"And so John the Baptist appeared," Mark says in the Gospel he wrote, though we don't find this phrase in the original Greek. But the point is John "appeared" or "came" as the forerunner of this exciting Good News about the Christ, and he did the work in (of all places) the wilderness. It was the only reason why he was there--a voice in the wilderness--as a sent messenger to prepare Jesus' coming.
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.
Watch this. His life career was to do ministry in this discomfort zone. Nice church buildings with superb facilities, air conditioning and sound systems are good, so are modern big meeting or conference venues--and we ought to use them because they're part of God's provisions. But God provides us with all sorts of stuff, not so we can use them indiscriminately but to train us to make wise choices.
To see if we finally get the point.
Look at John. He was the son of Zechariah, who was a priest, and John could have just decided to follow in his dad's footstep and do the ministry more conveniently as such--a priest--with all the nice and ample provisions that go with the job. Nope, John opted out and chose to be in the discomforts of the wilderness--the hot sun, terrible humidity and burning desert floor plus the dangers of wild animals and bandits. You could hardly attract people to your ministry with that (that's what our human understanding would tell us) and our mindsets bent on attracting people with nice buildings, altars, music and facilities would think that John was wrong to choose the wilderness as a ministry venue.
Doesn't make ministry sense.
Preaching on repentance is in itself already too uncomfortable for people, let alone making them come to you in the wilderness. We would have it quite differently. We'd have it in a posh auditorium or at least in an air-conditioned church building where the seats are soft and inviting and the preacher is trained and titled to be entertaining--anything to make repentance palatable. We always cover repentance with sweet icing to make it marketable to our consumers.
This is why church often ends up with spoiled brats, lukewarm and carnal, hardly experiencing any spiritual depth so they'd rather discuss human theology, hermeneutics, denominational doctrines, religion and Sunday school lessons. They seldom deepen in faith--attaining to the measure of Jesus or John, being the least--because going deep is painful and uncomfortable, like the wilderness. It's where you lose all to gain Christ.
But don't get me wrong. Wilderness is not a guarantee for spiritual depth. The Israelites in Moses' time went to the wilderness but their hearts were still in love with Egypt. They all died. Yet, wilderness is an important phase which many Christians avoid. Many went to John in the wilderness for baptism but I wonder how many of them were part of the crucifixion lobby against Jesus? Wilderness is supposed to be where you die to self, the world and sin, preparing your heart to be radical for Jesus.
And that's where we miss the point about John's ministry as a forerunner-messenger. There's definitely a divine purpose why God would put John in a very unlikely place to do ministry to preach a hated message on repentance---and why God would also put Jesus in a notorious place like Nazareth (and often stay in "remote" unimpressive places) and choose apostles that most people would find repugnant, so ordinary and uninteresting. And the reason or purpose is quite the opposite of what churches today prioritize and find indispensable.
God wants to place his most valuable treasure in places the human flesh would be uncomfortable in. And he chooses servants who would most likely be rejected by the same. Unappealing message by an unappealing servant of God. That's God's formula. You see this Kingdom pattern everywhere in Scripture. However, this is the pattern the modern church keeps contradicting or working against.
The only thing in our minds today is how the world will like us and our message. We fear being disliked and are at a loss how we can count it all joy brethren when we face various trials like rejection or being ignored like trash---especially if no one cares if we're there or not. We tremble with that. We crave attention and big crowds gathered in our meetings more than we crave being persecuted or rejected or crucified with Christ.
How did the ministry of John fare even without fanfare, promotion or gimmicks?
"5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him."
People "went out to him" from all over, even with all the extreme, intolerable conditions. Why? Because it was genuinely God's work. God did everything. Church MUST go back to this--go back to GOD.
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SURRENDERING TO JESUS
Jesus is: ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4]
