John The Baptist

If I asked you, what does advent mean? Most of you would say it is celebrating the birth of Christ usually done during the Christmas season. And you would be right, but only partly.

Let me explain.

We get the word advent from the Latin word adwentus which means coming. So looking at it in a Christian sense, it means a season celebrating a time of waiting and preparing for both the birth of Christ (the 1st advent) and His return at the second coming (the 2nd advent).

In other words, we are not just celebrating a baby in a manger, but a returning King.

Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent: one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—things that are really of no consequence—the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside. – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich really put into perspective the waiting and longing that the Israelites had for the coming Messiah, but also the churches waiting and longing for His return.

It is very similar to a child during Christmas. The waiting and longing to open those presents and when it is over, they start the waiting and longing for the next Christmas.

I want you to hold on to that thought because the verse today has historical prophecy, but also 1st and 2nd advent prophecies. So let’s look at the verse.

Isaiah 40:3 CSB

A voice of one crying out: Prepare the way of the Lord in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert.

Let me give you a bit of historical context here. Isaiah is prophesying to the country of Judah that they would one day be captured and exiled by a foreign nation. We know that they were captured by Babylonians and were in exile for 70 years.

Isaiah goes on to give them this message of comfort and hope to the exiled nation, to encourage them to prepare the way for God’s return by making a straight highway for our God in the desert. The wilderness represents a difficult and baron time, but that call to prepare the way signifies that God will make a path through the hardships. Now we know by the Old Testament, that the voice calling out would be the prophets and the priest announcing the return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple of God.

As I said earlier, this verse also has 1st and 2nd advent prophecies attached to it. So let’s camp out with the 1st advent prophecy.

This verse is linked to a man named John the Baptist. John was the son of Zechariah, a Jewish priest, and Elizabeth, a relative of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

To those who don’t know the story, Zechariah was in the temple doing his priestly duties and the archangel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him that his wife Elizabeth would have a son and his name would be John and he was to separated as a Nazarite.

A person who took a vow to separate themselves from the world and commune with God. This involved giving up certain things, such as cutting their hair, drinking alcohol, and touching dead bodies.

As the story goes Zechariah questioned Gabriel’s announcement cause they were elderly and Elizabeth was baron. Zechariah was stricken mute till the day of John’s birth.

We also know that Mary went to see Elizabeth and John did a Pentecostal jump around in Elizabeth’s belly when she saw Mary.

Luke 1:41–44 CSB

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped inside her, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and your child will be blessed! How could this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For you see, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped for joy inside me.

Fast forward some 30 years later, John is in the wilderness dressed in the finest new designers and eating meals prepared by Gordon Ramsey..no he was dressed in camel hair and eating honey and locusts exclaiming prepare the way for Jesus. As he was proclaiming this, he was baptizing his followers in the baptism of repentance for preparations of the coming Messiah. And he was not shy with his message.

Matthew 3:1–12 CSB

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. But the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.”

Listening to this story and the fulfillment of this 1st advent prophecy is well and good, but we must learn something from it, or it just becomes a story we recite.

I see four things we can learn from John the Baptist’s life.

This first is Faith.

John’s life and ministry demonstrated the importance of faith and how it leads to a life long commitment to holiness. At birth, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and knew without even seeing evidence that Christ was the Messiah.

Not only faith but he showed Humility.

John the Baptist was humble and didn’t let the recognition he was getting from the religious leaders change him or the message. He stood there saying there is one coming that I am not even good enough to untie his shoes. He took the spotlight off himself and put it squarely on Jesus’ shoulders, rather than say look towards me.

Faith, Humility and also he taught the importance of Repentance.

John taught that repentance is key to a Godly life. He knew that the current religious laws and rituals were not cutting it. That man was sinful being that needed to repent of their sins. Today, we are called to do this daily. And we need to cause it is the repentant believer that will be gathered and all others will be burned with the chaff.

And finally he showed us the importance of Evangelism.

He preached the coming Lord with courage and boldness. Something we are lacking today in the church. We have let those outside these walls tell us not to speak the name of Jesus Christ and we should be ashamed. The bible is very clear we should not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We should be proclaiming it everywhere we go, through our words and our actions. What if someone is looking to you to show them the straight highway to the Lord!

Let’s take these four things that John the Baptist showed us in his life and apply them to ours, cause we should be the voice screaming Christ is returning for a 2nd advent.

Most believe that this verse is a prophecy that hearkens to Elijah in Revelation. And it is again stated in Malachi.

Malachi 3:1 CSB

“See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in—see, he is coming,” says the Lord of Armies.

Malachi 4:5–6 CSB

Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

Revelation does not name Elijah specifically, but most believe that he is one of the witnesses that will show themselves in Jerusalem during tribulation.

No matter the view, these verses we spoke about today, should be a call for preparation for the hearts of the believers to look back at Christ’s birth and forward to his return. We look at the historical and the 1 st advent prophecies to remind us that God is true to His Word. He was faithful to save the Judah from exile, He was faithful to send John the Baptist as the voice crying out, and we can rest assured That Christ will return.