By Melanie
Rigney
See what love the Father has
bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. (1
John 3:1)
John
the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world.”
(John 1:29)
Piety
Lord, I
pray for the gift of insight to recognize You in all the ways You enter my life.
Study
Before he
was born, John had leapt in his mother’s womb at the arrival of Mary and an in
utero Jesus. We don’t have evidence of the relatives spending time together;
Jesus, after all, was born in Bethlehem, was taken to Egypt by his parents, and
then to Nazareth while John lived with his parents in Jerusalem until he took
himself into the desert, then came back to begin his ministry.
Imagine,
then, the joy John felt, weeks or months or perhaps a few years after preaching
of baptism and the coming kingdom of God, when he saw the One for whom all his
work was being done, the One who would take away the sin of the world. Perhaps
somewhere deep in John’s soul, a voice reminded him of the earlier encounter,
not only Jesus’s importance to the world that day and forever to come.
As far as
we know, John never saw himself as a rival to Jesus. He never despaired that
all the glory would go to Jesus. He didn’t go to his beheading, muttering anger
and regrets about not seeing Jesus’s ultimate triumph or wondering what it all
was about. No, John trusted God. He accepted his role… and did it with fervor
and gusto and faith. May we do the same.
Action
How are
you, as a parent or teacher or friend, preparing the way of the Lord? Where do
you see the Lamb of God working in their lives?
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