John the Baptist

135:9.1When John re­turned to his dis­ci­ples (he now had some twenty-five or thirty who abode with him con­stantly), he found them in earnest con­fer­ence, dis­cussing what had just hap­pened in con­nec­tion with Je­sus’ bap­tism. They were all the more as­ton­ished when John now made known to them the story of the Ga­briel vis­i­ta­tion to Mary be­fore Je­sus was born, and also that Je­sus spoke no word to him even af­ter he had told him about this. There was no rain that evening, and this group of thirty or more talked long into the star­lit night. They won­dered where Je­sus had gone, and when they would see him again.

135:9.2Af­ter the ex­pe­ri­ence of this day the preach­ing of John took on new and cer­tain notes of procla­ma­tion con­cern­ing the com­ing king­dom and the ex­pected Mes­siah. It was a tense time, these forty days of tar­ry­ing, wait­ing for the re­turn of Je­sus. But John con­tin­ued to preach with great power, and his dis­ci­ples be­gan at about this time to preach to the over­flow­ing throngs which gath­ered around John at the Jor­dan.

135:9.3In the course of these forty days of wait­ing, many ru­mors spread about the coun­try­side and even to Tiberias and Je­ru­sa­lem. Thou­sands came over to see the new at­trac­tion in John’s camp, the re­puted Mes­siah, but Je­sus was not to be seen. When the dis­ci­ples of John as­serted that the strange man of God had gone to the hills, many doubted the en­tire story.

135:9.4About three weeks af­ter Je­sus had left them, there ar­rived on the scene at Pella a new dep­u­ta­tion from the priests and Phar­isees at Je­ru­sa­lem. They asked John di­rectly if he was Eli­jah or the prophet that Moses prom­ised; and when John said, “I am not,” they made bold to ask, “Are you the Mes­siah?” and John an­swered, “I am not.” Then said these men from Je­ru­sa­lem: “If you are not Eli­jah, nor the prophet, nor the Mes­siah, then why do you bap­tize the peo­ple and cre­ate all this stir?” And John replied: “It should be for those who have heard me and re­ceived my bap­tism to say who I am, but I de­clare to you that, while I bap­tize with wa­ter, there has been among us one who will re­turn to bap­tize you with the Holy Spirit.”

135:9.5These forty days were a dif­fi­cult pe­riod for John and his dis­ci­ples. What was to be the re­la­tion of John to Je­sus? A hun­dred ques­tions came up for dis­cus­sion. Pol­i­tics and self­ish prefer­ment be­gan to make their ap­pear­ance. In­tense dis­cus­sions grew up around the var­i­ous ideas and con­cepts of the Mes­siah. Would he be­come a mil­i­tary leader and a Da­vidic king? Would he smite the Ro­man armies as Joshua had the Ca­naan­ites? Or would he come to es­tab­lish a spir­i­tual king­dom? John rather de­cided, with the mi­nor­ity, that Je­sus had come to es­tab­lish the king­dom of heaven, al­though he was not al­to­gether clear in his own mind as to just what was to be em­braced within this mis­sion of the es­tab­lish­ment of the king­dom of heaven.

135:9.6These were stren­u­ous days in John’s ex­pe­ri­ence, and he prayed for the re­turn of Je­sus. Some of John’s dis­ci­ples or­ga­nized scout­ing par­ties to go in search of Je­sus, but John for­bade, say­ing: “Our times are in the hands of the God of heaven; he will di­rect his cho­sen Son.”

135:9.7It was early on the morn­ing of Sab­bath, Febru­ary 23, that the com­pany of John, en­gaged in eat­ing their morn­ing meal, looked up to­ward the north and be­held Je­sus com­ing to them. As he ap­proached them, John stood upon a large rock and, lift­ing up his sonorous voice, said: “Be­hold the Son of God, the de­liv­erer of the world! This is he of whom I have said, ‘Af­ter me there will come one who is pre­ferred be­fore me be­cause he was be­fore me.’ For this cause came I out of the wilder­ness to preach re­pen­tance and to bap­tize with wa­ter, pro­claim­ing that the king­dom of heaven is at hand. And now comes one who shall bap­tize you with the Holy Spirit. And I be­held the di­vine spirit de­scend­ing upon this man, and I heard the voice of God de­clare, ‘This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’”

135:9.8Je­sus bade them re­turn to their food while he sat down to eat with John, his broth­ers James and Jude hav­ing re­turned to Ca­per­naum.

135:9.9Early in the morn­ing of the next day he took leave of John and his dis­ci­ples, go­ing back to Gal­i­lee. He gave them no word as to when they would again see him. To John’s in­quiries about his own preach­ing and mis­sion Je­sus only said, “My Fa­ther will guide you now and in the fu­ture as he has in the past.” And these two great men sep­a­rated that morn­ing on the banks of the Jor­dan, never again to greet each other in the flesh.