I am picturing someone being on a stage. It’s a dark stage, in front of a crowded theatre — not something we are used to seeing these days. The only light in the theatre is a big spotlight, and it is focused on the one person who is on the stage.

Our Gospel reading today is about John the Baptist. John is a man in a spotlight. It’s not on a stage. In fact, John is way out in the countryside, a fair distance from Jerusalem, the city. He is at the River Jordan, where he is baptising people in the river, and he is preaching, calling on people to repent of their sins.

But people make the trek from Jerusalem, or wherever they happen to be, out there to the River Jordan in order to be baptised by John and to listen to him. John has become quite a sensation, a man in a spotlight. So the authorities in Jerusalem want to know what is going on, and just who this man is, and so they send out some priests and Levites (Levites are also priests) to ask John who he is. They think of various special people he could be — the long-dead but very special prophet Elijah come back to the living, or another prophet, or even the Messiah, the long-awaited chosen one of God. But John denies all of these; he is none of these people.

Finally he says who he is:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’”
quoting from the prophet Isaiah from many years before.

The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord.” John is like the warm-up act on stage. He’s in the spotlight, but he’s not the main show. He’s preparing the people for someone who is coming next, like a band getting the crowd revved up for the main act, or a stand-up comic doing the same.

John could have behaved differently. He could have lapped up all the attention. Everyone is focusing on him; he is the hit of the season. He could have been the latest rage on Facebook or Twitter, if those had existed back then. Videos of him preaching and baptising people could have gone viral. He could have hired a public relations consultant — who probably would have advised him to wear something other than camel’s hair, or to eat something other than locusts and honey.

But John did not behave this way. The wonder of John the Baptist is that he points beyond himself. He knows his true place in the world, and his true place with God. He does not revel in the attention directed at him, but points beyond himself to the one who is to come. He points beyond himself to one person who will eventually show up at the River Jordan to be baptised: Jesus. John is the voice crying out in the wilderness of his time, and of our time, pointing us to Jesus, who is the Messiah, the one sent by God, the one who will baptise people not with water but with the Holy Spirit.

Now back to that stage with the spotlight. John is the warm-up act, but once he steps aside, the spotlight is no longer needed. With Jesus on the stage, the spotlight is unnecessary, because Jesus himself is the light. He is the light of God come into the world, to shine light into the darkness of our lives.

Some time after this, John will be in prison, put there by King Herod. And perhaps sitting there in prison he will wonder if he was right in saying that Jesus was the Messiah. His followers will go to Jesus with a message from John: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” And Jesus will answer: “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them” [Luke 7:22]. In other words, the light of God has come into the world, bringing healing and relief and good news. Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, who said:

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” [Isa. 61:1-2]

In today’s world, people are encouraged to seek the spotlight, to get attention for themselves, to promote themselves on social media. But instead we are to be like John the Baptist: to point beyond ourselves to Christ. Any success that we have, any good fortune that comes our way, comes to us through the grace of God. Yes, we might have done something to get it, we might have worked hard, or persevered through tough times. But success and good fortune and even a winning personality, as it might be called, are still ours through God’s grace. What we can offer the world all by ourselves is nothing in comparison with what God can offer through us. If the spotlight shines on us, it is best if we point beyond us to the light of Christ. For that is where the light of truth and goodness and love all reside: not with us of ourselves alone, but with God in Christ, working through us.

As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians,

“May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.”