Sand And Surf     03/25/23

Sebastian Inlet State Park, Melbourne Beach, Florida

In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the Desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”  This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling int the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’ ~ Matthew 3:1-3     Matthew chooses the ‘one, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred’ approach now as he jumps ahead about 30 years.  You can find a smidgen more information if you check out the Gospel of Luke, but no one tackled Jesus’ life from toddler to adulthood, except for the one incident Luke shares about Mary and Joseph losing track of him for three days (can you just imagine the panic!) when, at age twelve, Jesus chose to stay behind during a trip to Jerusalem.  Now for the actual passage.  John is Jesus’ older-by-six-months cousin, born to Zechariah and Elizabeth when there was no way Elizabeth could have children (again, look to Luke for details).  John was chosen from birth to be the herald of the Messiah.  His job is simple, but not easy.  He’s to become the procession that comes ahead of the King announcing His arrival and get the people ready to receive Him.  In other words, his job is to begin softening people’s hearts to turn from their sin so Jesus can come in.  People loved John, but the Jewish leadership didn’t.  Still, they tolerated him and never persecuted him or plotted to have him killed like they did Jesus.  At least not until John ticked off Herod’s wife.  But that’s a story for a later date.

There’s not a lot to report today.  Unless you count the spectacular more-than-an-hour walk along a beautiful, nearly deserted beach! 

Oh!  And once we managed to pull ourselves away from that, we biked over to the pier and watched people and birds fishing in vain.  Maybe the array of photographers had better luck.

The water here is so beautiful!  It’s hard to take your eyes off it!  Pictures could never do it justice!