The Holy Spirit Came Down On My Cousin Like a Bird
Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. And I did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining – this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.”
John 1:32–34 NET Read More
In the Gospel of Luke, we get the back story on John the Baptist. His birth was miraculous and surrounded with miraculous signs from God. In the womb, John went berserk when his mom’s cousin Mary came to visit with Jesus in her womb. If you keep track of what kinds of cousins are which like an Evansville West-sider, that would make John and Jesus second cousins. So why isn’t that mentioned anywhere else? And how could John say “I did not recognize Him?”
(C’mon John, we’re cousins!)
Different cultures count family in different ways, and this is probably what is in play here. I lived in a Muslim culture where men had multiple wives. The term “step-mom” wasn’t used, because in no way were those other women my friends’ mothers. Those women were their dad’s wives and what we would call “half-sisters” they called “sisters.” They didn’t have 2 and 3 cousins, because they didn’t care about those details, but they had different words for maternal grandpa and paternal grandpa.
Cultures show what matters to them via their language, and that was what mattered there.
John knew Jesus, but for an unknown, possibly long span of time, he hadn’t been around. He was out in the wilderness baptizing and preaching. We don’t really know how long John was out there, but he got enough attention that the highest religious office in Jerusalem and the reigning king of the region all heard his teachings. Crowds had come out to him to be baptized and many people had become his disciples.
God prepared him for what was to come. John knew that at some point the Messiah would come out of that crowd and make Himself visible. He didn’t know already who it was, but he knew how he would know the person when it happened. The Holy Spirit, which typically shows up as a cloud or fire, would come down and stay on the one that was the Messiah. It wasn’t a dove, but it came down like a dove comes down and rested on Jesus.
John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit move as clearly as we can see a bird land in our yard. However the Holy Spirit showed up, as fire, light, fog, cloud, or whatever, it came down and rested and stayed on Jesus. That was the confirmation for John. That was the signal that the long-awaited Messiah was standing in the Jordan river in Israel.
God had shown up among His people, and whether He was a cousin, a 2 cousin, or a 1 cousin once removed, didn’t matter anymore. This man was the Lamb of God that came to take away the sins of the world.
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