Who Are You?

This is the testimony of John.
When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to him to ask him, “Who are you?”
He admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, “I am not the Christ.”
So they asked him, “What are you then? Are you Elijah?”
And he said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
So they said to him, “Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us?
What do you have to say for yourself?”
He said: “I am the voice of one crying out in the desert,
‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”
Some Pharisees were also sent.
They asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet?”
John answered them, “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.”
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

John 1:19-28

Who are you?

We struggle with this all of our lives – and we define ourselves in so many ways:
My parents are….
I am a (profession)….
I live in …..
I am a (religion/organization/etc)….
A disease or a challenge may define us.

In today’s scripture John starts out by saying who he is not. Especially in our young adult years, we do a lot of that, struggling to find our own identity.

It takes looking into others’ eyes, especially those of God, to see who we really are.

All the things that happen to us help to make us who we are but at the deepest core of us, we are created and loved by God. That is our deepest identity.

From there we figure out how we are to be “the voice of one crying out in the desert: Make straight the way of the Lord.” If we aren’t doing that, we haven’t figured out who we truly are.

For Journaling….

Who are you?

How do you look into God’s eyes to see who you are?

How do you proclaim God in your life?

What do you hear God saying to you?