The voice in the wilderness
John the Baptist
John comes from outside everything. Not from the temple courts or the priestly schools but from the wilderness, dressed in camel hair, eating locusts and wild honey, a living rupture in the religious landscape. The crowds stream out to the Jordan to be baptized by him, confessing their sins, and the whole settled machinery of holiness — the right place, the right lineage, the right offerings — is quietly bypassed by a man preparing a road through the desert. He is the voice crying in the wilderness, the one Isaiah foretold: make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight. And then comes the most astonishing thing about him, the thing that sets him apart from every demagogue who ever drew a crowd. When his own followers fret that Jesus is baptizing and everyone is going to Him, John does not cling to his moment. He answers with joy. He must increase, John says, but I must decrease. The forerunner breaks the old order open, prepares the way for One greater, and then deliberately, gladly, steps out of it. His whole vocation was to point past himself and then to shrink so the Light behind him could be seen.
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
— Isaiah, of John the Baptist — Matthew 3:3 (WEB)
“He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Disconnect sometimes makes you a forerunner — the one who ruptures the old order and then points past himself. This phase asks for a self held lightly enough to decrease, to do the breaking work of preparing a way and then, without grasping, to step aside so the greater thing can be seen.
Some breaks are not about you arriving. They are about you preparing a way for something far larger than yourself — and then getting out of its way. This is the hardest kind of disconnect, because it asks you to do real, costly work and then let it be eclipsed, to pour your life into a road and watch the traffic pass you toward Someone else, and to call that joy. John shows us a self that is held so lightly it can decrease without panic. He had every ingredient of a movement built around him — the crowds, the loyalty, the moral authority — and he spent it all pointing away from himself. So when your part in God's work turns out to be the forerunner's part, the voice and not the Word, the one who prepares and then recedes, do not grasp. The disconnect was never finally about your prominence or your platform. It was about clearing a path and pointing past yourself to the One who comes after, who is greater, and who must increase.
Whole movements within the Church are sent as forerunners, voices in the wilderness raised to prepare a way and then to decrease once the larger work arrives. The Body has always needed its John the Baptists: renewals willing to rupture a stale order, point past themselves, and then gladly step aside so the One they announced could increase. The danger in every age is the forerunner who forgets the calling and clings, the movement that builds a kingdom around its own moment instead of fading before Christ. As the Church passes through this present shaking, the same test comes: can a tradition do its rupturing, preparatory work and then loosen its grip? What endures is never the voice but the Word it cleared the way for. He must increase.
What cannot be shaken is the One the forerunner points to — the increasing Christ. Platforms rise and recede, voices are raised and then fall silent, but He must increase. The decreasing self loses nothing real, because what remains is the Light it was only ever clearing the way for.
- Where is God asking me to prepare a way and then to decrease?
- Am I clinging to a prominence that was only ever meant to point past itself?
- Can I call it joy when the work I poured myself into is eclipsed by Someone greater?
Lord, I want to arrive, and You are asking me to prepare a way and then to fade. Teach me John's strange joy: that You must increase and I must decrease. Hold my small self loosely in Your hand. Let me point past myself to You, and be glad. Amen.