Searching for the Barbarian

I love the picture of John the Baptist.  He wore a garment of camel’s hair (itchy) and a leather belt around his waist (itchier) and his food was locusts and wild honey.

These particular locusts species which especially infests oriental countries, went out stripping fields and trees.  Every spring numberless swarms were carried by the wind from Arabia into Palestine, and once they had devastated that country, they would migrate to regions farther north, until they finally perished by falling into the sea. The Orientals were accustomed to feeding upon locusts, either raw or roasted and seasoned with salt (or prepared in other ways), and the Israelis also were permitted to eat them.

So John, dressed in camels hair with nothing but a leather belt to hold it together; eating the most voracious type of locust and for dessert wild honey!  What a picture.  Everything about it screams to me barbarian.  This is the one who prepared the way of the Lord; this was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.  On top of all of that John came with a fiery message, a message not for the faint of heart.

Luke 3:7-8 “He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? [8] Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”

Yet, somewhere along the way as Jesus began to increase and John began to fade back, the barbarian began to soften.  The once wild man began to lose spiritual site of his calling (mission) and began to see only with his natural eyes.

He heard of the ministry of Jesus expanding, as it was supposed to, and now imprisoned had to be wondering, “When will my cousin, the Lamb of God, come and free me.”  When that time didn’t come, John began questioning whether or not Jesus was the Lamb.  The once barbarian evangelist was now an imprisoned, weak, offended and confused man.

Matthew 11:2 Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples [3] and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

John in a weak moment went from barbarian to civilized.  Jesus, instead of consoling John and his messengers, confronts the “civilized nature”.

Matthew 11:4-6 And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: [5] the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. [6] And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

Jesus seems to affirming to John that the road that he paved for Jesus was the right road and furthermore, don’t let what you were called to do, now having been completed, be the stumbling stone of offense because things do not look like you thought they would.

Here is my attempt at a point.  What are you called to?  Do you remember when you first surrendered your life to Jesus?  The moment you repented and confessed Jesus as Lord and Savior?  You went at your new birth like a barbarian, bold, daring and without fear.  At a moments notice you would witness to the guy next to you in the elevator, or at the restaurant.  You are excited and you don’t even have to know why.  You don’t know the rules of “religion” and you don’t care, you’re a barbarian!

Then after some time, your thoughts and plans and dreams of what was supposed to happen, now that you are a Christian, didn’t happen like you thought they would.   Instead of listening to God, and being aggressive as you did when you first surrendered, now you begin to isolate and become timid (civilized).

My testimony looked a lot like that.  I was a wild man and wanted everyone to know about this new life that I had found.  I was a barbarian!  I didn’t know the rules and didn’t want to; all I knew what that I was sold-out to God and was going to do everything I could to make His name famous, no matter the costs.

Then something happened….

(to be continued)