Someone asked me (for her son) why John the Baptist is called that. This is the kind of question I love having the chance to answer 🙂 Here’s what I wrote…
John wasn’t known as John the Baptist until he was 30 or so years old. Until then he was John the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth and he was born 3 months before Jesus. Elizabeth and Mary knew each other (the families were related somehow) and Mary had gone to stay with Elizabeth in the first months of her own pregnancy.
There are a handful of miraculous conceptions in the Bible and John’s was one of them as he was conceived when his parents were very old and had no other children.
John’s parents were told they would conceive, and what to call the child, and Elizabeth and then John followed extra (usually voluntary) laws which set John apart from the other children of his day – along with the miracle of his birth of course. John’s family were from the specific tribe that were the only ones allowed to minister in the temple – which Zechariah did do, but which John did not. He spent his life in the wilderness, devoted to God and would have been considered rather strange even by his own generation of people.
He had been tasked with a job – to prepare the way for the Messiah… the Christ… (same thing). There had been prophecies 100’s of years previous that just before the coming of the Messiah (the One Israel expected to be delivered by but didn’t like that He went about it differently than they hoped and expected – hence the crucifixion) there would be a loud voice in the wilderness crying out “prepare the way of the Lord” (made more famous by Godspell?!!!).
John was very bold and called out the hypocrisy of the power brokers of his day – the religious leaders mainly – which put him also in a very precarious position. He did not hold back any truth even when it was likely to get him into trouble.
He was preaching in the desert which is significant as people were coming days journeys on foot to come hear what he had to say. Baptism is a word only seen in the New Testament and beyond, but there was a form of it in the times previous to that so the concept of being dunked in water as a symbol was known to the people. He preached they needed to repent (which just means turn from their old ways), stop sinning, and get ready as God was sending the Saviour soon.
It was on one of those days that Jesus stepped into public life (until then he’d not been known by any other than his parents probably) and went to John to be baptised – this is when John said he wasn’t worthy to baptise Jesus but J said to do it anyway, and then God spoke from heaven announcing that Jesus was His son.
Then it was well and truly out there.
It wasn’t too long after this that John had upset some big-wig people by calling out their bad behaviour and he got beheaded.
He is remembered and revered as an extremely important person in the lead up to Jesus own ministry – and people came to him in the 100’s, maybe even 1000’s at a time to be baptised – from all over the countryside.
Some of John’s most famous words included him saying “He (meaning Jesus) must increase, and I must decrease” – knowing his purpose was to point to Jesus, which he most assuredly did do.
About 1500BC
Deuteronomy 18:18
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.
About 700 BC:
Isaiah 40:3
A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
About 30 AD:
Matthew 3:1-17
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,
About 30 AD:
Luke 3:16
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
About 30 AD:
Matthew 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”