John 1:26&27
26 John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;
27 He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
We have been studying animal sacrifice. A BRUTAL custom from the very beginning up through Jesus's day. Jesus was BOTH the priest and the sacrifice!! He volunteered to be crucified. He became the sacrifice ‘without blemish,’ fulfilling in perfect moral purity the prescriptions of the ceremonial law, as designed by GOD. In God's plan the Sacrifice does NOT stay dead, but comes back to LIFE and SAVES everyone who will believe in Him!!! He is the Living GOD!
Today we turn to the Gospel of John, chapter one, verses twenty-six and twenty-seven; "John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is PREFERRED before me, whose shoe's latchet I am NOT WORTHY to unloose."
We think of tieing another person's shoe as a humbling exercise. It's something we might see a caregiver do it for another who is very young or very old. It's not something you see a able bodied person doing for another able bodied person. In the day and time that John the Baptizer spoke these words this task was something a servant (slave) might do for a master. Here as the Baptizer is introducing the Messiah he expressed humility saying that he was not good enough to perform even the smallest and most basic of task for Him. AND, the Baptizer is the person Jesus says "Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a GREATER than John the Baptist:" in Matthew chapter eleven, verse eleven. So, you and me are not worthy to tie John the Baptizer's shoe. If we can begin to wrap our prideful minds around this hierarchy we can begin to understand who our Savior really is.
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