Editor’s note: The Lenten season is right around the corner and it’s important to remember that Easter isn’t just a holiday—it’s our identity. We are Easter people. You’re invited to join us for our next Online Bible Study, The Promise and Power of Easter starting March 17th! Christine Caine and Lisa Harper are going to take us on a journey through Scripture showing us how every page points to Jesus and His ultimate victory over death and hell. Sign up today!
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Many years ago I got to speak at an event with Jill Briscoe, who is one of my all-time favorite Bible teachers. In my estimation, she’s the female equivalent of Charles Spurgeon. Plus, she has a lovely British accent too, which I think sounds spiritually credible even if you’re reading the phone book! Anyway, just before our program started a hostess escorted me to the front of a noisy auditorium where several thousand women were excitedly gathered. I sat down and got situated, pulling my Bible out of my purse and placing it on the seat beside me.
Moments later, Jill was ushered up. She smiled, raised her eyebrows, and gestured at the seat next to me as a way of asking, “May I sit there?” since we couldn’t hear each other speak over the din. I smiled back and nodded, quickly plucking my Bible off the chair while thinking, “This is so cool, I can’t believe I get to sit next to Jill Briscoe!” But then she paused and shifted over, one seat removed from me. I was so disappointed she’d put distance between us that for a moment I wondered if she wasn’t quite as personable in real life as she came across in her books and Bible studies.
But that uncharitable thought vanished when I looked down a noticed a bright purple feminine hygiene product resting on the chair between us. (Fortunately it was still wrapped in its original packaging!) It had obviously gotten stuck to my Bible when it was in my purse and then adhered itself to the seat cushion when I snatched the Bible back up. The reason Jill had moved one seat over was to graciously not call attention to my gaffe!
Although John the Baptist was Jesus’ second cousin and oldest friend (he was so excited the first time he met Jesus in utero he did prenatal gymnastics according to Luke 1:40), many would describe the gulf between them as wide and the one between motley me and elegant Jill Briscoe! Because while Jesus grew up in a noisy household with two loving parents and a gaggle of brothers and sisters, John came of age in the austere silence of the wilderness after his elderly parents passed away. While Jesus conversed with rabbis and celebrated religious festivals, John fasted and prayed in solitude. And the older they got, the odder John got. He began wearing putrid animal skins, eating bugs and honey, and preaching firey sermons that made audiences squirm.
Then after John was arrested, he began to doubt his cousin’s divinity:
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Him, “Are You the One who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” — Matthew 11:2-3
In other words, “Are You really the Messiah? I mean, good night, here I’ve been slaving away in the wilderness without wine, women, or Netflix and You’re going to parties, hanging out with drunks and prostitutes, and telling people to love those who persecute them. I thought You were supposed to come swinging a winnowing fork and spewing fire?” I guess it’s understandable that John’s dedication wavered. I mean he was wasting away in prison. Plus, God’s Spirit had impressed him to prophecy about a harsher hero than he’d witnessed thus far in Jesus:
I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork 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 unquenchable fire. — Matthew 3:11-12
But still. Don’t you think this guy should’ve at least been reprimanded for doubting the divinity of the Lord? Most friendships would be irreparably severed over much less serious infractions. Yet instead of condemning John, the Lamb of God gently propped up his dear friend’s flagging faith by reminding him that He was fulfilling Isaiah’s messianic prophecies:
Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of Me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. — Matthew 11:4-11
This passage Jesus initially quotes is from a part of Isaiah’s prophecy called “The Servant Songs,” which was a very familiar and beloved prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures and remember John was raised as a devout Jew. He probably had the Servant Songs as his iPad screensaver!
I couldn’t help smiling as I reread this passage recently and was reminded of how Jesus gently chose to encourage Johnny B when He could’ve legitimately kicked him to the curb. And I’m so glad that Isaiah’s one of the common passages we recite this time of year in Lenten/pre-Easter services because his prophecy emphasizes the hope that comes with the Messiah - even when God’s people are blinded by their circumstances, like dear old John.
Throughout this Ressurection season let’s make a pact to focus on two miraculous truisms in redemptive history: that Immanuel came but also that He stays!
How even on our worst days, when our hearts fail and our faith wanes, Jesus is the One who will always stick closer than a brother.
God loves us; not because we are loveable but because He is love, not because He needs to receive but because He delights to give. ~ C. S. Lewis
Written for Devotionals Daily by Lisa Harper, co-author with Christine Caine of The Promise and Power of Easter.
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Your Turn
Will you join us in focusing on two miraculous truisms in redemptive history: that Immanuel came but also that He stays? Let’s study and rejoice in The Promise and Power of Easter together! ~ Devotionals Daily