We are not Messiahs, so relax.

John the Baptist, that crazy fella with hella hair, eating bugs and dunking people in rivers. An odd sense of fashion. You all know him, he's in the Bible. Cousin of Jesus.

John was one of those preachers who was so popular that people kept asking him if he was the Messiah, the chosen one who would save God's people from oppression and usher in a new age.

I love John's answer: I am not the Messiah, but there is a Messiah to come. And there's a lesson here for all of us. We are not Messiahs, we are not going to save everyone, but that doesn't mean that we sit around and do nothing. And just to get it out of my system, Brian is not the Messiah either, man I love Monty Python.

The way that I find helpful to understand what John did, and what we are to do, is with art. There's a famous work called The Treachery of Images, by Magritte. Most people know it as 'This is not a pipe'.

Now if I were one of those artsy types I would undoubtedly say something about meta messages and paralanguage and some of us would understand what I was saying. But I am a pop-theologian, and I just want us to think about how this image looks a lot like a pipe, but it isn't one. And how John the Dunker looks a lot like a Messiah, but isn't one.

I mean, just look at the picture, it sure does look like a pipe doesn't it. But what can you do with a pipe that you can't do with this picture? You can't stuff it with tobacco for a start, and once you set light to it, it's gone forever. I can no more smoke this painting than I can walk to the moon. So for all intent and purpose, this really isn't a pipe. But it sure does look like one.

Just seeing this painting reminds me of my grandfather, an avid pipe smoker. I remember him falling asleep in his armchair, pipe hanging out of his mouth, a dummy/pacifier for senior citizens. He would only wake up when his lips lost their grip and hot ash would tip onto his shirt, much to the chagrin of my grandmother who eventually gave up trying to stitch the holes in his cardigans where the burn marks were.

For you, you might get a whole load of different memories and emotions from seeing this painting. Maybe you're imagining yourselves as Sherlock Holmes, solving some case of a missing diamond. Maybe you're thinking that if you smoked a pipe you would affect the wisdom of Gandalf and dash off on some mad adventure to save Middle-Earth. Images are important, they speak to us in so many ways, and those ways are as individual as we are.

But no matter how much Magritte evokes feelings of pipedom (is that even a word?), this is not a pipe. It doesn't do the very thing pipes are intended to do.

And so it is with John the Baptist, and us too. Jesus saved the world, He's even better than Gandalf in that respect. He ushered in a new way of living, a kingdom of peace and love and all that stuff, and that is His alone, we cannot do that. What we can do though is what Magritte is doing here, we should be the best example of what a Messiah looks like. People should see and hear us, people should live among us, and have every sensation that they are with the Messiah.

I am not the Messiah, I'm a very naughty boy. And that takes all the pressure off me. I don't have to save the world, I don't have to break new ground in the Kingdom of God, that stuff has already been done. And you don't have to do any of that stuff either. The only thing we have to do is point the way to One who has. Simples.

That was all that John the Baptist was doing, he was a herald, a signpost.

There's a Greek phrase for all this that theologians use: Kerygma. It means exactly that, a herald or a signpost. John didn't have to change the world, just point the way to One who would.

So kick your sandals off and relax. Stop thinking of yourselves as Messiahs and just enjoy casual conversations with people where you can drop in that Jesus has made a way for a different type of living. A life of love and peace and reconciliation. You can't do it yourself.

And like a signpost, just be aware that some people will ignore you. Maybe they think there's a shortcut down some country lane with single file traffic. That's not on you, trust me, relax. As long as you're giving a fair representation of a pipe, or a Messiah, you're doing enough.

And who knows, maybe more very naughty boys will be mistaken for Messiahs. And maybe crazy hair and eating bugs will come back into vogue.