18 So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. 19 But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by him for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison.
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
John was a man who was not afraid of what people thought. His appearance was not that of a normal leader (Matt 3:4). He did not eat like a normal leader of the people (Matt 3:4). Yet he was a man who everyone came to see! We do not have to be like the “popular people” when the Lord has blessed us. Fitting in is not what we are called to do when we seek the Lord. We are called to turn from our ways and follow Him.
Many people came to be baptized. After John had baptized everyone he was arrested. He was arrested because he spoke out about what was wrong. In this case it happened to be political leader of the day. This man had taken his brother’s wife! Along with this he was evil in other ways and John called him out, as he should. The final straw for this political leader, Herod, was when John began to preach the Gospel, the Good News of the coming Christ. At this Herod had had enough and arrested John.
Before John was arrested he baptized Jesus. Jesus came to him wanting to be baptized and praying the Holy Spirit came to dwell in Jesus. Through the Holy Spirit Jesus was able to minister here on Earth. This is also the only way that we can do ministry here on Earth as well. We are sinful human beings. Jesus never sinned and yet had the Holy Spirit to minister and guide Him. We are sinful people, yet Jesus, in His mercy sent the Holy Spirit to minister to us in our worship of God with our lives. What a blessing that is! Without His ministry to our hearts we are lost.
If we are seeking God the best thing to do is to pray to Him. Pray that He will reveal Himself to us. He is faithful to do this. It may not be what we imagine it “should” be, but it will be what it should be. Something we need to come to grips with is that God is out for His Glory. He is the only one who deserves it. When we give our life up we may look like John did. We may not be the most popular. But God will Glorify Himself through our lives when we submit to Him. John did this and so did Jesus. Their lives took dramatically different paths and ended in the same place. They both Glorified God with their lives.
