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HE continuity in Matthew 1, 2 & 3 is noteworthy. Jesus is presented as the sinless Son of God, a true Jew, a descendant of David, the King of Israel and now (in this chapter)
as the willingly humble Servant of the Father. His cousin John was busy
blazing a trail
for Him (through preaching) when Jesus
came to him for
baptism. What was John's message
like? Well, in keeping with the developing theme of the gospel
of Matthew, John the Baptist preached concerning the closeness of the kingdom
of heaven (Matthew 3:2). Naturally, if the King had arrived,
then there had to
be a kingdom to consider.
Now, His kingdom, particularly at this first
Advent, was not of this world. His kingdom was just exactly what John said it was:
the kingdom of heaven. Someday God's great
kingdom will come to earth, but Christ came originally to rescue souls
from the kingdom of darkness and to usher them into His kingdom of light.
It may seem odd that when the
Creator became a creature, He became a very lowly one. Christ was a poor, obscure carpenter. No less
unexpected is the style of Jesus' announcer.
John the Baptist was the one who was assigned the glorious task of
declaring Christ's arrival. But look at him! The description of John is
obviously intended to remove any ideas about him being an angelic herald. He
was a country preacher. He literally preached
out in the countryside. His clothing was
strange. His diet was weird. His message was as blunt as could be. He
called everybody a sinner (or a snake). He
declared God's anger. He told everybody to repent. And, apparently those who were
converted confessed their vices publicly as John baptized them
(Matthew 3:6). I suppose John never read "How to Win Friends &
Influence People" or "The Power of Positive Thinking" - but he
did have God's power on his ministry, and of course, that was enough. Droves of
people came out into the country to hear John thunder and watch him hurl his spiritual lightning bolts.
John
was not the least bit interested in building his own kingdom though. Without reservation he
declared that although he baptized with water, the Messiah
had arrived and would be baptizing with fire (Matthew 3:11). What a message!
And, just think about what must have gone through John's mind when he had the
privilege of baptizing the Messiah; when he saw the Spirit of God descending
visibly to land on his cousin (John 1:33). This simple country preacher had
a position of unsurpassed privilege. He was the messenger sent to declare that
the King had come. What a work! John
didn't lead the nation like Moses or fight great battles like David. He didn't
write great books like Jeremiah or Solomon.
He didn't perform marvelous miracles or erect famous landmarks. He just
stood on the banks of a small river and preached the simple truth, but
according to the King, he was great (Matthew 11:11). He was faithful to his task. Are we faithful
to ours?
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