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John the Baptist

Brueghel's painting of John the Baptist preaching: a great crowd in a wooded clearing listens to the small figure of John gesturing from among the trees.
St John the Baptist Preaching, Pieter Brueghel the Younger. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

John’s story is wrapped around Jesus’ from before either was born: announced by Gabriel to an elderly priest, filled with the Spirit in his mother’s womb, leaping at the sound of Mary’s greeting (Luke 1). He grew up to become the strangest and greatest of the prophets – camel’s hair, locusts and wild honey, and a pulpit of empty wilderness beside the Jordan, where “Jerusalem and all Judea” came out to be baptized, confessing their sins (Matthew 3:1-6).

His message had one direction: away from himself. “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie” (Mark 1:7). When Jesus appeared, John gave the testimony that gathers up the whole Old Testament: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) – and then practiced the sentence that should mark every servant of Christ since: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Truth-telling cost him everything. He confronted Herod Antipas over his marriage, was imprisoned in the fortress of Machaerus, wrestled honest doubts from his cell (“Are you the one who is to come?”), and was beheaded to keep a rash oath at a birthday party (Matthew 11:2-6; Mark 6:14-29). Jesus’ verdict stands: “among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).

In the New Testament

Key Locations

  • The Hill Country of Judea The terraced hills west of Jerusalem where Mary visited Elizabeth and the Magnificat was sung.
  • The Judean Wilderness The barren desert between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea where Jesus fasted forty days and faced the tempter.
  • The Jordan River The river of Israel's crossings and cleansings, where John baptized and Jesus was baptized.
  • Bethany Beyond the Jordan The place on the east bank of the Jordan where John was baptizing when he pointed to the Lamb of God.
  • Machaerus Herod's clifftop fortress east of the Dead Sea, where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded.