John the Baptist - Matt 1, Mark 1, Luke 1, Luke 3, John I
I can't remember the first time I met you because we have known each other for ever. We grew up together and you were at every family gathering and feast day I can remember. We used to run about in the town square together in the evenings chasing birds and practising with our slingshots. You were always a better climber than me but I was a faster runner. You sometimes helped me learn my Torah - you were way better than me at all that academic stuff. My mother had a wood carving you had made when you were a young man on the windowledge in our home. I have plenty of happy memories of us as children. You were part of our lives and your mother and mine spent lots of time together until my mother died when I was fourteen. After that I left town to try to find work in the fields and we lost touch.
Until that day. The day I met you again.
For several years I had been living out in the desert. I had always known that God had some special purpose or calling on my life - my mother and father had told me all about what had happened to them before I was born and the promise they had been given that I was to be some sort of herald to the coming of the Messiah. Growing up, all that had sounded both a bit far -fetched and a bit terrifying. I was, after all, just the son of a small town priest, nobody important. But my parents had made sure I had had a good education in the Talmud and had hoped that I might become a disciple of the local Rabbi . I wasn't smart enough. And to tell the truth I really didn't have that much interest in becoming a Rabbi. By the time my parents died I was already starting to build up a good herd of livestock - goats and cattle, and after they passed away I had little choice but to make my life as a stockman. I moved my herds out into the plains at Bethany and pretty much became self sufficient. For years I only came into town to trade a few cattle for some basic provisions. I lived a very simple life and was happy.
When I was in my mid twenties God started to speak to me. At first I had dreams in which I saw angelic beings and had vivid impressions of places I had never been and people I had not seen before. There was a bird coming down and settling on the shoulder of a man. There was a river full of people. There was a girl dancing and prison bars. It was all very confusing but I new that it was God speaking to me. I developed a hunger for the scriptures and began to recite to myself over and over the portions of the Torah I had learned by heart as a boy. Anyone who could have seen me then would probably have thought I was mad. I used to lead my goats out to pasture singing and shouting passages of scripture about the coming of the promised Messiah and the release of captives from the yoke of tyranny. It was dangerous - the Romans were everywhere and the Pharisees were always on the lookout for heretics. My unconventional behaviour would almost certainly have been deemed heretical. But I didn't care, God started to show me that the time was coming when Messiah would be revealed. I could feel it in my spirit. My bones ached for Him.
I had always been angered by injustice and maddened by the hypocrisy of the priests who seemed to want to be worshipped themselves rather than help the people to worship God. But in these days the anger bubbled over - I just couldnt contain it - and I started to speak in the marketplace when I went into town to trade for goods. I appears I struck a chord with the local traders because before long, whenever I arrived with my goats at market a crowd would gather to hear what I had to say. Before long people were starting to come out to my smallholding to listen to me teach from the Torah about the coming Messiah. I told them that He was coming, and that they needed to get ready. They needed to be prepared. To turn back to God and away from all the foolish things they had been doing and little gods they had been worshipping. I urged people to repent and they responded by telling me that they wanted to be baptised. So I started baptising people in the Jordan. And the more who were baptised, the more seemed to come, until I gave up all notion of animal husbandry and abandoned myself completely to preaching the coming of the Messiah and the repentance of sins. I repeatedly had to tell them that I was not the one - not the Christ, not the prophet Elijah, just one who was preparing the way. I knew that the Saviour was going to be completely unlike the self-serving, religious, hypocritical, greedy, harsh, legalistic leaders we had had for generations. He was going to be radically different. And He was coming soon - of that I was in no doubt,.
The day I met you was one like many others. I was on the banks of the Jordan preaching to the lost and rebuking the religious ones who thought they didnt need to repent of anything. The sun was up and even in the heat of the day people were still coming to listen and to be washed in the waters of the Jordan as a symbol of their repentance. By this time I had several followers who had opted to live with me , homeless and without income, helping me to baptise the multitudes and serve the poor. As I was teaching and they were baptising I looked up and saw you coming down to the river bank. I at once recognised you as my childhood friend. And yet as I looked at you I saw that you were someone else too. You moved with grace, you had an authority in your voice as you greeted me with a hug. You seemed to shine and in that instant I knew that you had nothing from which you needed to repent. You had come to be baptised but I protested, saying that it should have been you baptising me. You smiled and waded into the river, so I followed you and , according to the custom, pushed you under the water declaring you clean of your sins. As you rose up from the water a white bird flew down from the surrounding olive trees and landed on your shoulder. The crowd all stopped their chatter and became quiet. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before. The bird rested for several moments on your shoulder as your hair dripped in the sunlight and you stood with your hands raised to heaven. Then I remembered the dream. God had showed me this before - I stood up beside You and I shouted
'Behold!!! THIS is the Messiah, the promised saviour, the Lamb who will take away the sins of Israel once and for all '
And then came an almighty roar from heaven , like a peal of thunder and a shout of joy from a thousand voices. It sounded like a waterfall and a choir, impossible to describe but the voice said
' This is my Son I and I AM delighted with Him'
and you looked at me and smiled.
Until that day. The day I met you again.
For several years I had been living out in the desert. I had always known that God had some special purpose or calling on my life - my mother and father had told me all about what had happened to them before I was born and the promise they had been given that I was to be some sort of herald to the coming of the Messiah. Growing up, all that had sounded both a bit far -fetched and a bit terrifying. I was, after all, just the son of a small town priest, nobody important. But my parents had made sure I had had a good education in the Talmud and had hoped that I might become a disciple of the local Rabbi . I wasn't smart enough. And to tell the truth I really didn't have that much interest in becoming a Rabbi. By the time my parents died I was already starting to build up a good herd of livestock - goats and cattle, and after they passed away I had little choice but to make my life as a stockman. I moved my herds out into the plains at Bethany and pretty much became self sufficient. For years I only came into town to trade a few cattle for some basic provisions. I lived a very simple life and was happy.
When I was in my mid twenties God started to speak to me. At first I had dreams in which I saw angelic beings and had vivid impressions of places I had never been and people I had not seen before. There was a bird coming down and settling on the shoulder of a man. There was a river full of people. There was a girl dancing and prison bars. It was all very confusing but I new that it was God speaking to me. I developed a hunger for the scriptures and began to recite to myself over and over the portions of the Torah I had learned by heart as a boy. Anyone who could have seen me then would probably have thought I was mad. I used to lead my goats out to pasture singing and shouting passages of scripture about the coming of the promised Messiah and the release of captives from the yoke of tyranny. It was dangerous - the Romans were everywhere and the Pharisees were always on the lookout for heretics. My unconventional behaviour would almost certainly have been deemed heretical. But I didn't care, God started to show me that the time was coming when Messiah would be revealed. I could feel it in my spirit. My bones ached for Him.
I had always been angered by injustice and maddened by the hypocrisy of the priests who seemed to want to be worshipped themselves rather than help the people to worship God. But in these days the anger bubbled over - I just couldnt contain it - and I started to speak in the marketplace when I went into town to trade for goods. I appears I struck a chord with the local traders because before long, whenever I arrived with my goats at market a crowd would gather to hear what I had to say. Before long people were starting to come out to my smallholding to listen to me teach from the Torah about the coming Messiah. I told them that He was coming, and that they needed to get ready. They needed to be prepared. To turn back to God and away from all the foolish things they had been doing and little gods they had been worshipping. I urged people to repent and they responded by telling me that they wanted to be baptised. So I started baptising people in the Jordan. And the more who were baptised, the more seemed to come, until I gave up all notion of animal husbandry and abandoned myself completely to preaching the coming of the Messiah and the repentance of sins. I repeatedly had to tell them that I was not the one - not the Christ, not the prophet Elijah, just one who was preparing the way. I knew that the Saviour was going to be completely unlike the self-serving, religious, hypocritical, greedy, harsh, legalistic leaders we had had for generations. He was going to be radically different. And He was coming soon - of that I was in no doubt,.
The day I met you was one like many others. I was on the banks of the Jordan preaching to the lost and rebuking the religious ones who thought they didnt need to repent of anything. The sun was up and even in the heat of the day people were still coming to listen and to be washed in the waters of the Jordan as a symbol of their repentance. By this time I had several followers who had opted to live with me , homeless and without income, helping me to baptise the multitudes and serve the poor. As I was teaching and they were baptising I looked up and saw you coming down to the river bank. I at once recognised you as my childhood friend. And yet as I looked at you I saw that you were someone else too. You moved with grace, you had an authority in your voice as you greeted me with a hug. You seemed to shine and in that instant I knew that you had nothing from which you needed to repent. You had come to be baptised but I protested, saying that it should have been you baptising me. You smiled and waded into the river, so I followed you and , according to the custom, pushed you under the water declaring you clean of your sins. As you rose up from the water a white bird flew down from the surrounding olive trees and landed on your shoulder. The crowd all stopped their chatter and became quiet. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before. The bird rested for several moments on your shoulder as your hair dripped in the sunlight and you stood with your hands raised to heaven. Then I remembered the dream. God had showed me this before - I stood up beside You and I shouted
'Behold!!! THIS is the Messiah, the promised saviour, the Lamb who will take away the sins of Israel once and for all '
And then came an almighty roar from heaven , like a peal of thunder and a shout of joy from a thousand voices. It sounded like a waterfall and a choir, impossible to describe but the voice said
' This is my Son I and I AM delighted with Him'
and you looked at me and smiled.
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