Imagine people taking buses out of town to hear some wild guy in the desert rail about sin, lining up to get dunked in a river as a sign of repentance. Imagine people lining up to get into a church. Oh, wait, that does happen, some places… Religion can still draw crowds, but it’s less and less common.
What was it that drew throngs out to the wilderness to see John? I’m sure he was some spectacle… but what was it about him that caused them to respond?
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Jesus asked the crowds much the same question, years later. In Luke’s Gospel we read that after John had languished in Herod’s prison for years, he sent some of his followers to ask Jesus if he was the one they'd been waiting for; doubts must have crept into his mind. Jesus cites as evidence the miraculous healings and transformations that people around him were experiencing… and then he takes the crowd to task about John. “Who did you go out there to see?” he asks. “A reed swaying in the wind? A man dressed in fine clothes?”
What did they go out there to see? Was it John’s fierceness? In Mark’s telling, John is pretty mild; in Matthew and Luke he appears more like a wild man, raging about judgment and fire. “The ax is already laid at the root of the trees,” he thunders. “The one who is coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And still they came, still they repented, still they were baptized. Scared straight? Maybe… Or perhaps they responded to his holiness.
John had a remarkable clarity about his mission, and a single-mindedness about fulfilling it. He never seemed to forget who he was, the advance man for a much bigger show. His mission was to prepare a people to receive their God. He had amazing integrity along with his blazing intensity. People came, they wept, they repented, they received his baptism, they went home and told their friends to come. Maybe they came for the show and stayed for the reality. Maybe they stayed because they wanted connection to God, and he was the closest thing they’d seen in ages.
What would draw us to John the Baptist? How does his call to repent, prepare the way of the Lord, land in our spirits 2000 years later? Are there aspects of his mission we want to share? Are there ways we can call the powers of our world to repentance and transformation? Ways we can call people we know to repentance and transformation? Ways we can call ourselves to repentance and transformation?
John’s call resonates through the ages to us. We want to connect to God too, deep in our spirits. We want to make more space for God in our lives, Repentance creates space, space that only God can fill. Repent, prepare the way. Our God is on the move!
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