Because you know that there will be a commercial (see yesterday’s post for context), right? Church always has a commercial. There will always be an offering, always be a request for money for some program, some building, some candy. But if you think that John the Baptist is about branding, it’s going to be for some odd health-food diet and natural clothing line.

John, Mark says, wore clothing that was woven somehow from the coarse hair of camels, tied around the waist with a leather belt. We read about people putting on sackcloth and ashes for mourning, John had the sackcloth part all the time. And he ate what he could scrounge, locusts and honey.

As a character, he was oddly compelling, the guy on “Survivor” that is so strange you want to keep watching to see him self-destruct. But when Isaiah wrote about John, he wasn’t interested in his clothing. He was interested in his voice. Isaiah said that God was sending a messenger ahead of someone called “the Lord.” The people Mark was talking to would have immediately seen a problem with Mark’s use of Isaiah.

Isaiah was a prophet. He spent time talking to kings. A messenger, for Isaiah, would have been the guy with a trumpet announcing the coming of the King. A messenger would have been royal, would have been like the advance man for the president’s campaign, with all the authority and prestige of the person who was coming. A messenger would have dressed in a suit or robes or a uniform. A messenger of the king wouldn’t have dressed like a wildman. Unless this kingdom was different than every kingdom ever.

A few lines into the book of Mark and we are promised a story with ancient roots and counter-cultural kingdom values.

I think we need to keep reading.