This opens with what today would be the religious authorities arriving with clipboards and questions, ready to categorize John into a recognizable framework. Who are you? Are you the Messiah? Elijah? The Prophet?
It’s a multiple-choice test, and John keeps answering “none of the above.” “No.”, “No.”, “No.”
This is already unusual. Most of us would have said yes by question two, if only out of exhaustion. Or politeness. Or, perhaps, allowing a label for some LinkedIn optimization.
Finally, they beg him, “Who are you? We need something to tell the people who sent us.”
John replies, in essence: I’m a voice.
Not a personality. Not a movement. Not a brand. A voice.
And not even an original one. John borrows this from the prophet Isaiah. In a world obsessed with being someone, John chooses to be a sound. That’s the first surprise of the text: Holiness here points to extremely radical unimportance.
Then things get decidedly stranger. John is baptizing people. Rather dramatically, publicly, soaking sinners in the Jordan River. Simultaneously, he insists he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He says, “I baptize with water. But among you stands one you do not know.” Basically asserting: I’m doing the visible thing, but the real action is happening just off-camera.
This is deeply inconvenient theology. We prefer faith where the main event is obvious and preferably sponsored. John insists the Messiah is already standing there, unnoticed, uncredentialed, unverified.
And then, after all this anticipation, Jesus finally appears. Does John give him a grand introduction? A trumpet fanfare, or an impressive résumé?
No. He points and says, “Here is the Lamb of God.” Which is a deeply odd thing to say if you want people to feel confident.
Lambs are not impressive. Lambs do not seize power. Lambs do not win debates or overthrow empires.
Lambs get eaten.
This is the second shock of the passage: God shows up not as force, but as vulnerability. Not as certainty, but as a gift. John doubles down on this anti-branding campaign by explaining that even he didn’t recognize Jesus at first. The Messiah did not glow. There was no heavenly name tag. Recognition came only when the Spirit moved, like a dove, gentle enough to be missed by anyone looking for fireworks.
And here’s the uncomfortable, liberating truth underneath all of this:
God is not waiting for us to be impressive enough to notice Jesus. God is waiting for us to be quiet enough.
John’s entire ministry is a slow act of self-erasure so that something truer can be seen. “I am not the Messiah,” he says, and in doing so becomes one of the most faithful witnesses in scripture. This text gently mocks our addiction to certainty, power, and religious relevance. It suggests that God’s greatest work may already be present, standing among us, while we are busy asking the wrong questions.
So perhaps the invitation of John 1:19–34 is this:
What if faith is less about becoming someone and more about becoming a voice? What if holiness is not being in the spotlight, but knowing where to point? What if God is already here? Only quiet, vulnerable, unbranded, simply waiting to be recognized not by our confidence, but by our humility?
John doesn’t tell us who Jesus is so much as how to look for him. And that, it turns out, may be the most faithful thing anyone can do.
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