:: Advent Beard Devo, wk 2 ::

[various artistic renderings of John the Baptist, compiled from images.google.com]

[Learn about the Advent Beard, and these weekly devotionals, here]

“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, ’After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.’” (Mark 1:6-7)

It could be said that John the Baptist is the embodiment of the Advent season. The very role given by God to this cousin of Christ was to prepare God’s people for God’s coming Messiah. “For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight” (Matthew 3:3). This is John, who lived in the wilderness, who wore leather and camel’s hair, who ate locusts and wild honey, and who obviously had a beard.

How do we know John the desert baptizer was bearded? Well culturally, men at the time had beards. Since John was a man, we can almost certainly say John had a beard. Plus, John was a “man’s man” – he was a “dude” – he lived a nomadic life; ate grasshoppers and honey; and dressed in leather. Have you ever seen a biker-leather dude who didn’t have a massive beard – at least a goatee? And finally, nearly every artistic rendering of John the Baptist sticks a good, healthy beard on his chin (see samples above). So it was John, complete with desert-preacher lifestyle and full chinstrap, who prepared the way of the coming Lord.

If John is the embodiment of Advent, then it could also be said that John’s beard was the embodiment of the Advent Beard.

It was from that bearded face that John preached. It was from the hair-hidden mouth that he proclaimed the coming Messiah. A booming call to repentance brought his listeners to confession of sin, and water dripped from grisly whiskers as he baptized people in the river Jordan. It is John whom Isaiah prophesied; it was John who readied Judea and Jerusalem; and it was John of whom Jesus said “I tell you, among those born of women non is greater than John” (Luke 7:28).

But John the Baptist, like Isaiah and so many bearded men before him, was not the ultimate end; even this one who was the greatest of all men was not supreme. “After me comes he who is mightier than I,” said John of his cousin Jesus. John and his beard; Isaiah and his beard; and even the apostles, church fathers, early believers, and their beards afterward, existed not for themselves or for their own beards. Instead, they all pointed toward One who was coming, and who will come again; One mightier than themselves; One whose glory far surpassed their own; One who was ultimate in God’s plan. To Christ they pointed; Christ they served; and it was Christ whose mission they existed to carry out, in the world and in their lives.

From these great bearded examples of old, we learn our own place in God’s story. Like John the bearded Baptist, we point to Christ. Like John’s bristle-surrounded mouth, our voices point to the One who is most worthy of our words and our praise. And, especially during this time of preparation of the celebration of Christmas – but really all year long! – our very lives exist to point toward Jesus and to clear the path for his coming, to do his work and to accomplish his purposes in us. Thus, in both our current beards and in our continual lives, let us model ourselves after John the Baptist, as we dwell, faces covered, in the wilderness of this world, to prepare the way of the Lord this Advent season.