Did you ever see something that took you by surprise and you did a “double-take”? You know, you looked once as you were walking and then it hit you, and you stopped, because you had to give it another, more lingering look. I believe this is what John is telling us when the Gospel writer records: “I knew him not…” (John 1:31). John repeats this in verse-33. He was astonished that he did not know the Messiah without seeing the Father’s sign that the Holy Spirit would descend and remain upon the One who was to come.
I believe the fact that John didn’t know Jesus without seeing the sign from God was very troubling to him. You see, John was no different than anyone else who looked for the coming of God’s Anointed. He **knew** how the Messiah should act, and he had his own idea concerning the Messiah’s work. Yet, after John was put in prison, and he heard reports of Jesus’ ministry that he actually assisted Roman citizens (Matthew 8:5-13) and even exalted their faith over that of his Jewish brethren, John sent his disciples to him, asking if he were truly the Messiah (Matthew 11:2-6). I believe John was ready to die for his testimony, but I don’t believe John expected to die in prison. I think John believed Jesus—the Messiah—would rescue him in due time. When Jesus’ works didn’t fit John’s traditional understanding of how the Messiah would act, he did what we all do—he first questioned God rather than his own understanding of God, but John was told, just as the scriptures tell all of us: “Look at the fruits or results of my labor. Those, who are truly blessed, are they who are not offended in me!” In other words, rather than question God, question our own traditions—what we have come to believe **about** God. Jesus’ reply satisfied John, and he glorified God in his suffering and death.
Jesus’ testimony of John was that there was none born of woman that was greater than he. Yet, John didn’t recognize Jesus without heaven pointing him out! Imagine John’s astonishment! He was serving God in a manner unsurpassed by anyone before or after him, yet he did not recognize God’s Messiah, until God pointed him out! Do we really see what this means? It adds clarity to Jesus’ own words that no one is able to come to him without the Father drawing that one to Jesus (John 6:44). There is absolutely nothing about Jesus that anyone of us could point to on the surface that would say: “Yes, he is the Anointed of God!” (Isaiah 53:2). The fact is, if Isaiah 53 truly points to Jesus, it shows that our understanding would be that Jesus got what was coming to him.
The text says that the Word, who is God and the Creator of all that is, came into the world, and the world didn’t recognize him. He came to his especially blessed people, and neither did they know who he was. What makes any of us believe that we—of and by ourselves—would know Jesus without God opening our eyes to who he truly is? It takes a miracle from God, folks, to know Jesus. Do you understand the miracle that was performed in your own life, if you truly know him? For you to recognize Jesus would be like John’s vision of the Holy Spirit coming down and remaining upon Jesus. Your understanding and my understanding of who Jesus is, is just that important. It takes a miracle! We may be astonished with the ignorance of others, concerning Jesus’ identity, because it is so clear to us, but we need to remember what God did to us in order for us to have this understanding. It is easy to fall into the trap of questioning God rather than our own traditions or our own beliefs about God, but we need to guard against this. We need, rather, to go to the scriptures and let God, through them, lead us into a full understanding of Jesus, and trust his Spirit in you that he is able to do so.
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