Thoughts for the Day

Luke 3:3 He [John] went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Imagine for a moment that you had not read that verse.  Imagine simply that it was your mission, as Isaiah puts it, to “prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight paths for him”.  How would you go about it?  Phew!  But John had a bit more to go on.  Born into a priest’s house, surely he was brought up learning the Scriptures as we’ve described previously.  Surely too, his father Zechariah would have reminded him occasionally of the amazing circumstances of his birth and his own words of prophesy ‘You, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare a way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins …” (Luke 1:76-79).  There were also the words of Gabriel that he would be ‘great in the sight of the Lord’, never drink alcohol and be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.  And we read later that John had disciples who fasted and prayed often (Luke 5:33), so we can reasonably assume that fasting and praying often was part of the pattern of John’s own life.  Is this beginning to sound somewhat familiar?  A young man emerges from the desert, confident in his mission, fulfilling prophesy, grounded in scripture, filled with the Holy Spirit and disciplined in prayer.  He draws crowds, he draws disciples, everyone is aware of him.  Who could be a more suitable precursor to Jesus?  But why in God’s plan was one necessary? We’ll try looking at that tomorrow.