Luke provides an extraordinarily detailed list of the public officials who were in office when John and Jesus began their work. The names of Pontius Pilate and of Herod the tetrarch are easily recognised here. Luke demonstrates that John the Baptist and Jesus enter into the real world of history, a world in which power and position dominate events.
John’s work is to travel around the region near the Jordan river, proclaiming ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. With his baptism John challenges the people to a new start, a change of heart, and to seek the forgiveness of God. If they respond, they will be ready to welcome the Messiah.
At the end of this gospel passage the evangelist gives a lengthy quotation from the book of Isaiah, which Christians consider to have been fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah. We have come to identify the voice in the wilderness with the voice of John. The whole of creation is described as getting ready for the coming of the Lord. Finally, ‘all mankind shall see the salvation of God’. Luke makes clear that the Messiah comes to offer salvation to all nations.