Context No. 349 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 1:24-28: in context
24The ones who had been sent were from the Pharisees. 25They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” 26John answered them, “I baptize in water, but among you stands one whom you don’t know. 27He is the one who comes after me, who is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to loosen.” 28These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The religious authorities have sent a delegation to interrogate John the Baptist, and their questions are all about credentials. Are you the Christ? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet? And if you are none of these, then by what authority are you baptizing people? They want to slot John into a category, to figure out who he is and whether he is allowed to do what he is doing.
John's answer does two things at once, and both are worth noticing. First, he refuses the identity they are trying to pin on him and the importance they might grant him. I baptize with water, he says, and he will not claim to be more than a voice, not worthy even to untie the sandal strap of the one coming after him, which was the job of the lowest household slave. He deflects every bit of attention off himself. But it is the middle of his answer that stops you: among you stands one whom you do not know. The very person they are asking about, the one they have been waiting generations for, is already standing there in the crowd, and they cannot see him. They are so busy checking John's papers that they miss the Messiah standing a few feet away, unrecognized.
That is a strangely common way to miss God. We interrogate the messengers, debate the credentials, scan the horizon for a future arrival, while the one we are actually looking for is already standing among us, in the ordinary people and situations right in front of us, unnoticed. Who or what is standing among me right now, unrecognized, while I keep looking past it for God to show up in some more official way?
Sources
- John 1:19-25: the delegation questioning John about his identity and authority to baptize
- John 1:26-27: John pointing to the one standing among them, whose sandal he is unworthy to untie
- John 1:29-34: John identifying that unrecognized one the next day as the Lamb of God