John the Baptist had been thrown into prison by King Herod.
John’s disciples kept him updated on what Jesus was teaching and the miracles that He was working.
John sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus,
“Are you the Messiah we have been expecting or should we be looking for someone else?”
John the Baptist’s disciples found Jesus and they asked him,
“Jesus, are you the Messiah we have been expecting or should we be looking for someone else?”
Jesus did not immediately answer the question.
As the disciples of John the Baptist waited for an answer Jesus cured many diseases, healed those with the plague, cast out demons and restored sight to the blind.
Jesus then turned to the disciples of John the Baptist who were amazed by the miracles they had just witnessed with their own eyes and answered them by saying,
“Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have good news preached to them. Tell John that blessed is the person who finds no reason to disbelieve in me.”
When John’s messengers left, Jesus began to teach the crowds regarding John the Baptist.
Jesus asked,
“What did you go out in the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?
A man dressed in expensive clothes?
Those who are finely dressed are in kings’ houses.
What did you expect to see? A prophet?
Yes, I tell you that John the Baptist was much more than a prophet.
He was the one the prophets wrote about when they said,
‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, and he will prepare the way ahead of you.‘
The truth that you need to understand is that of all born of women there has never been a prophet greater than John the Baptist, and yet the most humble and least important person in the coming kingdom is greater than he.”
All the common people who heard this praised God, acknowledging God’s wisdom in sending John to baptize in order that men might repent and get ready for the kingdom.
But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the whole idea that John’s baptism was necessary or important.
