What do we know about St. John the Baptist?

Question:

What do we know about St. John the Baptist?

Answer:

We know quite a lot about John the Baptist from the Gospels and other historical sources. John was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth through a graced post-menopausal conception (Luke 1). John would have been raised with an intimate knowledge of Jewish doctrine and religious practice, due to his father being a Levite priest. Elizabeth is a “kinswoman” of Mary. While not in the same nuclear family, the two were close enough that Mary would journey to spend several months with Elizabeth during her pregnancy. We don’t know how close John and Jesus were as children, but they certainly knew of one another as cousins.

Luke 3 tells us he began his ministry in “the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberias Caesar,” roughly 29 A.D. He lived as a hermit with clear ascetic practices, such as rough clothing and a simple vegetarian diet. Despite his remoteness, John’s ministry was prophetic. People came from across the region to be baptized in water as a sign of repentance. John, however, continually pointed beyond himself to the one who was to come: Jesus Christ. John the Baptist’s call to repentance extended to the rules of his day. John critiqued the local rulers, Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias. Previously, Herodias had been married to Antipas’ brother, Herod Philip, but had betrayed him, left him, and married his more powerful brother. John was arrested for the slight and was eventually executed (Mark 6). This martyrdom prophetically anticipates the trials that awaited Christ and his followers. In life and death, John the Baptist served as the herald of the Messiah.

©LPi