The Greatest Prophet

Text: Luke 1:57-80

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            Of all the people in Scripture, there are only two whose birthdays and death days are observed by the Church: Jesus and John the Baptist. It is true that we celebrate many other saints’ days throughout the year, but those dates are connected to their death date, when their earthly course was completed and they entered their eternal rest, sharing Jesus’ victory over death. Even the greatest ones: St. Peter and St. Paul; the Apostle John; St. James, the brother of our Lord; even Mary, the mother of our Lord—all are recognized in our calendar, but only once, on a date traditionally associated with their martyrdom or their death. John the Baptist stands alone as the saint with the honor of having both birth date and death date marked in our annual cycle.

            So why do we celebrate both the beginning and the end of John the Baptizer’s earthly life? Because, quite simply, he is unique. He is the prophet of prophets, announced even at his naming when his father Zechariah sang, “You, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.” In his life, John the Baptist would sum up all the prophets. He lived in the desert wilderness, like Moses wandering with Israel before they could enter the Promised Land. He wore a camel skin garment and a leather belt, like the clothing of the great prophet Elijah. He ate wild honey, like the sweetness of the scroll that the prophet Ezekiel was instructed to eat. Even at his birth, his father inscribed his name on tablet, like the prophet Isaiah etched his son’s name on a tablet even before the child was conceived. And while we don’t have miracles of John the Baptizer recorded in the gospels, we do know that the Lord had a tendency to back up His prophets’ words with acts of power, tokens of the truthfulness of what they said. So it’s especially telling that rather than recording miracles and signs performed by John, the four evangelists instead focus on two things about him: what he said and the fact that he baptized. What he said—that the kingdom of God was coming soon with the Messiah; backed up with the miracle of baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Therefore, you should make no mistake: Baptism is indeed a miracle. But what makes John the Baptizer the greatest of all these prophets is that he alone is granted to see what it was that he—what all the prophets—were prophesying: the arrival of the Messiah.

            Furthermore, John is set apart by the fact that he’s also the firstborn son of a Levite priest, Zechariah. This meant that John himself was a priest, since that calling was inherited through lineage, as the Lord has commanded His people when the tribe of Levi was appointed to serve in the tabernacle and temple. We also know that John the Baptist is related to Mary through his mother Elizabeth’s side, which makes him a member of the house of David, a member of the royal family. So John is prophet, priest, and even royalty. That makes him a complete summary of the entire Old Testament. John the Baptizer is the entire history of God’s Word wrapped up in one person. He is every prophecy, every foreshadowing, every story of what God has done for His people, all rolled into one. This makes him unique, or, as Jesus Himself would call John, the greatest born of women.

            And yet, John is not the completion of that prophecy. Yes, he will be the prophet of the Most High, raising up the altar horn of salvation as a priest in the royal house of David. He will see the fulfillment of that which he and all the prophets before him prophesied. But John will not be the fulfillment. There will still be one after him whose sandals John will be unworthy to untie. He goes before this One, he points to Him, but he himself is not the greater One. He must decrease, that One must increase. But as the forerunner of that Greater One, as the prophet who holds all the Old Testament within his veins, as the Messiah’s kinsman who has one foot in the past and one foot in the future, John is granted to speak God’s message that has been from the beginning. He speaks the message from God that finds its perfect clarity in the Greater One to come, Jesus. That message is this: to give knowledge of salvation to God’s people, in the forgiveness of their sins; not because of their works, but because of the tender mercy of our God; to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace. John speaks forgiveness, mercy, life, and peace. He speaks as it has been appointed to him to speak, a vow from the Lord to be fulfilled so soon after John’s earthly run is ended, when Jesus will overturn the devil’s kingdom, rescue God’s people from the hand of their old evil foe, forgive every sin by His cross, and undo death with His resurrection. All that John preaches, all that he prophesies, all that he embodies and represents and carries in his bloodline, will be accomplished perfectly by Jesus.

            That’s why we celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist—in the end it’s about Jesus. Everything in John’s life, from start to finish, was about His Lord, to point us to the Savior, to get the eyes of our hearts, the eyes of our faith focused on the One who would bring all that John and his prophetic forbears had promised. Even John’s name—which his father Zechariah was so insistent about—was meant to lean into the coming of the Messiah. His name means “God is gracious.” That promise, hidden in his name, that grace would be made manifest in Jesus, whose name means “The Lord saves.” John the Baptist’s birth is the end of foreshadowing and the dawn of the Messiah’s age of light. His birth is the glow on the horizon just before the sunrise of Jesus’ appearance. John’s nativity is the clearing of the prophets’ throat one last time so that the song of forgiveness and joy can be sung clearly and beautifully with the arrival of Christ. Hear his voice, see the One to whom he points, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Know the salvation and tender mercy of our God in the forgiveness of your sins. In the name of Jesus, the Greater One who fulfills every prophecy, Amen.