I wanna be like John!

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember the ad slogan in the 90’s, “I wanna be like Mike!”  The Mike being referenced was the legendary basketball star Michael Jordan.  The product being advertised was Gatorade and the premise was if you drank Gatorade you could play ball like Mike.  As I reflected on today’s gospel (Matthew 11:11-15) that slogan came back to me, but instead of Mike I’ve been thinking, “I wanna be like John”.

John the Baptist was a central leader and prophet in his time.  He had many followers, some of whom would later become Jesus’s disciples.  He had what might be considered rockstar status for his day and age.  However, when Jesus enters the scene John steps aside.  He understands that Jesus is the true prophet.  He has the humility to understand that all the preaching, baptizing, traveling around the country wasn’t about him, it was about Jesus.  He helped to pave the way for Jesus’ message to be heard.

Yep, I wanna be like John.  I want to be humble enough to listen to God’s voice.  I want to be like John and get out of my own way and let Jesus work His wonder in my life.  I want to be like John and spread light and goodness in this world.  I wanna be like John.

As we pray throughout this Advent season let’s play ball like John the Baptist.  In doing so we’ll be preparing ourselves to receive our most precious gift, Jesus the Savior.