Mark 1:4-8 (NIV)
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [5] The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. [6] John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. [7] And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. [8] I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

So we Christians struggle with waistlines and our answers over the years have been biblical diets– the Daniel diet, the Eden diet…we scour the pages of the Good Book looking for guidelines for weight loss. But I have yet to see rise of the “John the Baptist” diet. I am pretty sure he was rail thin and that I would be too if it was all foraging in the desert for bugs and honey!

The wilderness, the loneliness, the uncomfortable crunchiness of exoskeleton. The meaningfulness of the way John lived is impossible to ignore. He was passionately sold out. He held nothing back.

People don’t cotton to the voices of prophets. They are often lonely folk. They do not tell us what we want to hear, they tell us the truth. The truth can drive a man to lonely places.

The truth is we are broken, messed up sheep. We are communal insects. We have laid our world bare to death, sin, and pain. The prophet shouts these things unsparingly in the loneliest of places.

Then God walks in…