Happy New Year to you all! I believe 2023 was at its best in terms of the many activities we have immersed ourselves into. The Bicentenary celebration of Nga-Pu-Toru as well as Rarotonga, the CICC General Assembly, the re-opening of Ziona Tapu in Avarua, TeKapuaanga Meeting House in Takuvaine, Ziona in Arorangi and Betela in Titikaveka to name just a few. Praise be to God Almighty. By Reverend Vakaroto Ngaro, Senior Lecturer at Takamoa Theological College.

As we embark on a new journey this year, Matthew introduces us to three important chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 3, 4 and 5. John, born of Zacharias and Elisabeth, is one of the fascinating characters of the New Testament, whose miraculous birth was announced, along with his call to be the forerunner of the Messiah. John’s message was a call to repentance.

Some people think that repentance is mostly about feelings, especially feeling sorry for your sin. It is wonderful to feel sorry about your sin, but repent isn’t a “feelings” word. It is an action word. John told his listeners to make a change of the mind, not merely to feel sorry for what they had done. Repentance speaks of a change of direction, not a sorrow in the heart. The call to repentance is important and must not be neglected. It is entirely accurate to say that it is the first word of the gospel.

John’s main message wasn’t “You’re a sinner, you need to repent”, John’s main message was “Messiah the King is coming”. The call to repentance was the response to the news that the King and His kingdom were coming, indeed, already here in one sense. Some dispensationalists see a difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God, the dominant terms used in Mark and Luke. The idea is that the kingdom of God is a now-present spiritual kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven refers to the coming millennial earth in its splendor. A much better explanation is that Matthew simply used the term kingdom of heaven instead of kingdom of God so as to avoid offence to Jewish readers, who often rejected direct references to God and would refer to His dwelling place instead of Him directly.

And hence our Lord teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”. Matthew used this passage from Isaiah 40:3, to identify John the Baptist as the prophesied forerunner of the Messiah. In this role, John’s purpose was to prepare hearts for the Messiah, and to bring an awareness of sin among Israel so they could receive the salvation from sin offered by the Messiah.

The idea of preparing the way of the Lord is a word picture, because the real preparation must take place in our hearts. Building a road is very much like the preparation God must do in our hearts. They are both expensive, they both must deal with many different problems and environments, and they both take an expert engineer. Jesus was the coming Messiah and King, and John the Baptist was the one crying in the wilderness, and through his message of repentance, he worked to prepare the way of the Lord. We often fail to appreciate how important the preparing work of the Lord is. Any great work of God begins with great preparation. Men’s hearts were like a wilderness, wherein there is no way; but as loyal subjects throw up roads for the approach of beloved princes, so were men to welcome the Lord, with their hearts made right and ready to receive him. In his personality and ministry, John the Baptist was patterned after the bold Elijah who fearlessly called Israel to repentance.

Both Elijah and John had stern ministries in which austere garb and diet confirmed their message and condemned the idolatry of physical and spiritual softness. In the spirit of today’s age, John’s ministry would have been very different. He wouldn’t start in the wilderness. He wouldn’t dress funny. He wouldn’t preach such a straightforward message. He would use marketing surveys and focus groups to hone his message and presentation. John wasn’t motivated by the spirit of today’s age, but by the Spirit of God. It wasn’t that John the Baptist was trying to be this Elijah-like forerunner predicted as if he decided on his own to make this his destiny and public image. John knew the words spoken to his father Zacharias before he was born – He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.

This is simply who John the Baptist was, and one might say he was this before he was even created in the womb. His diet, though limited, was nutritious and readily available in the wilderness. Under the blessing of God, John’s message of repentance and call to prepare for the Messiah bore great fruit. Baptism was for sinners, and no Jew ever conceived of himself as a sinner shut out from God. Now for the first time in their national history the Jews realised their own sin and their own clamant need of God. Never before had there been such a unique national movement of penitence and of search for God. His preaching created a widespread revival movement, and his followers constituted a significant group within Judaism which maintained its separate existence beyond the New Testament period. Josephus actually wrote more about John the Baptist than he did about Jesus.

The influence of John the Baptist is evident decades after his ministry began, as seen in Acts 18:25 and 19:3. With baptism, John offered a ceremonial washing that confessed sin and did something to demonstrate repentance. Before we can gain the kingdom of heaven, we must recognise our poverty of spirit (Matthew 5:3). This type of awareness of sin is the foundation for most revivals and awakenings. Baptism simply means to “immerse or overwhelm”. John didn’t sprinkle when he baptised. As was the custom in some other Jewish ceremonial washings, John completely immersed those he baptised. “Naturally, therefore, the baptism was not a mere sprinkling with water, but a bath in which his whole body was bathed”.

• Additional reporting from David Guzik/Enduring World