Matthew 3:1-17
John is the one who prepares the way. We’ve gotten used to the descriptions of him as a wild man, a prophet, a loud mouth, and an abrasive presence. You can certainly hear all of that in this passage.
John connects the dots between what he is doing and what God is doing. John speaks in the future tense about the one who is coming to baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit, and then the next verse is Jesus appearing.
John isn’t prepared for this. He doesn’t even want to do it. Jesus has to persuade him. This is a good reminder for us that this is how it starts. We meet Jesus, and he asks us to so something beyond what we can imagine we could or even can do. Jesus tells us that we need to do our work for him to be revealed. Our work is a part of Christ’s work, and his public ministry begins when we do our faithful work.
