Lent Day 3: The surprising messenger

If you were choosing someone to proclaim: "God is here! The Messiah is showing up! Pay attention!" you couldn't find a less likely messenger than John the Baptist. 

 

Here's how Mark describes him:

John the Baptist appeared in the desert. He preached that people should be baptized and turn away from their sins. Then God would forgive them.

All the people from the countryside of Judea went out to him. All the people from Jerusalem went too. When they admitted they had sinned, John baptized them in the Jordan River.

John wore clothes made out of camel’s hair. He had a leather belt around his waist. And he ate locusts and wild honey. 

Here is what John was preaching. “After me, there is someone coming who is more powerful than I am. I’m not good enough to bend down and untie his sandals. I baptize you with water. But he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:4-8)

So the guy is weird. He's a curiosity. Would you hang out with someone who eats survivalist food? Who dresses in a camel coat held up by a leather belt?

Yet John has a clear message. He understands that God sent him to proclaim that the Messiah is here. God has chosen him, the only child of aging parents, rather than someone with great credentials or status. He's forging ahead in his calling, living in the day with hope and courage.

He not only knows his message. He also knows who he is and who he is not. He doesn't pretend that he's someone else, someone bigger. He accepts his place in the plans of God. 

John reports: The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask John who he was. John spoke the truth to them. He did not try to hide the truth. He spoke to them openly. He said, “I am not the Messiah.”

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”

He said, “I am not.”

“Are you the Prophet we’ve been expecting?” they asked.

“No,” he answered.

They asked one last time, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied, using the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I’m the messenger who is calling out in the desert, ‘Make the way for the Lord straight.’ ” (see Isaiah 40:3)

The Pharisees who had been sent asked him, “If you are not the Messiah, why are you baptizing people? Why are you doing that if you aren’t Elijah or the Prophet we’ve been expecting?”

“I baptize people with water,” John replied. “But someone is standing among you whom you do not know. He is the one who comes after me. I am not good enough to untie his sandals.” (John 1:19-27)

Today my goal is find out what God wants me to do. Then I want to do the next right thing on the path he's chosen, just as John the Baptist did. Are you willing to do that as well?

Our identity is secure in him. If you don't know who you are, pray. Ask God to help you do the next right thing. And then obey.

Hopefully that means you can wear normal clothes. You might not have to leave your family. 

And yet ... and yet ... can anyone be certain that the strange and inexplicable might not happen? 

After all, God knows more than we do. He made us for himself, for our unique place and role in the world. 

So pray. Obey. And hang in there.