St Jude's Monday Mail, 15th December

Hi all,

Yesterday morning, Philip led us helpfully through thinking about John the Baptist in John 1. I'm not going to repeat what he said, though it's well worth a listen...

Instead I'd like to pick up on one thing that jumped out of the passage for me that I thought was interesting.

In John 1:19-23, the Jewish leaders send people to ask who John claims to be. They try to fit him into various boxes – Messiah, Elijah, Prophet, and John denies all of them. The odd thing is that Jesus in Matthew 17:10-13 tells the disciples that John was Elijah.

The disciples asked him, 'Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?'

Jesus replied, 'To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognise him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.' Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

Malachi 4:5 had predicted that Elijah would come before the Messiah to turn people's hearts back to God. John wore the same clothes as Elijah and did exactly what Elijah was predicted to do, but he clearly didn't realise that he was the promised Elijah.

And the question I got to wondering about yesterday was this: Why does John's gospel bother telling us that John denied being Elijah? Of course, on one level the gospel writers record things because they're true, but each of them clearly makes some editorial choices of which bits to keep in and which bits to leave out. John even tells us (20:30-31) that he's doing that. So why did he choose to leave this bit in?

On one level, it's encouraging. John the Baptist didn't have a full picture of exactly what was going on. He's clearly only understood part of it; but he gets on with obeying the bit that he understands. Mark Twain wrote that "It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." John gets on with obeying the bits that he does understand.

But I think it goes deeper than that. John doesn't understand who he himself is. All that he really understands is who Jesus is. So when he is asked to say who he is rather than who he isn't, he replies 'I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, "Make straight the way for the Lord.' (John 1:23)

John has got hold of the most important fact – that Jesus is the Lord, that he is the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." (John 1:29) And because of that, all he wants is to be a signpost to Jesus.

Later on in John's Gospel, John the Baptist says this:

You yourselves can testify that I said, "I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him." The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.' (John 3:28-30)

John doesn't understand everything – he hasn't even figured out who he is. But he knows who Jesus is, and that's enough for him to see that his whole life should be a signpost to Jesus. John knows that he himself isn't the hero of his own life story – that's Jesus. So he spends his life pointing people to Jesus.

May God grant us grace to do the same!

God bless,

John