Consider John the Baptist: He was a fiery preacher who frew great crowds ... and then everything fell apart.
- Jesus, whom John had hoped would be the promised Messiah, seemed to be moving in a different direction from what John anticipated. Jesus seemed to be "wasting" his time curing people who were crippled and blind and deaf.
- John was arrested and thrown into jail. If Jesus was the Messiah, something wasn't working. The Romans were still in control and there had been no great shift in power.
- Then there was John's death, as senseless as a driveby shooting: Killed for the price of a dance, because of a king who got drunk at a party and made a promise to a teenage girl ... killed by some guard who grumbled about having to get up late and go chop off the head of someone he didn't even know.
This does not appear to be the stuff of greatness. But Jesus said that John was one of the greatest who ever lived.
Where did this greatness come from?
John the Baptist tried to do what was given him to do, and do it for God, and do it with God.
And when your efforts, insignificant as they may seem to be, are connected with God. You are involved in something colossal, something great.
- Little Blue Book, Diocese of Saginaw