John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, the first cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, it is not his close family relation to Jesus that is the most important thing about John. In fact, there are three other things about John that are far more important. First, John was a prophet. We are told in the Gospels that he wore a garment of camel’s hair—the traditional garb of a Jewish prophet in the Old Testament era. He spent much time in the wilderness—in desert places—as had prophets like Elijah and Amos before him.

Moreover, John’s message was a message very much in keeping with the prophetic tradition—and he spoke again and again about the greatest Old Testament prophet, Isaiah—applying Isaiah’s description “a voice crying in the wilderness” to himself. John was someone who understood and respected the past, someone who was steeped in the religious traditions of his people.

John respected the past, but he was not a prisoner of it. He was very much a man of his own day, a man of the present. If he was first of all a prophet, he was secondly a reformer.

As many of the prophets had before him, John railed against his own generation for their hypocrisy, their complacency, and their injustice. He called them “a brood of vipers.” But he didn’t just call them names; he called them to repent, to change their ways, to reform their lives. He insisted that they do more than give lip service to the commandments; they must live the commandments! They must do more than act piously in the synagogues; they must pray fervently and with devotion. Their charity must be generous and sacrificial.

And to top it all off, John asked them to make a public declaration of their sins, strip off their clothes, and undergo a baptism of repentance in front of their friends and neighbors.

Finally, this prophet, rooted in the traditions of the past; this reformer, sensitive to the needs of the present—was a leader who pointed to the future—to the one who was to come—to the one whose sandal strap he was not worthy to loosen. That one to come would baptize not just with water, but with fire and the Holy Spirit. John called Him the Lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world.

Even now, centuries after John’s death, he continues to speak to us with his Advent voice. He reminds us that we must respect our past and know our traditions. He challenges us to meet the demands of the present with courage; as he did in his day, we must confront a culture of death with the gospel of life.

Finally, John points us forward to Christ Jesus who leads us on the path of righteousness into all truth. Past, present, future—John teaches us in summer and winter—that Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In that sense, John the Baptist truly is a man for all seasons.