I was born into a poor man’s family in Galilee.

It was a religious home, but not in the ways of the Pharisees – we weren’t rich enough for that.  My parents had a simple, practical faith in God.  They tried to obey his laws, attended the synagogue regularly and went to the temple in Jerusalem three times a year.  As a family, we spoke often of the beauty of God’s creation and the certainty of his love for Israel.  We prayed for the Messiah.  We looked forward to the feasts in Jerusalem and enjoyed them when they came.

My father worked hard.  So did my mother.  They taught me to work hard, too, and to appreciate God’s blessings and care.

As I left childhood behind, I learned my father’s trade and began to make my own choices.

This led me to John the Baptist.

One year when I was in Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, many people were talking about a priest called John who didn’t work in the temple but stayed out in the desert or baptised people in the Jordan.  It took me a while to work out what this “baptising” was, but once I did, I wanted to go and hear what the man said, and maybe watch him baptising.

I was very glad that I had gone.  John spoke a message that had a ring of truth.  An urgent message that people should be baptised with a “baptism of repentance” – so much so that people were starting to call him “John the Baptist”.  Standing in the Jordan River and talking to the crowds, he would baptise any who were willing to confess their sins and repent.

Of course, his message only appealed to people who weren’t already convinced that they were righteous.  People who believed that they had no need of repentance naturally felt no need for John either.

Yet for many of the common people who knew within themselves that there was something wrong in their life that separated them from God, John’s message struck a chord.  For any who wanted to change their life and walk with God, John offered a solution.

The Pharisees tend to put people in two categories: those, like themselves, who had been righteous from birth; and sinners, born in sin and living lives steeped in sin, who could never really bridge the gap that lies between themselves and God.

John told us about repentance and a change that could lead to salvation.  He also made it clear that such a change was needed by everyone, including the Pharisees.  As you can imagine, they weren’t happy with that!

I had always tried to obey God’s commands, but I could never satisfy the picky, technical requirements of Pharisees that seemed to require that people be born into the right families – rich, powerful families – to be righteous.  Nor could I ever satisfy myself that I was righteous – I was too well aware of my failings and how I sinned in both what I did and what I thought.  The law and the prophets taught me that clearly, and convinced me that I could never satisfy the law’s requirements on my own.  Wanting to do better was easy.  Actually being better was where it all went wrong.  But John gave us all some practical examples of how we could live godliness.  It made sense.  It sounded like the sort of life that would avoid the criticisms God had made of Israel through his prophets over hundreds of years.  Prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and even Malachi who spoke after the return from exile, had all criticised our nation for pursuing a religion that concentrated on “religious activities” rather than on how people actually lived.

It made sense, and I felt that I had failed just as the nation had failed.  I knew that I needed to concentrate on that aspect of my worship, so I repented and was baptised by John.  As I came up out of the water, there was a wonderful feeling of release from sin.  But with it came the certainty that I also needed to show that I had been changed and wanted a different life.

That very day, I met a man who had heard of John’s teachings and had come in the hope of receiving help.  He was poorer than I, and had no cloak.  So I put what I had learned into practice, and gave him my cloak – after all, I had another at home and would not die of cold before I got there.  It was a simple action, but I knew that it would help a man who needed help, and please God.  And pleasing God was more important to me then than it ever had been before.

I stayed for several days longer, listening to the powerful, practical teachings of John.  Then as I was sitting beside the river one day, a man came to be baptised and John tried to put him off, saying that he shouldn’t baptise him.

Naturally, that got my attention.  I had heard John condemn the Pharisees as a brood of vipers who needed to produce fruit that showed their repentance, but his response to this man was quite different from that.

Amazingly, John said that this man should be baptising him, not the other way around.  So what was different about him?  I was intrigued, but couldn’t hear what was being said properly, so I quickly slid off the bank into the water and hurried closer.

Neither of them was trying to make a grand presentation of their discussion, so I had to get quite close to listen.

I’m afraid that that almost sounds as if I was eavesdropping on their conversation, but it wasn’t like that either.  It was no whispered, secret conversation, but a discussion that you might have where you don’t mind if anyone hears it, but that only your closest friends would really care enough to want to come and listen to.

I wasn’t a close friend of either of them, but I had already decided that, if possible, I did want to become John’s friend.  

Anyway, I waded across to them just in time to hear the man say quietly to John that it was proper for them to do what he requested to “fulfil all righteousness”.

I didn’t understand what that meant, but when the man again insisted that John should baptise him, John obeyed.

Now John wasn’t proud – how could he be when he wore clothes made of camel’s hair? – but he did his work with confidence.  He knew exactly what God wanted him to do and was not going to be distracted from it.  I certainly hadn’t seen him listen to anybody else before when they tried to tell him how he should be doing his job.  You may find it strange, but I had seen quite a few leaders try to tell him what he should be doing in the few days I had been watching him.  They had come to see what could be done about this popular preacher.  Maybe I am too cynical, but it seems to me that while many popular leaders start with good intentions, good hopes and good plans, they are always subverted into less honourable directions by one of two things: pride or money.  The existing leaders had come to see if they could subvert John and redirect his popularity to their own ends.

But John wasn’t having any of that, and that impressed me.  Although I had only been around him for a few days, it was one of the things that made his teaching so much more convincing.  He said that he was not important: not the Messiah; not the son of David; not the coming king; not the prophet Moses had spoken of – instead, he was just a servant, preparing the way for the Lord.

So now I was fascinated to see what was happening with this man.  For some reason, it seemed as if it might be important.

John baptised the man while I stood nearby and watched.  It was just the same as when he baptised me and the hundreds of other people I had watched him baptise, except that John seemed to be treating him with great respect.  I wondered why.  Whatever the reason, though, I had enough respect for John that if he considered a man worthy of respect, I was willing to start with a good opinion of the man myself.

The man came up out of the water and didn’t even stop for a discussion with John.  Instead, he waded to the bank and walked away a short distance.  I observed that John was still watching him, so I watched him myself.  The man stopped and stood still, looking up to the sky as if he was praying.

Then some strange things happened.  A bird fluttered down and landed on the man and stayed there.  That was strange enough, but then, a loud, deep rumbling voice came from the sky.  You could almost have thought it was thunder, but I heard the words distinctly as if they were an answer to the man’s prayer: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”

The echoes of that deep voice faded, and the man walked away.

It was all over so quickly that I could almost have thought that I imagined it.  I looked across questioningly at John and found that he was still watching the man as he walked away.  Seeming to feel my gaze, John turned around and met my eyes: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him,” he said to me pensively.  “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’  And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”  

I looked back to see where the man was, but he was gone, swallowed up in the crowd.

The Son of God?

I still wasn’t sure what it meant, but I was convinced that I had to stay with John and learn more about his message and what this man had to do with it all.  My work could wait; this was much more important.  Much more urgent, too.