John the Baptist

135:8.1By De­cem­ber of A.D. 25, when John reached the neigh­bor­hood of Pella in his jour­ney up the Jor­dan, his fame had ex­tended through­out all Pales­tine, and his work had be­come the chief topic of con­ver­sa­tion in all the towns about the lake of Gal­i­lee. Je­sus had spo­ken fa­vor­ably of John’s mes­sage, and this had caused many from Ca­per­naum to join John’s cult of re­pen­tance and bap­tism. James and John the fish­er­men sons of Zeb­e­dee had gone down in De­cem­ber, soon af­ter John took up his preach­ing po­si­tion near Pella, and had of­fered them­selves for bap­tism. They went to see John once a week and brought back to Je­sus fresh, first­hand re­ports of the evan­ge­list’s work.

135:8.2Je­sus’ broth­ers James and Jude had talked about go­ing down to John for bap­tism; and now that Jude had come over to Ca­per­naum for the Sab­bath ser­vices, both he and James, af­ter lis­ten­ing to Je­sus’ dis­course in the syn­a­gogue, de­cided to take coun­sel with him con­cern­ing their plans. This was on Sat­ur­day night, Jan­uary 12, A.D. 26. Je­sus re­quested that they post­pone the dis­cus­sion un­til the fol­low­ing day, when he would give them his an­swer. He slept very lit­tle that night, be­ing in close com­mu­nion with the Fa­ther in heaven. He had ar­ranged to have noon­time lunch with his broth­ers and to ad­vise them con­cern­ing bap­tism by John. That Sun­day morn­ing Je­sus was work­ing as usual in the boat­shop. James and Jude had ar­rived with the lunch and were wait­ing in the lum­ber room for him, as it was not yet time for the mid­day re­cess, and they knew that Je­sus was very reg­u­lar about such mat­ters.

135:8.3Just be­fore the noon rest, Je­sus laid down his tools, re­moved his work apron, and merely an­nounced to the three work­men in the room with him, “My hour has come.” He went out to his broth­ers James and Jude, re­peat­ing, “My hour has come—let us go to John.” And they started im­me­di­ately for Pella, eat­ing their lunch as they jour­neyed. This was on Sun­day, Jan­uary 13. They tar­ried for the night in the Jor­dan val­ley and ar­rived on the scene of John’s bap­tiz­ing about noon of the next day.

135:8.4John had just be­gun bap­tiz­ing the can­di­dates for the day. Scores of re­pen­tants were stand­ing in line await­ing their turn when Je­sus and his two broth­ers took up their po­si­tions in this line of earnest men and women who had be­come be­liev­ers in John’s preach­ing of the com­ing king­dom. John had been in­quir­ing about Je­sus of Zeb­e­dee’s sons. He had heard of Je­sus’ re­marks con­cern­ing his preach­ing, and he was day by day ex­pect­ing to see him ar­rive on the scene, but he had not ex­pected to greet him in the line of bap­tismal can­di­dates.

135:8.5Be­ing en­grossed with the de­tails of rapidly bap­tiz­ing such a large num­ber of con­verts, John did not look up to see Je­sus un­til the Son of Man stood in his im­me­di­ate pres­ence. When John rec­og­nized Je­sus, the cer­e­monies were halted for a mo­ment while he greeted his cousin in the flesh and asked, “But why do you come down into the wa­ter to greet me?” And Je­sus an­swered, “To be sub­ject to your bap­tism.” John replied: “But I have need to be bap­tized by you. Why do you come to me?” And Je­sus whis­pered to John: “Bear with me now, for it be­comes us to set this ex­am­ple for my broth­ers stand­ing here with me, and that the peo­ple may know that my hour has come.”

135:8.6There was a tone of fi­nal­ity and au­thor­ity in Je­sus’ voice. John was atrem­ble with emo­tion as he made ready to bap­tize Je­sus of Naz­a­reth in the Jor­dan at noon on Mon­day, Jan­uary 14, A.D. 26. Thus did John bap­tize Je­sus and his two broth­ers James and Jude. And when John had bap­tized these three, he dis­missed the oth­ers for the day, an­nounc­ing that he would re­sume bap­tisms at noon the next day. As the peo­ple were de­part­ing, the four men still stand­ing in the wa­ter heard a strange sound, and pres­ently there ap­peared for a mo­ment an ap­pari­tion im­me­di­ately over the head of Je­sus, and they heard a voice say­ing, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” A great change came over the coun­te­nance of Je­sus, and com­ing up out of the wa­ter in si­lence he took leave of them, go­ing to­ward the hills to the east. And no man saw Je­sus again for forty days.

135:8.7John fol­lowed Je­sus a suf­fi­cient dis­tance to tell him the story of Ga­briel’s visit to his mother ere ei­ther had been born, as he had heard it so many times from his mother’s lips. He al­lowed Je­sus to con­tinue on his way af­ter he had said, “Now I know of a cer­tainty that you are the De­liv­erer.” But Je­sus made no re­ply.