The Baptist Doubts! Series

Now John the Baptist was an interesting character, the gospels tell us that he was a teacher of scripture who lived in the desert, that he lived on locusts and wild honey, that his clothes were made of camels hair and that he wore a leather belt, that he was an evangelist, telling people to repent of their sins and the baptised them in the Jordan river. By birth he was Jesus slightly older cousin the son of Mary’s relative Elizabeth. John had himself denied being the Christ, but recognised that Jesus was the messiah when he came to be baptised with these words, “Look, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him but the reason I came baptising with water is that he might be revealed to Israel.” (John 1:30-31) Then John gave his testimony about how he had seen the Spirit of God descend on Jesus like a dove and remain on him.

So we have this picture of John the Baptist who knows who Jesus is, who sees the Spirit of God descend on Jesus, he knows that Jesus is the promised messiah. He knows that he baptises with water and declares that Jesus will baptise with the Holy Spirit, can I get an amen from someone who knows that baptism?

This same John the Baptist who leapt in his mother’s womb when the pregnant Mary came to visit, the same John the Baptist who said this about Jesus, “The Father loves the son and has placed everything in his hands, whoever believes in the son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3: 34-36).

John the Baptist who was so sure, who had seen the miracles, he had known Jesus and was full of the Holy Spirit before either of them was born, he was an amazing man of faith, he had seen the Holy Spirit descend onto Jesus, yet he had his time of doubt.

Why?

1) Well he was in prison, because he had given the Jewish ruler Herod Antipas the raspberry about taking his brother’s wife Herodias into his bed and a few other evil things that Herod had got up to. It didn’t pay to wind up powerful men back in the day!

So here is John this holy man in his mid-thirties, a desert dweller, this man of faith who was used to the wilds of the desert, with its wild open spaces, the warm wind and the cold nights, the rough vegetation, the Jordan river, the wild animals calling at night and a roof of stars, the call of the cricket, the whistle of the wings of the swallow as it collects flies above the river surface, the rising sun bringing the colour of the new day to the black and white half-light of the world now locked in a room, unable to meander to the cool river for a drink, unable to watch as the wild antelope fight on the plain or ponder the workings of an ant as it struggles with part of a broken insect in the hot mid-day sun. This freest of men now caged awaiting his fate; already he may have had an indication that his head was to be presented on a platter.