John The Baptist: Challenge For A Deeper Life

(John, entering from the back, in costume, down the center aisle.)

Wake up, everybody! God’s Messiah is coming! That’s really good news! Get ready! Things have got to change around here! God’s blessings are coming for you! But you have to be ready! Clean it up, folks!

(John standing in front)

My name is John Ben Zechariah, which means John, son of Zechariah, but you have heard about me as John the Baptist. I know that you are preparing to celebrate the birth of the Messiah. And it looks to me like folks around here are really confused about preparing for Jesus, so your pastor asked me to come and tell you my part of the story. You see, it was my job to get Israel ready for their Messiah, so I’m the one to help you get ready, too.

Well, my story began before I was born. You met my father, Zechariah, last week. All his life he had longed for God’s Messiah to come and save us. But it had been 400 years since God had spoken through a real prophet and, even though my parents really worked to do everything right for God, it was getting hard for them to really believe that God would come for Israel again, or that God would come for them and make it possible for them to have a child.

My father was a priest. And the one time in his life when his name got drawn to go into the inner court of the priests and burn the incense before God, he had the shock of his life because the angel, Gabriel was there waiting for him and told him that he would have a son, even though he and my mother were way too old for that, and that God was finally going to move in Israel, and that I would have an important part in what God was doing. And that son was me.

While my mother was pregnant with me, she had her own shock. Her niece, Mary, came for a visit. And Mary was very young and she was engaged to a really good man, Joseph. Only she was pregnant and that was a big problem. But Mary had seen Gabriel, too, and Gabriel told her that she was going to have a baby son, who would be the Messiah. And Gabriel told Mary about the miracle that my mother was expecting in her old age. And Mary was really scared and confused because she and Joseph weren’t properly married yet. She was really afraid that Joseph would dump her. So Mary came and stayed at our house for a several months. And my mother really helped Mary through that scary time. They both knew they were going to have very special sons. But it was all too much for them to fully understand.

My parents were really good people. You met my Dad, Zechariah, last week. He was great. Did he wear his priest’s robes? Didn’t they look great? He was pretty impressive when he was on duty. And everybody assumed that I would be a priest, too. My Dad would bring me to the temple often and he started showing me what priests do. I knew all the routines of what happened on all the official special days, all the things he loved. Every one of them had a meaning and they really helped my Dad worship God.

But that life wasn’t for me. I wanted something deeper. I saw plenty of people going through the rituals in the temple and then going home and living lives that just weren’t right. And I could see that they weren’t ready for God’s Messiah. And I could see that there was no way that I would get them ready just by leading them through the motions in the temple. It tore me up inside. I was just burning to fulfill the purposes that God had created me for, but I didn’t know how to do it.

My father suggested that I take some time away from it all and just listen to God and search the scriptures and sort it all out. And I knew that some of the greatest times that God spoke to our people were when our ancestors were in the wilderness on the way from Egypt to Israel. So I went out to the wilderness to pray and find for myself what God had for me. It would be rough, but I could be alone with God there.

I went down to the Jordan River valley, where the river cuts through a dry and barren stretch before it runs into the Dead Sea. The wilderness purifies the soul. And it was hard. But it was worth it. For one thing, the food I brought along ran out pretty soon. But I could supplement my diet with locusts. (Pretends to eat an artificial locust). You should try one some time. They aren’t bad. And there was wild honey out there, too. I got stung sometimes, but that was a treat.