Baptism and the Forty Days

136:0.1Je­sus be­gan his pub­lic work at the height of the pop­u­lar in­ter­est in John’s preach­ing and at a time when the Jew­ish peo­ple of Pales­tine were ea­gerly look­ing for the ap­pear­ance of the Mes­siah. There was a great con­trast be­tween John and Je­sus. John was an ea­ger and earnest worker, but Je­sus was a calm and happy la­borer; only a few times in his en­tire life was he ever in a hurry. Je­sus was a com­fort­ing con­so­la­tion to the world and some­what of an ex­am­ple; John was hardly a com­fort or an ex­am­ple. He preached the king­dom of heaven but hardly en­tered into the hap­pi­ness thereof. Though Je­sus spoke of John as the great­est of the proph­ets of the old or­der, he also said that the least of those who saw the great light of the new way and en­tered thereby into the king­dom of heaven was in­deed greater than John.

136:0.2When John preached the com­ing king­dom, the bur­den of his mes­sage was: Re­pent! flee from the wrath to come. When Je­sus be­gan to preach, there re­mained the ex­hor­ta­tion to re­pen­tance, but such a mes­sage was al­ways fol­lowed by the gospel, the good tid­ings of the joy and lib­erty of the new king­dom.