The story of John, the disciple of Jesus
The story of John, the disciple of Jesus, who was left behind in Judea, comes in the context of Jesus returning to Judea from the Gentile regions of Greece, and being hailed at the gates of Jerusalem.
Luke's Gospel gives us a brief account of the return of Jesus to Jerusalem, and then follows the journey of John the Baptist, who at this point in the narrative we might call a John Mark type of character. John the Baptist was born a leper, and from this character he became identified as one who spoke with the authority and authority of the coming of the Messiah, even as Jesus was the prophesied prophet who was to prepare the way for the Messiah. John the Baptist was raised a Pharisee, like Jesus and unlike his friends, Pharisees. He was baptized in the Jordan river by the prophet Jeremiah, and then proclaimed and baptized in the Jordan river by Jesus. Like Paul, John was called by God the Father to prepare for the coming Messiah. He was put out of commission by Herod, and by the time of the Gospel writers he had been killed, and beheaded. This is in a sense parallel to the death of Saint Paul, where John the Baptist is in an analogous manner to Paul the apostle. In the Gospel of Luke, we learn that John the Baptist came out of the district of Decapolis in Samaria to go to the Judean region of the south, and from there to Jerusalem to await the Parousia, or Return of the Messiah. We also read in the Gospel of Luke about the appearance of John the Baptist and Jesus together in Galilee, which is the area to the north of Judea, around the Sea of Galilee. John the Baptist's appearance at this time was for the purpose of confronting the Pharisees, and he announced that the Kingdom of God was at hand, a Kingdom he proclaimed was inaugurated by the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. "The Baptist spoke of the Kingdom of God, that is, the present reign of Christ; and also of the end of the reign, when he should come to judge the living and the dead. And all men do not acknowledge John, but Jesus Christ, who is the Savior of the world." (Tertullian, AD 155-240) In this brief account of Luke's Gospel, we get a sense of the Baptist in the context of Luke having left behind the story of Jesus in Judea and moved north, to the region of Galilee and north of Judea, to the Jordan River. This is not a journey of faith and belief in Christ, it is a journey of confrontation, of confrontation with the Pharisees, and it is a mission that includes the purpose of calling the people of Judea and the Jerusalem region to become Christians, to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. John the Baptist, like Jesus and Paul, was a witness to the Kingdom of God and a witness to the coming of Jesus to prepare the way for the Kingdom of God and the coming of the Messiah. The Gospel of John begins with the appearance of John the Baptist at the Jordan river by the invitation of Jesus, who was himself baptized there by John, and also there present was the Samaritan woman at the well, called 'Samaritan' because she came from that Samaritan community to the north of Judea. John the Baptist had come to prepare the people of Judea, and in turn, the people of Judea were preparing themselves for the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist was a contemporary figure who was prophesied by Isaiah the prophet to come back at the Day of the Lord. His story was similar to that of Elijah, the figure in the Old Testament, who was also associated with the Day of the Lord. "And John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven