By Will Heydel
Scripture Reading: Luke 3:1-38, Isaiah 40:1-10, John 3:25-30
Our neighborhood in Franklin, Tennessee, sits just a stone’s throw from Mack Hatcher Parkway, one of the city’s busiest roads. In recent weeks, a road crew has been preparing a large section of that road for a major widening project—two lanes becoming four. For the next several years, Franklin residents will watch and wait as the plans unfold and a new way is prepared. Watching and waiting. Waiting and watching.
The people of Israel knew that rhythm well. For centuries, they had been watching and waiting—not for a road project but for the arrival of their Messiah, the promised One who would come and rescue them. And before the Messiah came, God had promised something else: A voice would cry out in the wilderness, calling the people to prepare their hearts. That voice belonged to John the Baptist.
John understood that the people’s deepest need was not deliverance from Rome. They needed rescue from something far more oppressive—the dominion of sin that reigned in their hearts. They needed, as Isaiah put it, a pardon for their iniquity (Isaiah 40:2).
John’s role as the one who would prepare the way for Jesus was no accident. It was ordained. Centuries before John was born, God had announced through Isaiah that a messenger would come, one who would make straight the path for the Lord’s arrival (vv.40:3–5). When Luke recorded John’s ministry in chapter three, he explicitly connected it to that ancient prophecy. John’s faithfulness in fulfilling his calling is a testimony to God’s faithfulness in keeping His promises to a people who had been watching and waiting for a very long time.
What did that preparation look like in practice? Preaching. Baptizing. And pointing—always pointing away from himself and toward the One who was coming. John called people to genuine repentance, the kind with hands and feet: Share your coat, deal honestly, don’t exploit others (Luke 3:10–14). And when the crowds began to wonder if John himself might be the Messiah, he was quick to set the record straight: “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I am is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals” (v.16).
This was not false modesty. It was the joy of a man who knew exactly who he was and who Jesus was. In John 3, when his own disciples grew concerned that everyone was flocking to Jesus instead of him, John responded with one of the most beautiful pictures in all of Scripture. He likened himself to the groom’s friend at a wedding—the best man who stands nearby, listens for the groom’s voice, and rejoices when he hears it. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
This is the posture of a faithful servant and a worthy model for every one of us. We, too, are called to be voices, not the Word itself; preparers of the way, not the destination. The question worth sitting with today is simply this: Are you pointing people to Jesus or to yourself?
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