Who are you?  How would you answer that question?  When John the Baptist was asked, he gave an unexpected answer.  He could have said he was Elijah or the Prophet.  Jesus later declared that he was.  However he chose to point to one who was greater.  It wasn’t that he suffered from low self esteem or insecurity.  John knew who he was!

 

Not only did John know who he was, he knew why he had come.  His mission was to point men and women to one who was greater – to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the one who takes away the sin of the world and baptizes with the Holy Spirit.  Yes, the Son of God.  John’s longing was to see Jesus revealed in his generation.

 

We use words to express our thoughts and feelings.  They reveal who we are.  Often though, our words are filtered through our fears and insecurities, so we hide our true selves.

 

God is so different!  He never hides truth.  He has perfectly expressed who he is, not only through words he has spoken to men, but through the one who is called ‘the Word’.  We read this in the first verse of the Gospel of John.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Who is the Word?  Yes, it is Jesus.  That is clearly shown to us in verse 14, where it tells us that the Word became a human being and he lived on earth as one of us.

 

“Help, I’m sinking!”  Have you ever felt like that?  Peter did.  He is with his friends in their fishing boat when a storm blows across the lake.  They see someone coming towards them in the darkness and think it is a ghost.

 

As soon as Peter realizes who it is, he calls out.  “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”  At that moment Peter isn’t being logical.  He is led by his heart.  Why didn’t Jesus say, “Just wait, I’m coming to you?”  I believe Jesus is delighted when we want to come to him.

 

There is a valuable lesson we can learn about faith here.  Faith may seem foolish and irrational, but true faith is based on a word from Jesus.  Peter says, “if you tell me.”  Jesus replies, “Come.”