In John 1 we were introduced to John the Baptist, verses 6-7 described him this way: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.” There are two important things to remember about John the Baptist, he was sent by God to point to the Son of God. John preached and baptized to repentance, he declared openly and often that he was not the Christ but that there was One coming after him that was greater, that while he baptized with water, the One who followed him would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. As the gospels tell us, John was the voice crying in the wilderness, he was the witness, the forerunner, the one chosen and sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. I love everything about John the Baptist, his edge and his fire, his zeal and excitement, his humility and wonder, even his fragility and doubt, in my mind, he is one of the most important people in the story of the gospel. He didn’t just make a way for Jesus, he led the way to Jesus, he wasn’t just the last of the prophets, in many ways he was the first of the apostles, he wasn’t just an oracle, he was also a witness. John didn’t just speak for God, he was also watching to see God. According to John’s own witness in John 1:32-34, when Jesus walked into the water to be baptized, John hadn’t known He was the Messiah, he said “I did not know Him.” We know that John and Jesus were cousins, so I’m not sure if John was saying that he had never met Jesus before or that he had never known that Jesus was the Messiah, but in any case, the day Jesus walked into the water was a day like any other day for John, preaching, baptizing, waiting and watching, and then, in an instant, he saw what he had been watching and waiting for and his message changed from “There is one coming” to “He is here! Behold the Lamb of God!” What we discover today is that sometimes our traditions and expectations become so much a part of our identity that when we see what we have waited for we are unsure and possibly even unwilling, to let go, to move forward and to take hold of that which is set before us. John the Baptist had a clear message that was heard and believed by many, but when the fulfillment of his message came, many struggled to accept and rejoice over it because the Message looked a bit different than the messenger and they suddenly realized that to go with Jesus would mean they would have to leave from John. Today I pray that we will be convicted of the places where we are holding our traditions too tightly and challenged to release our own “John the Baptists”, the seasons of our lives in which God is preparing us for His plans and sustaining us with His promises, so that we can give thanks for what has been and press on into what has yet to be. This is the hard part that we all face multiple times, the only way to truly go with Jesus is to say goodbye to John.