After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me. John 1:31
In the western world we are taught from childhood to esteem ourselves. Self-confidence is promoted in schools, colleges and universities. Self-love, me-time and finding our inner reality are the themes of many self-help books and therapies. What a contrast to John the Baptist, whom Jesus said was the greatest man who had ever been born. (Matthew 11:11). John’s ministry was to promote Jesus and not himself.
John’s testimony about Jesus begins in John 1:19. Forty days earlier, he had baptised Jesus, who had then been led into the desert to be tempted by the devil. He was the first to receive the revelation that Jesus was the Messiah, and for 40 days he must have been filled with wonder and anticipation of what would happen next.
His ministry was to prepare people for the coming of God’s anointed one. Baptism was a common occurrence for gentile believers who wanted to convert to Judaism. Whole families would be baptised after the men had been circumcised. But John was also calling the Jews to be baptised in repentance of their sin. Such was the impact he was making that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent a delegation to find out more about him.
In a way, this could be described as John’s temptation. He could have promoted himself, boasted about his call and visions from God. He could have waved his arm at the crowds who were standing waiting to be baptised to show how great and powerful his ministry was and how they too should be listening to him. But he didn’t.
John emphatically denied he was anything other than a voice. The first description of Jesus in this Gospel is o` logos The Word (v1). John was the voice, but Jesus was The Word. The purpose of a voice is to articulate words, and John was saying that his purpose was to reveal Jesus. He had such a deep understanding of who Jesus was, i.e., God himself in human form, that he was totally aware of his own unworthiness to have the ministry that he had. In those days a disciple followed his teacher, doing everything that the teacher requested, but not even the closest of disciples would take off his master’s shoes, that was for slaves only. John was saying he was unworthy even to be Jesus’ slave!
The Christian Church can fall prey to the prevailing attitude of self-promotion. We can want to be seen as great teachers and preachers, that our denomination is the best, or that we are those to be looked up to and admired for our abilities and giftings. There are many “celebrity” pastors and church leaders, with superstar status and world acclaim who live a superstar life style, in luxury and comfort.
What a contrast to John the Baptist. He lived an ascetic life in the wilderness, but was not afraid to preach a powerful message of repentance before crowds of people. When his fame spread to the leading religious powers of the day, he did not promote his ministry or himself, but simply pointed the people to Jesus. Once he had pointed out that Jesus was the Lamb of God, he knew that his short time in the spotlight was over. He knew that he would have a lesser and lesser role. He ended up imprisoned and beheaded. There was no great crowd, at his funeral.
The greatest lesson that we can learn from the greatest man ever to be born is that our purpose as Christians is not to build our self-esteem, but to point people to Jesus.