Luke Chapter 3 describes John the Baptist, travelling through the wilderness, telling people to repent of their sins and be baptised to prepare the way of the Lord. Crowds of people went to hear him, and many took his message seriously and were baptised. Most people, however, probably remained sceptical. How would people respond nowadays if a prophet like John came? Would anyone go and listen to him, and if so, would anyone take his message seriously?
John was pretty weird by contemporary standards, and even weirder by modern standards. He wore camel’s hair clothing, with a leather belt around his waist. His diet was locusts and wild honey. His hairstyle was probably pretty wild. His message was a fiery one about someone who was coming who “will gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” It was hardly an encouraging message from Joel Osteen.
Maybe we spend more time looking at the messenger than listening to the message. A person’s clothes or a product’s packaging are at least as important to us as what the person has to say or what the product actually does. If Jesus came to earth again, would we even notice him? Or more to the point, in what ways is Jesus already here on earth, but we fail to notice because we are too obsessed with appearances and packaging?