5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. (Mark 1:5-7)
Mark uses what most assume to be hyperbole to describe John's popularity. He said, All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized (5). John was wildly popular, and the masses were coming out to him for this fresh awakening.
And out there, at the river Jordan, John did his work (5). He was a sight to behold. He wore camel's hair and a leather belt (6). He ate locusts and wild honey, indicating he was living out in the wilderness (6). What a mysterious man John was! No wonder the people were curious.
Prophetic Garments
Now, why did Mark mention the garments of John? Why did he describe his appearance? This isn't Mark's way of setting the scene. He doesn't take the time to describe Jesus and the disciples. For Mark, this is not a literary device. No, John's appearance harkened back to something else, a truth Mark wants us to know.
God had been silent for about 400 years at that point. In his last words to the world, he said:
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction." (Malachi 4:5–6, ESV).
So the last thing God said was that Elijah would come before the day of the Lord.
Then, to Zechariah, John's father, the angel said of John:
"He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared." (Luke 1:17, ESV).
So John the Baptist would come in the spirit and power of Elijah.
But let me show you one more quotation. This one has to do with the way Elijah dressed. It came from a time many years earlier when the wicked King Ahaziah fell off a balcony and injured himself, likely because he was in a drunken stupor (2 Kings 1:2). He sent messengers to a false god to find out whether he would recover or die. Elijah, though, inspired by God, intercepted the messengers and told them Ahaziah would surely die (2 Kings 1:3-4).
The messengers returned to Ahaziah. He was shocked they'd returned so quickly, so he asked them about their journey. They told him a messenger had approached them on the way and told them he would die. He asked, "What did he look like?"
"They answered him, 'He wore a garment of hair, with a belt of leather about his waist.' And he said, 'It is Elijah the Tishbite.'" (2 Kings 1:8, ESV).
All that to say when John came out of the wilderness in the spirit, power, and even the clothes of Elijah, it rocked the people. They were waiting for Elijah before the coming of the day of the Lord, and John even looked the part!
Elijah Was the Man
And Elijah was widely regarded as the prophet of all prophets. He was just a normal and anonymous guy who came onto the scene and confronted all kinds of evil. Forcefully, boldly, he won great victories for God. When he prayed, God listened. And, at the end of his powerful years of ministry, he was taken to heaven without dying. That Elijah would be the prophet to come again made sense to everyone.
And Jesus regarded John as the prophet of all prophets also.
"Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist." (Matthew 11:11, ESV).
For all his greatness, though, John said, After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie (7). To loosen someone else's sandal was the lowest task of the lowest slave. In fact, they even had rules in place which prohibited many servants from ever having to lower themselves to such a menial task. But John said he wasn't worthy of the honor of loosening Jesus' sandal.
This gives us a picture of how Jesus is the culmination of God's plan. Great prophets came before. Elijah was revered by all. John was the greatest of all. But they could not hold a candle to Jesus. There is no one more important than him. He is the central figure.
The Position Christ Gives Us
But this central figure, the one all of Scripture points to, longs to bring every person up into a place of privilege with God. Let's read the full quotation from Matthew 11 --
"Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Matthew 11:11, ESV).
So John is great. And Jesus is much greater. And the least in the kingdom is greater than John.
How can this be? Jesus! When we trust Jesus, we are given a radical position in God's family. We are put into the kingdom.
"Even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus..." (Ephesians 2:5–6, ESV).
We are seated with the One whom John, the greatest prophet ever, was not worthy to loosen sandals.
When you trust in Jesus, you are seated with him, given his position before the Father. The greatest prophet ever was not worthy of loosening his sandals, but the Father finds you worthy of sitting with him in the heavens. Amazing.
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For the entire Mark series, go here. Thank you.
