You can't blame John. After all, he's in prison. In prison. Let those two little words sink in. He's in prison. A not so nice place to be. In prison. The very man who had attracted a flurry of attention in recent years because of his no-holds-barred announcements of a new world order that was just around the corner; this one, this man, this fiery preacher who shook up everything and everyone with his blazing rhetoric about kingdom come; this John, this man, this preacher is in prison. In prison. And he's got a question. He's in prison where you have nothing but time to think and so John's has come up with a question. But the person to whom he wants to pose that question isn't there and hasn't visited him lately, either. So John dispatches a cadre of his friends to go to Galilee, track down his cousin Jesus, and confront him with the question which was tormenting John there in prison.

"Are you the one, or should we be expecting someone else one of these here days?" This is a question borne of let-down. John's in prison. In prison, which is the last place he ever thought he'd end up. If Elizabeth could see him now, she would die of embarrassment, John thought.

John was in prison. And as the days and weeks passed, it became increasingly clear that Jesus was not going to do anything to get John OUT of prison. No political revolution was on the horizon which could lead to John's release and pardon by the new emperor named Jesus. Plus, Jesus was not baptizing anybody, not even with water much less by fire. In fact, even though John had heard many reports and rumors and prison gossip about what Jesus was doing way out in the sticks of Galilee, the simple fact of the matter was that Jesus was out in the sticks of Galilee, quietly performing a ministry which no one in their wildest imagination would describe as fiery or revolutionary.