As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I am in a women's Bible study that meets every Thursday morning. It has been such a delight to get to study the Bible more, and especially during this semester to study the life of Jesus. It is a Beth Moore Bible study, and it has been very refreshing and insightful for me. Beth encourages us to not only just study the lessons she writes, but to research even deeper anything that sticks out to us.
A few weeks ago, I was working on my homework for this Bible study, and we got to a passage in Luke that I wasnt very familiar with. The story lept off of the page to me. I couldnt help but spend some extra time studying this story and this passage. I also couldnt resist sharing what I learned.
The story takes place in Luke chapter 7. Jesus and his disciples had just been in a city called Nain where a funeral was taking place after a widow's only son had died. Jesus saw the widow in complete anguish, and He had great compassion on her. He even told her "Don't weep!" (vs. 13) He then touched her dead son and told him to rise. The boy instantly rose and started talking. Jesus then gave the son back to the arms of his mother. News of this event spread instantly from town to town in all of Judea and the surrounding country (vs. 17)
The story then picks up in verse 18, and we find John the Baptist's disciples telling John this story. Now, it's important to know where John the Baptist is at this time, and to find the answer, we have to look at Matthew 11:2. "Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of Christ..." John the Baptist was in prison. Why was he in prison? Good question. King Herod put John in prison because John was very vocal about his opinion on King Herod's recent marriage to his brother's wife, Herodias. He told Herod, "It is not lawful for you to marry your brother's wife." (Mark 6:18). Pretty cut and dry. Herodias wasnt happy with John's vocal oppinions, so Herod had him locked up to make the new mrs. happy. Before I continue with the story, it is important to give a little background on our jail bird, John.
John was the only son of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who was a priest. His parents were both very righteous and served God their whole lives. I say that John was their only son because until him, Elizabeth had been barren. She didnt have John until she was "advanced in years". The miracle of John came to be when Zechariah was serving as priest in the temple, and an angel came to tell him that his wife would have a son named John and that his son would be great before the Lord. The angel continued to say that his soon-to-be son would lead many people back to God and that he would prepare the way for the coming Messiah. Sure enough, John was born and his full calling was proclaimed over him in Luke 1:76-77 "And you, child, (zechariah speaking) will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people. For the full story, feel free to read Luke 1:1-80.
As he grew up, John stayed true to the miracle calling that the Lord had given him, and he did prepare the way for Jesus' ministry. His story continues in Luke 3 where we get a clear picture of him preparing the way for the Messiah, Jesus. We are told that he went all around proclaiming need for repentance and forgiveness of sins. "Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." (Lk 3:5-6). He baptized repentant Jews and warned people not to think he was the savior. "One is coming who is mightier than I am. The strap of whose sandals I am unworthy to untie. I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." (3:16-17) Shortly after making this statement, Jesus showed up. He came to the water's edge and asked John to baptize Him(not a baptism of repentance- Jesus had nothing to repent of- but a baptism to acknowledge and dedicate Him to ministry.) This marked the beginning of Jesus's ministry.
I know it seems like I have gotten off of track with the original purpose of this blog, but I havent. Trust me. I just felt it was important to shed a little light on the life of John. Let's return to Luke 7 :18-23 where we found John in prison. After John's disciples had finished telling in detail the story of Jesus raising the dead son, John gives two of his disciples a message to ask Jesus. The disciples find Jesus and ask him for John, "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"In that very hour, Jesus had just healed many people of diseases and ailments, cast out evil spirits, and restored sight to the blind. Jesus gave his answer to John's question, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one does not lose their faith on account of Me."
There are three things that lept of the page to me from this passage.
The first is that John had a clear calling on his life before he was even born. One of the reasons I wanted to review the beginning of John's life is that it becomes clear that God had big plans for this young man from the very start. We as believers also have a clear calling on our lives as well. Psalm 139 gives us a clear picture of this. "You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made...Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them." (vs.13,14, 16) Jeremiah 29:11 also gives us a picture of His plans. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil to give you a future and a hope." These verses are very familiar to me, but as I read them over, it gives me a fresh feeling of purpose found only in my Creator. He knew me and my days before I even had lived one of them. He has plans to give me a future and a hope. Just as John had a clear purpose before he was even born, so do we. Just as John was called to prepare the way for the coming Messiah, so are we. Are we not? We are called to prepare the way of the coming King. One day, every knee will bow and evey tongue will confess that He is Lord. Know what your calling is. It is to prepare the return of the coming King, to live a life that brings Him glory, and to be so marked by Him that other people are drawn to Him.
John was no less "called" when he was in prison than out. John knew better than most people what Jesus' job description was. After all, he was the man God sent to prepare the way of the Lord. He knew the prophesy that Isaiah made about the coming Messiah. The Messiah would be annointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering sight to the blind, to set liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.(Isaiah 611-4;Luke 4:18-19) I think John might have known of a particular prisoner wanting to be set free. In John 3:30, John said that Jesus must increase and he must decrease (Jn 3:30). He knew that for Jesus to have the impact He needed to have, John would need to decrease out of the way to give Jesus all the room to shine. If decreasing to give Jesus more glory meant having to be put in jail, I believe John was okay with it. While in jail, he was still serving a purpose. He was like the best man at a wedding. He was joyful to see the groom finally be with his bride, and honored to be a witness taking part. He was happy to stand aside and let the Groom have His bride. (Jn 3:29)
However, I do believe that just like any of us would, John started to feel the confines of his prison walls getting more and more uncomfortable as time went on. As that time went on, he began to doubt whether or not he had gotten his calling right and whether or not things were really the way they were suppsed to be. In the story from Luke 7, it becomes clear that although John knew his true calling, he was still finding reason to doubt, lose hope, and be discouraged. He sent his disciples to ask Jesus for confirmation. "You are the One, right? I didnt mess this up did I? No one else is coming, right?" Dont we find ourselves in that same place of doubt sometimes? As a stay at home mom, sometimes it feels like this stage of my life is like a prison. I feel like I am missing out on the bigger picture or bigger purpose. What about you? What is the prison you are experiencing? Is it a weak or sick body? A broken or difficult relationship? Is it your job or your time commitments? I think we can all relate somewhat to John's feeling of discouragement and doubt. The cinderblocks of our own personal prisons can sometimes cause us to lose sight of our Messiah, our Savior, and the true purpose and calling we have in Him no matter what our surroundings. Like John, we are no less God's people in prison than out.
Lastly, from this story I learned that John was reminded to trust God in all circumstances for God's ultimate glory. Jesus responded to John's question so gracefully and gently. "Tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind can see, the lame can walk, lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are walking, and the poor have heard good news. Blessed are those who do not lose their faith on account of Me." John was reminded by Jesus not to lose faith- God's glory was being revealed despite his prison sentence. John never did get out of prison. I fact, he was later decapitated after King Herod makes a quick promise to his step daughter without considering the consequences (mark 6:21-29). We have to trust the Lord's all-sufficient and sovereign purposes no matter how close or how distant He feels from us- no matter what our circumstances or our location.
John was blessed for not losing his faith, and in his grusomely quick end here on earth, he was swiftly brought into the pressence of God where all doubts faded and where God's bigger purpose was revealed. I love what Beth Moore wrote about John's ending, "I think we can be certain of one thing about John the Baptist when he got to heaven, he wouldnt have traded his place in the kingdom plan for anything. Among billions of people who would live on this planet, he alone was chosen to prepare the Messiah. How could such a calling not have been costly?" I find myself asking the same thing about not just my life but of the lives of all believers in this era of preparing for our rightful King's return.
Serving our calling on earth to prepare the way for His return can be and often is costly. We may not all experience violent deaths for His sake, but we will surely experience other persecutions and costs. "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." John 15:18-19 So we see. Such a calling is truly costly. As we live as chosen, free sons and daughters of God preparing the way for our coming King, I have to ask. Would you trade it for anything? Absolutely not. He is worth it.
Sorry for yet another long posting. I promise the next one will be shorter and have pictures too!
Have a great week!
