Probably you or I would not have been drawn to the preaching of John the Baptist. A man clothed in camel's hair and wild animal's skins and subsisting on a diet of locusts and wild honey out in the wilderness would not seem to have much to say about the way we live our lives. His appearance was eccentric. His preaching was dreadfully morbid "all about sin and repentance" calling people snakes and warning them of the wrath that was to come. We like our sins treated more gently. Preferably we would like them mentioned not at all.

Two things may surprise us. One is how popular John the Baptist was in his own time. The other is his prominence in the drama of the first Christmas.

As to his popularity, Mark tells us, "all the people of the Judaean countryside and everyone in Jerusalem went out…