Good Tuesday morning! A lot of little things came after me this morning; every one a whiny, bloodsucking coward too! Tomorrow, I'll have to remember the Deep Woods Off® for my little stroll in the morning. I don't know why anyone would think a vampire can't come on holy ground. Mosquitoes are bloodsuckers and they seem to like the church grounds very much. Not quite so much as they like a nice, juicy photographer I think, but they do seem to be at home there.
Today, someone was coming after John the Baptist, but not in the way of hurting him. Jesus came after John to boot him out of the top preaching job of the day. Of course, there is no shame in stepping down to let a far greater man step up.
"He is the one I was talking about when I said, 'A man is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.' John 1:30
Notice particularly that John said 'a man is coming...' We tend to think that either Jesus is God in the flesh, perfectly true, or just a man. Jesus was both God and man; we are not allowed to believe one or the other; we get the entire package. Not only did a man come after John, but this man existed long before him. If you think with the intellect of the world, you will have to deny one or the other: that Jesus existed long before John, or that he had just walked toward John. We know that humans don't live long enough to do both from our human learning. However, when we believe in Jesus, we get both - the man who came to John to be baptized at the beginning of his earthly ministry and the Son of God who created the heavens and the Earth with the Father in the Beginning.
John had made this statement earlier, but he now repeated it as he pointed out Jesus from the crowd. "This is the one! Believe in Him!" John couldn't over-emphasize the coming of this Jesus, the Lamb of God. Even in his humility, John told the people about someone far greater coming right at that moment. We wonder at times, how many times John was going to say something like, "He is here!" For the short time remaining in his life, John took a back seat to Jesus and continued to shout, "He is here!"
We cannot point to Jesus in his physical person as John did, but we can continue to point to our heart and say, "He is here!" We also point with our changed lives that say 'he is here' for us while we go about our work and play to his glory. Jesus is here, in your life, in my life, in the love of God for all of us, and in our gathering together. Jesus is the one John spoke about, and he is the One foretold in scripture. Have a beautiful day in Christ!
Bucky
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