the Angel’s announcement of the birth of John. Perhaps many of the same people were present when John had been born and his parents said that his name would be “John.” No one in the family had that name; in fact, most were in favor of him being named after his father Zacharias. However, when Zacharias took a writing tablet, “And he asked for a writing tablet, and wrote, saying, ‘His name is John.’ So they all marveled. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, praising God. Then fear came on all who dwelt around them; and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, ‘What kind of child will this be?’ And the hand of the Lord was with him” (Lk. 1:63-66).
What kind of child, indeed, would this boy be? He would become what some might call ascetic living in the desert. John’s preaching was bold, and he was not a “crowd pleaser.” John confronted many of the religious leaders of his day and denounced their hypocrisy. His message was one of repentance, and he called each one to renounce worldly pomp for the austerity of obedience to God.
Although his formative years were lived in obscurity in the desert (Luke 1:80), his public ministry ended nearly four hundred years of prophetic silence. John was that voice crying in the wilderness preparing the way for the coming Messiah (Isa 40:3; Matt 3:3 ; Mark 1:2-3 ; Luke 3:3-6 ). In this sense his message and ministry marked the culmination of the law and the prophets, but heralded the inbreaking of the kingdom of God (Matt 11:12 ; Luke 16:16 ). So John was truly a transitional figure, forming the link between the Old and New Testaments. He spans the ages with one foot firmly planted in the Old Testament and the other squarely placed in the New.
And John the Baptist did all of this without letting anything give him the big head. John never wavered from his mission. He had come to prepare the way for the Lord, and he gladly submitted to the Lord. One of John’s most telling statements is this: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30). This is a powerful statement of humble submission to Jesus. Many of John’s disciples may have left him to follow Jesus, but John was content with that. John accepted his subordinate role to Jesus, and he often repeated that he had come to bear witness to the light (Jn. 1:19-23). We would do well to follow John’s example. Instead of tooting our own horn and looking for fame and fortune, let’s point men to the true light!
L Scott Gage
