In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caedar, Pontious Pilate was the governor of Judea, Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was the tetrarch of Iturae, the region of Trachonitis, and Lysania was the tetrarch of Abilene. And thank you thank you for playing who is your roman ruler! Annas and Caiaphas were high priests when the when the word of God came to John in the wilderness.
John came to the country around Jordan preaching about baptism and repentance to lessen sins. It’s just like Esaia the prophet foretold about the one voice in the crying in the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord and make his paths strait! And every valley will be filled and mountains brought low, crooked is made strait, and rough will be made smooth and all flesh will see the salvation of God. Oh yay! No more long winding pretty walks huh? Or waterfalls?
A big group came to be baptized. John was kind of rude to them. He sees them and calls them snakes and asks them how the know the flee from the wrath that’s coming! Way to sweet talk them Johnny. So bring out the fruits worthy to repent and don’t think you’re so special because you are children of Abraham. God is so awesome he could take these stones and make them into children of Abraham. It’s time to cut down the trees that don’t bear fruit and throw them in the fire! Yay those trees are useless and you definitely couldn’t use their wood to make things with.
Oh no what will we do! John tells them if you have two coats, give one to someone who needs a coat. I am looking in my closet and I have at least ten coats. Oops. If you have meat, you should share it too. Some publicans came to be baptized, asking Master, what should we do? So Johnny tells them not to take more taxes than are fair. Soldiers asked him the same, and he told them to do no violence, don’t falsely accuse anyone, and be happy with your pay. Um they are soldiers they might need to be violent sometimes, to protect other people, and maybe they are underpaid.
Well, the people were really excited by John, they must have sensed the Holy Ghost in this guy because they asked he was Christ was or not. They kind of expected him to be the Christ. John tells them that he will baptize them with water, but someone is coming who is far mightier than him. John thinks he’s not even fit to latch this guy’s shoes! This guy will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with Fire! He will burn the chaff form the wheat! And he preached many other things to the people.
Along the way Johnny offended Herod the tetrarch by scolding him for marrying his brother’s ex-wife, and for all of the evils that Herod (his dad, Herod the baby killer from Matthew) did. Herod the tetrarch was not too pleased with John the Baptist so he tosses him in jail.
When all the people were baptized Jesus was also baptized, the heavens opened up and the Holy Ghost came down in the form of a dove and a voice from the heavens and said “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.”
About this time Jesus was about thirty years old. Which actually puts John the Baptist at about the same age, since he’s about five months older than JC. But you know they always portray John the Baptist looking so much older than JC.
Okay, so Jesus was supposed to be the son Joseph, but we know the truth. But even though JC wasn’t really Joseph’s son it’s really important that we show you a huge list of names, showing Joseph’s lineage. Because outside of the beginning of the Gospel we never hear about the guy again. So I’m not really sure why we need this, And by the way a patrilineal line is not terribly reliable, it’s pretty akin to hearsay it would have been smarter to go matrilineal. So it traces Joseph’s line right back up to Adam the son of God. And there were a lot more names in this list than Matthews, and different names too. Although I noticed Noah wasn’t on the list, and I thought everyone did in the flood except for Noah’s family? Whatever I’m not going to bore you with a huge list of names. Unless you ask nicely.
No thanks on the names list. But, I'm with you, I don't get it at all. Why do we care who is in Joseph's family? Isn't God JC's daddy, that's what they keep telling us. Isn't Joseph just some nobody, who happened to be married to Jesus' mom? Shouldn't we learn Mary's lineage, and I though Judaism traced lineage matrilineal because it's the only way you can be sure. (That's right folks, not all sweet innocent girls are faithful to their husbands... and some don't even let them know! OMG!)
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