It is mentioned in several Gospels, but John had this clear choice to make: accept Jesus and be willing to hand his ministry over to Jesus, or keep going with gusto to "beat" Jesus in terms of followership. And John consistently does what is right. This passage is no different. It can be tough, once one gets a taste of success, to walk away from it. Far more difficult is it to walk the pathway of obedience and simply receive what God has given us.
Far too often, the world we live in is designed like a factory. As long as you are producing high quantity of product, you are fine. But if the product decreases, then there must be something wrong. Jesus' own ministry reveals this belief as error, when His teachings grew His ministry from thousands to twelve. It is easy to relate faithfulness to numeric success- churches do it all the time. The churches that grow the fastest and to the greatest numbers produce the resources so that we can do what they did. And this isn't always wrong, because there are many lessons we could learn from these churches.
Today, though, I invite us to reflect on our lives as John did. What excited John was not the numeric success of ministry, but the approaching Savior. Is that what we can celebrate today?
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