Misinterpretations of John the Baptist

Now I'm not saying that John the Baptist wasn't a little on the unusual side. The guy was pretty radical. However, I do believe there are some severe misinterpretations about his character and about what he was doing out there in the Judean Countryside. A lot of our misinterpretation of John has to do with our legalistic theology.

Here are some questions: Why did he have to come in the first place? Why did Jesus need somebody to "announce" who he was? What was John teaching? What is repentance? What is the Kingdom of God? What does preparing the path and making it straight mean? Why was he wearing the same clothes as the older prophet, Elijah? Talk to any average pastor, or even a glamorous mega-church pastor, and I bet you'll get a high percentage of deers looking into the headlight looks if you ask them what John the Baptist was all about. This doesn't have to do with a lack of intelligence, but it does have to do with a lack of correct theology.

Bear with me as I simply copy and paste part of the book of Mark for you to read. Let's admit it. We're more interested in reading what a commentator has to say than the scripture when it is quoted. Try to take a look, however, at what I'm showing you though, because it's going to look a lot more interesting if you read it and compare my two interpretations. I've changed some of the words or added words, in italics to show two different ways that our brain might interpret what has been written. I'm not proposing to exposit the Greek. I'm trying to show what's going on in our minds.

Mark 1:1-8

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2It is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way"
3"a voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make people who are right with God.' " 4And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of getting more right with God for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins in shame, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River hoping to stay right with God from then on. 6John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He didn't think you were quite as good as him if you weren't roughnecked too. 7And this was his message: "After me will come one more strict than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Even I'm still trying to stay right with him. 8I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." So, make sure and get things right.

Holy smokes. As a Christian, I've largely believed all of these misinterpretations I just italicized in the above description of John the Baptist. We mostly believe he was a little crazy, came to blow a trumpet announcing the start of Jesus' ministry, and was teaching people to make sure to get right with God.

I've heard the cultural phrase "get right with God" so many times in my Christian experience and it is so sad. It basically means, "get my act together" or "make myself a little better so God will be a little more pleased with me".

It is the opposite of the Gospel. The Gospel (good news) is that God, through Jesus, has already rescued us from all sin and has already transformed us into new people with his righteousness. It is an action that is already perfected, or already completed.

Therefore, if you really want to "get right with God" or "get righteous with God", then this is more about being open to Him forgiving and transforming you, not about what you need to do go get yourself cleaned up and a little more presentable. The first is a grace based mentality. The second is a shame based mentality.

Most of us grew up or migrated into churches which inadvertently espoused or espouse a shame based mentality. Thus, John the Baptist has been explained mainly as a weird, radical, desert dweller who told people to try to keep up with his pace of holiness and get their act together. "God is coming! You better get your act together! Look a little more sharp than you do. And stop complaining about the cold water I'm baptizing you in. Good Israelites don't complain about such things!" Frankly, my old picture of John the Baptist includes a picture of him with a whip threatening corporeal punishment.

Let's take a different look at Mark 1:1-8.

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2It is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your grace-based way of living"
3"a voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare a grace-based community for the Lord,
provide them with a grace-based theology of forgiveness and love.' " 4And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching that men and women who allow him to wash them clean with water will be cleansed of their sin by God if in the same way, they take a chance that God is safe enough that they'll let Him wash them clean of their sins and give up trying to make up for them in various ways. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, he gladly washed them clean of their sin in the Jordan River. 6John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I wash you clean from sin with water, but he will wash you clean from sin by turning you into an entirely new person with the Holy Spirit."

In this interpretation, John isn't teaching about getting our act together or getting right with God, he's teaching about allowing God to get us right with him. The true nature of repentance is the recognition that I can't get my act together or get right with God in that horrible Christian religious culture we have been bred with over the centuries.

The moment I really believe that God has forgiven me (of my real sin) with the heart of someone who would fight and die for me, is the moment I have come to fully obey Him. This is what it means to "obey the gospel". It means to "believe in him". Think about when you've had someone really believe in you. I mean they believe in you, in the sense that they trust you. Wow. That is an amazing feeling. Now, I'm not saying that God is insecure in the sense that he needs us to believe in him, in order to cover up His shame or anything like that, but when we believe in Him; well, I believe this is the greatest complement we could ever pay to our Creator, more than any other type of good work we could ever perform.

What was John the Baptist doing out there? I think he was providing a safe place (away from orthodox religion and its rules) where people could go and find a safe place where they could be told that God is safe and harbors nothing but forgiveness and it is lived out in a grace-based community of believers who never negate sin, but desire (lots of failures here still) to forgive one another for that real sin. A place where people talk and communicate rather than attack one another or hide from one another due to the harm they cause one another. I think this is what John was doing. He was preparing for Jesus, a bunch of people who were learning about God's loving nature in a safe place, alway from the unwritten rules of family, institutions, and orthodox religion. It was a safe place where they could go, practice new ways of living, get recharged, and then go back to the world with God's love in their hearts.

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You might ask, what about when he was yelling at the Pharasees and the Teachers of the Law? What kind of love was that? In that situation, I believe John the Baptist was actually doing the most loving thing he could do. He was protecting his disciples. The religious teachers (with their unwritten rules) were there to influence his disciples with their unhealthy and legalistic ways of living. The only thing he could do was to yell at them and expose them for who they really were. I'm sure some stayed and truly accepted the forgiveness of God. I'm sure he didn't tell them to leave. But, the primary motivation of John was protection, I believe, in those moments.