Repent

"John is unnerving, as all prophets of repentance are.  The story goes that when a commissioned statue of John the Baptist arrived as a certain Benedictine abbey in the United States some 50 years ago, several of the monks did not like the fact that he looked so unnaturally gaunt and grave.  The abbot is said to have remarked, 'I suspect that the reason you don't like it is that it reminds you of a life you abandoned long ago.'  Whether apocryphal or not, the story points us to a man unwavering in his demand for repentance."

Peter Feldmeier