Both Elijah and John the Baptist not only had shared doubts, but they probably looked similar too! Both were Wilderness Men - wearing who knows what and eating who knows what. They were likely hairy men, bearded with a rough appearance. They spent much of their days out in the wild. They would be men that we would not naturally, on first appearance, go toward. In fact, we would go toward them only if we needed to. Doesn't that fit! If I was walking down the street and saw a hairy man with leathery skin and a booming voice ahead of me, I would calculate how to get around him. Not wearing the refined clothing of the day or of the cities, he displays an appearance of being outside the normal hum of life. He does not fit in my circle.
As we look upon John the Baptist, we do not feel the tug on our pant leg while our child says - "Daddy, please take me to the wild, dark, smelly, hairy, loud, harsh looking man! I want to meet him." It is not our first inclination to go toward a man like this. It is not our first inclination to go toward John the Baptist. It is not our first inclination to go toward repentance. But it is to the unknown, to the scary looking man, to whom we must go. We must go out to meet him.
John finally declares who he is to the Jewish inquisitors. He is -
"the voice of one crying in the wilderness" John 1:23
