Okay, I think I've told you this before, but I have a couple of things that are just automatic crying triggers and yeah, dads being separated from kids and stuff like that that you would expect to make my heart squishy, they do it. But like I've said, it's this bravery thing. It is the vulnerable person who doesn't care about the kind of risk that they are exposed to. They're gonna do what's right. They're gonna do what's right in the face of powerful people who could crush them, and you root for them so dang hard. And I'm not kidding. I need I need to start keeping a spreadsheet of how many silly parts in movies and stories make me ball that absolutely shouldn't. And I'm kind of ashamed of it. I get into these moments. What was the last one? It was the Dragon Prince on Netflix. I was watching this with my kids. It's like some sort of anime-ish video game story. But there are these super brave girls, and there's one and she's deaf, and she only uses sign language, but she's a super brave warrior and she's principled, and she goes to just have a little sword fight with somebody else, and I get all choked up. But there's there's something to this thing that I think is kind of hardwired, not just into me, but maybe into you too. I'm sure you don't bawl over children's Netflix programs, but I'm guessing there is something naturally built into you that is moved by the courage of somebody who's willing to stand up for what's right in the face of power and danger. And that is the character we're getting with John the Baptist. For the longest time, when I was a kid, I would encounter the John the Baptist stuff, and I would fixate on his weird outfit and his gross diet. I mean, the honey parts fine. He ate bugs. Come on. It's disgusting. That's Discovery Channel stuff. And I would also fixate on this painting that I saw of his head on a plate that I don't even remember where that was. It was like in my dad's office or something, but that really messed with me. And so John was always kind of this freakish weird character. And it is only a little bit later in life that I've come to value what he stands for and the significance of what he's doing here. Because again, as a kid, you have this naive notion that, you know, just some conversation can solve everything. You just explain how things are to the other people and listen to them, and then you work it out, and then you live through the 20 teens, and you're like, oh, nope, that's not actually how things work. People are doggedly loyal to their team and they will do whatever it takes, oftentimes. They will abuse truth, they will ignore reality, they will argue hypocritically to get their thing and make their team win. And that is the kind of impossible situation that John goes out and quite literally puts his neck on the line for. So, John the Baptist, here's what we know about him. I'm gonna turn over here to Luke, and as I do that, I will read you one verse from Matthew chapter three, and we're into Matthew three. In those days, John the Baptist came preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. Okay, that was two verses. And over in Luke, we get a sense in the very, very early going of Jesus' infancy narrative, that this John the Baptist guy is going to be pretty significant and he's gonna play a big role in the Jesus thing. And what's interesting about that is when you think of the birth narrative in Luke that you always get around Christmas time, you picture all the Jesus stuff, but it actually opens with the John the Baptist birth narrative. That is what Luke chose to lead with. And so you remember the story about Zechariah and Elizabeth, and she couldn't have kids, and Zechariah is an old dude, and he works, you know, in the priestly profession. And on his great big day, the day that he actually gets to go in and do the super fancy priest stuff, you know, at the altar of incense, an angel of the Lord shows up and tells him not to be afraid that his prayers for a kid have been heard and that they're gonna have a son, and they're to give him the name John, and that he'll be a joy and a delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. And then he gives him a bunch of other expectations that kind of sound like the old uh Nazarite lifestyle of the Old Testament, not related to the word Nazarene that we kicked around a couple episodes ago, but Nazarite, this would be like Samson. And so Zechariah does what any person who understands male and female biology and anatomy does, and that is he questions it because he's like, We're super old. This probably isn't gonna work. I can just read you what he actually said. He said, How can I be sure of this? I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years. And then the angel's like, uh, because I'm Gabriel and I stand in the presence of God, and I told you how the things are gonna be, and also, dude, like what did you expect to happen when you came into like the the temple? This is where God lives, and things like this happen, and there's an angel here. Come on, paraphrase is mine. He's like, All right, cool, that's how you want to be. And now you'll be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time. Ah, it's so loaded. I all of this stuff behind the story of John the Baptist. I mean, here's a dude, Zechariah, whose job it is to anticipate the work of God, but he had been so lulled to sleep by the historical situation that we've dug so deeply into that distant cultural memory of God being present, but like he doesn't do anything now. He's not around, like this is something that our ancestors believed, and something that we hold on to and we want to be true, but we don't really see this going down anymore. Zechariah is a living embodiment, the the personification of the mindset, I think, of the nation at this time is belief, but a different kind of belief, and frankly, a not that believy belief. And so Zechariah misses like the one thing that he would know as well as anybody is the true mark of being a follower of God. It's what Father Abraham got right, and that is he believed God. Father Abraham was kind of a mess, right? He had some weird stuff and pulled some weird lying stunts and wasn't real clear on how to get everything done. He got some other things right, but what did he get right all along? He believed God, even when it was difficult. And now Zechariah, somebody who has the benefit of the entire Old Testament in front of him, and who has the benefit of being literally a professional follower of God, can't respond in the way that is the right way to respond. Maybe he was hoping that he'd get some kind of deal, like what happened in the Old Testament with Gideon, the fleece thing, and you know, prove it to me this way or that. But this time around, now Gabriel's like, mm-mm, forget it. Tough luck. Now you have to just sit there and not say anything. Which, if you know anybody who does like um religious teaching for a living, people like that think they have something important to say all the time. And I they're vain enough to put a microphone in front of their face and just talk into it and put it on the internet and be like, you should all listen to this, because this is really helpful and important. Like if you can picture anybody, I mean, anybody like that, you can imagine how difficult it would be for such a person to be forced to go completely silent for nine months. But that is what happens to Zechariah. Now, uh there's a meeting between Elizabeth and Mary, and when this happens, John leaps for joy famously in Elizabeth's womb, and Elizabeth and Mary metaphorically high five, and they're like, awesome, we're gonna do this thing. Collectively, they're saying, you know, may it be to me as you have said. And then, as we've covered, Mary goes back to Nazareth, things work out with Joseph. She eventually has a little baby Jesus. But in the meantime, as we haven't covered, John is born, and Zechariah, he's not screwing it up two times. This time around, you the baby's born, and they're like, oh, what are we going to name him? And he writes down, his name is John. It's not a discussion, it's not a debate. This is it. And again, there's kind of a funny contrast here because Joseph, who isn't much of a theologian at all, every time God says do something, he's like, Yep, Roger that, okay, cool. And he just keeps doing it. Whereas this guy, again, professional religious person, doesn't get it right the first time. But hey, props to Zechariah. He nails it the second time, his name is John, and immediately it says in what are we in, like end of Luke chapter one, I guess, immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak praising God. And everybody's all excited about that and trying to figure out what's going on. And then, and I think this is really important for understanding where John fits into the whole equation. Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. So let me just make sure we're getting this exactly right. The text does not say that what I'm about to read to you is something that Zechariah really felt in his heart and just, you know, spontaneously burst out with this. It doesn't claim that this is a song that he wrote and then recited later, or a poem, or some other thing that he's referencing from the past. What he's doing here is putting new material into the data set from God about what the deal is in relation to this birth. Here's how it goes, starting in verse 68. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he's come and he's redeemed his people. He's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he said through his holy prophets of long ago, salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham. See, he does know who Abraham is, to rescue us from the hand of our enemies and to enable us to serve him without fear, and holiness and righteousness before him all our days, and you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven, to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. So the first part of this thing that he says is kind of looking backwards a little bit. This is the God who's done all of this stuff, and how interesting that he mentions the two parties that Matthew leads with at the beginning of his book. Remember what we got right here in verse 69, he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, and then down here in 72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham. Flipping back over to Matthew chapter one. A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Look at the way this is all fitting together. So Zechariah's look back is pointing to the same things that I think Matthew is alluding to in chapters one and chapter two, where he contrasts the true descendant of David with the cruddy fake king in Herod, and the covenant with Abraham is fleshed out in Jesus as well, because remember the covenant said that you're going to be a great nation and a blessing to all the peoples, and the magi come. And so we see the fulfillment even of Matthew's thesis, son of David, son of Abraham, or vice versa, whichever it was, right there in the narrative of chapters one and two. And Luke, in his research, apparently came up with the same stuff. And Zechariah is pointing to the same thing. So we look back in the first half of this prophecy, and then we kind of look forward in the second half. He's talking about his kid. You're going to be a prophet of the most high, you're going to go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him and to give people, once again, the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. And then because God is merciful and tender and all of this stuff, I mean, this is incredible language. This isn't just, hey, a cool spiritual thing happened and I can talk again. Hooray. He had nine months to think about this. And clearly, when the moment came, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, according to the text, he absolutely delivered a crystal clear theological response to what God had been doing and what God was going to do next. And we're going to talk more about that prepare the way role that John occupies as we move forward in these discussions. Whatever the case, verse 80 says, and the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly in Israel. Well, I teased this conversation at the beginning by talking about the bravery of John the Baptist in standing up against the impossibly powerful forces of the day at great personal risk. We didn't get all the way into that just yet in this part of the conversation, but hopefully this backstory helps us to understand why he's willing to play the role that he plays, take the risks that he's going to take, pay the price that he's going to pay. And the answer is because he knew exactly who he was in this whole game. And we're going to see that when he encounters Jesus, too. He figures out really quickly, oh, this isn't about me. This is the guy that I'm doing all of this for. He's the point. And we'll get into that in the coming conversations as well. Hey, on the way out the door here, last time around, I asked you guys to consider leaving a rating, a review, and I just want to say thanks to everybody who did that. Again, that is such a huge help and such an encouragement. So thank you for taking that extra step just to be supportive of what we're working on here. Okay, more on Matthew chapter three and this fascinating story of John the Baptist next time around. All right, I'm Matt. This is the 10 minute Bible hour. Let's do this again soon.