The Spectacle Of The Baptizer
To John’s “baptism of repentance,” preparing for “remission of sins,” which Messiah Jesus would give.
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The Spectacle Of The Baptizer
A great sight!
At the River Jordan!
St John the Baptist!
Clothed in camel’s hair, a belt of skin around his waist, locusts and honey his daily fare.
Confessing their sins to this Spirit-filled son of a priest, from round about Jerusalem all the way to Galilee, the people draw near.
To John’s “baptism of repentance,” preparing for “remission of sins,” which Messiah Jesus would give.
A ritual strange was John devising?
No.
The Mosaic rites that washed from defilements—from dead bodies or error—touched upon this priest’s ritual too.
For John opens his preaching with “Wash! Be clean!” since nothing defiles more than personal sins.
“Are you the Messiah?” the Pharisees require.
“No, I am not,” John replies.
“The Prophet that Moses promised?”
“No,” again.
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness?” those Pharisees did not ask, for fear of prophecy, so as to repent.
For theirs was to disparage one who was already come, while pretending to honor the “One” Who was to come.
The solemn silence is broken.
Thirty years after His birth, Jesus comes to the Baptizer, to manifest His Messianic Mission.
No longer does John proclaim, “Prepare ye the way,” since the eyes of those for whom preparation is made, see the Lord Himself.
New words must be found, to define Who this One is, and why this One is come.
It needs be now:
“Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.”
He Who of old was dimly pictured by the Law in types, appears as the true Lamb while the throng looks on.
This Lamb does what the types could not do.
Lambs, goats, sheep and oxen, cannot represent man, nor take away sins.
But this Lamb is God Himself, Who by His Divinity takes away sins; by His humanity represents man.
John preached a kingdom; before him stands the king.
Not clothed in purple, not crowned in gold, but a Lamb bearing the weight of the sins of the world.
Of what sins would this One need to repent, He Who takes sins away?
Thus John protests, “I have need to be baptized of You, not You of me.”
“Allow it to be so now that all righteousness be fulfilled, Jesus states.
What “righteousness?”
That Jesus comes to John’s Baptism to act in solidarity with the people?
But between Him and the people is a wide gulf, for Jesus is the God-Man without sin.
To bind Himself to the observance of the Law?
But Jesus had no defilement of which to be cleansed.
To consecrate Himself to His Messianic task?
But His Divinity anoints His human assignment as the Second Adam.
Or was it when John—twenty miles from Nazareth—comes to Beth-Arabah, the news of John spreads from village to town?
Surely asked in every home, “This Baptism of John’s, is it from heaven, or from men?”
Once answered, “from heaven” indeed, and resounding in Jesus’ ears, what hesitation could there be?
To the Jordan Jesus goes, hastening “heavenly righteousness” in its full realization.
John breaks in:
“Upon Whom you see the Holy Spirit descending, the same is He I’ve been preparing you for.”
All eyes watch Jesus rise from the water.
Beholding, in the form of a dove, with the voice of the Father attesting, the Holy Spirit upon Jesus resting.
Why did Jesus teach that John was “more than a prophet?”
Because the prophets foretold of the Messiah’s coming.
But John had his hand on the Messiah’s own head.
Thank you Brother Nathanael.
“Why did Jesus teach that John was “more than a prophet?”
“Because the prophets foretold of the Messiah’s coming.
But John had his hand on the Messiah’s own head.”
Beautiful!
However, the locust part: Could be more this in interpretation:
“Many in the early church believed that this reference to locusts was actually meant to refer to the seeds of the carob tree, because the word used was similar in the Greek. However, most modern scholars accept that John the Baptist actually received his protein from Locusts”
https://www.biblesprout.com/articles/bible/john-the-baptist-eat-locust/
However at the same time, the human digestive system is neither equipped nor made to digest insects and actually toxic to humans.
“Could be more this interpretation,” but it’s not.
Because the English word “locust” (Greek akrides) properly means both an insect and certain kinds of trees, the question normally arises as to what, with honey, constituted the diet of John.
However, in the Scriptures, and in contemporary Greek literature, the word akrides (original word ‘akris’) always refers to an insect, the locust, and never to vegetation or some other thing. Locusts are mentioned 22 other times in the Bible and, whether in Hebrew or the Septuagint, all other mentions quite clearly refer to the insect.
According to the law of Moses certain kinds of locusts are clean food. “These you may eat: the locust after its kind, the destroying locust after its kind, the cricket after its kind, and the grasshopper after its kind” (Leviticus 11:22). The four insects here listed were commonly used as food in ancient times, as they are today in the Orient.