Original subtitles

[dramatic music]

♪

- The story of Jesus is the greatest story ever told.

It helped shape western culture.

male narrator: Teacher.

Leader.

Savior.

- Lazarus, come out.

I am the resurrection and the life.

narrator: One of the most influential

figures in history.

- Jesus says the current world is wrong,

and we need to change it now.

- Get out! [shouts]

- Where is he? - After him!

- Jesus was potentially a threat to the Roman Empire.

narrator: For over 2,000 years,

the story of Jesus Christ

has touched the lives of billions around the globe.

- [screams]

- Jesus felt what we felt.

He faced what we face today.

♪

narrator: Though much is known about Jesus and the age

in which he lived,

he continues to inspire new insights today.

♪

- If we want to understand western history, at all,

we must understand the story of Jesus.

narrator: Now, for the first time,

his story is told through the eyes of those

who knew him best.

♪

♪

[soft music]

♪

- My name is Joseph.

I'm leaving the home I love,

to save my son.

His name is Jesus.

Before he was born,

I didn't know the dangers he would face.

[dramatic music]

[shouting]

- Ahh!

[indistinct chatter]

- On the eve of Jesus' birth, the Roman Empire--

it's expanding rapidly.

It's essentially the great superpower.

♪

- Rome's brought peace and culture to the world,

but it's also an incredibly ruthless master.

It destroys any opposition.

- In the east of the Roman Empire,

in the ancient Jewish homeland of Judea,

the Romans have established a brutal client king

named Herod the Great,

and the Jewish people are far from happy.

Rumors of a coming Messiah are everywhere,

as predicted in the Old Testament.

♪

- In the years before the birth of Jesus,

I had plans to make a life for myself.

A simple one.

♪

All I wanted was to work, raise a family,

build a house in Nazareth for the woman I loved,

and I couldn't wait for my wedding day.

- The Joseph of the New Testament

is an extraordinary person.

He plays an incredibly important part.

- You're not finished? - Yeah.

Could do with that water, though.

- Aw, come on. Thought you'd be done by now.

- Uh-huh.

- Joseph is from Bethlehem of Judea.

This is just outside of Jerusalem.

When we meet him in the Gospel of Luke, however,

he's living in Nazareth 100 miles to the north.

The traditional story that everybody learns

in Sunday school

is that Joseph is a carpenter,

but that's not really accurate.

The Greek calls Joseph a tekton,

which means he's basically in construction,

so Joseph wasn't necessarily sawing wood.

He could have been any kind of construction worker.

- One reason Joseph is important to me is the fact

that God chose a common man to do something uncommon.

Here's a man that was considered ordinary.

Worked with his hands. Worked with tools,

and yet God chose him to play an incredible part in history.

- How long's that broad of yours been at her cousin's?

- Too long.

- Joseph's a good guy attempting to make ends meet

who is preparing to marry this young lady

by the name of Mary.

- In the Bible, we read

that Mary's actually living with her cousin Elizabeth.

She actually leaves home and goes to stay with Elizabeth

for about three months.

- It seems to be the typical life of someone

who is Jewish who was living in Palestine, at that moment,

but there is an extraordinary turn

that changes the trajectory of Joseph's life.

- Joseph?

- Mary.

[laughs]

Well, what do you think?

It's almost finished.

[soft music]

♪

- Mary goes away for three months

and then returns, and now she's pregnant.

Imagine being Joseph

and hearing that from your fiancée.

That must have just ripped Joseph's heart out.

- It would have been exceptionally difficult

for Mary to tell Joseph what happened.

The idea of this young woman that is betrothed

carrying a child, and the child is not Joseph's,

puts her in a very dangerous place.

- Jewish law is based, in large part,

on the laws that one finds in the Hebrew Bible,

and those laws are very, very strict about sexuality,

about fidelity, about pregnancy.

Some of these laws make very, very clear that people

who engage in sexual behavior

that is not approved of will lose their lives.

- Please. Listen.

It happened one night,

before I went to stay with Elizabeth.

[tense music]

♪

- Mary.

♪

Do not be afraid,

for you have found favor with God.

If you choose to accept His plan,

you will conceive, in your womb,

and give birth a son.

- The Annunciation is the announcement

of the birth of Jesus to Mary, by the angel Gabriel.

This is the beginning of the story of Jesus.

- How can this happen? I am a virgin.

- Nothing is impossible with the Almighty.

The Holy Spirit will visit you.

The child you bear will become the greatest of men.

He will be called the Son of God.

- The angel Gabriel is one of the archangels

in early Christianity,

and he represents the power and strength of God.

Gavri'el means "the power or force of the divine."

The word for angel in Hebrew,

in biblical Hebrew, is "mal'ach."

And mal'ach can mean angel, but it can also mean messenger.

♪

- Why has He chosen me?

- You are pure of heart and soul.

Will you accept this gift?

♪

- Here am I, servant of the Lord.

- Notice that when she says "yes"

to the angel, she doesn't ask her husband or her father.

She says it on her own, so this is a very strong woman,

even at a young age.

- The Annunciation is exceptionally important.

It takes the birth of Jesus

out of the realm of simple human causation

and really places it in the realm of a divine mandate.

- Do you expect me to believe this?

- It's the truth.

- Do you take me for some idiot apprentice boy?

♪

- It is God's will.

- Joseph is a pious person.

Like most early Jews, he does believe in miracles.

He just doesn't expect 'em to happen, in his case.

♪

- Get out.

- Joseph.

- Get out!

♪

I built this house for you!

♪

I loved you.

♪

So much.

♪

How could any man accept her story?

How could I possibly believe

that she was carrying the son of God?

- When Mary says, "I'm pregnant.

You're not the father,"

Joseph probably reacted in a typical male fashion.

That's why I love the story,

because it does not sugarcoat it

as making Joseph holier-than-thou.

[tense music]

♪

- Ahh!

♪

Ahh!

♪

Mary had betrayed me.

She had concocted this ridiculous story

to hide her sin.

Even so, I could not condemn her.

I loved her.

- Nazareth is a very small town.

It had about 200 to 400 people,

so everyone in Nazareth would have known one another.

Mary's pregnancy out of wedlock, essentially,

would have brought shame and scandal on the family.

- Can I speak to Mary?

♪

- Joseph's dilemma now

is whether or not to out Mary for adultery.

♪

If he outs her, she could be killed.

Adultery is a crime punishable by death.

♪

- The fear, for Mary,

if Joseph exposes her as being pregnant

by someone other than him is that she could face death.

- I'm a decent man. - I know that.

- I'm not going to expose you to shame.

- I feel no shame.

- Joseph is conflicted.

He doesn't immediately believe the story

about the Holy Spirit. I mean, who would?

He doesn't buy it, and then, on the other hand,

he doesn't want to hurt her.

- I will keep your secret...

♪

and dismiss you quietly.

[gentle music]

♪

- Many men would have publicly declared, "She is unfaithful."

♪

Joseph doesn't do that, which demonstrates a level

of character and integrity, of compassion.

- A decent man.

A fool with no wife and an empty house.

♪

That's what people would say.

♪

- In the ancient world, people understood dreams

to be a mechanism through which

God reveals information to people.

♪

- Joseph. Son of David.

Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.

The child conceived within her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus.

♪

He will save His people from their sins.

♪

- When the angel calls Joseph a son of David

this has very significant meaning.

- King David was the most important.

The holiest, the greatest Jewish king of Jewish history.

♪

- Mary. Mary.

Mary!

- Joseph?

- Mary. Mary.

- By naming Joseph a member

of the house of David, his son, Jesus,

is perfectly positioned, by his lineage,

to one day be the holy king. The messiah.

♪

- I think your angel came to me.

- And the Jewish people were longing for a king,

a hero, someone to come wipe out their enemies

and establish the kingdom of God on Earth.

- I should have never doubted your word.

- It's not my word.

It's the word of God.

- I was told the baby should be called Jesus.

- Jesus' name, Yeshua, is basically

the same name as Joshua, in the old testament.

It means "Yahweh saves."

There is something messianic, from day one, about that name

and, one should expect, about this child, as well.

[indistinct chatter]

♪

- I decided to marry the woman I loved

and take the path God had chosen for me,

come what may.

all: Yay!

♪

- I had no idea of the dangers to come.

[ominous music]

[horses neigh]

♪

- The political situation,

on the eve of Jesus' birth, is not good.

♪

Judea still has a little bit of independence,

but it's basically in the process of being

swallowed up by the Roman Empire.

- Joseph? What is it?

- And if Rome said "jump,"

you asked, "How high?"

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- Hey, you. Get out.

I said get out! Go!

- On the eve of Jesus' birth, Augustus Caesar

is the first Roman emperor,

and Rome is almost at its apogee.

♪

- The Roman Empire covers three continents.

20% of the world's population.

This is equivalent to about 30 modern countries.

Rome is determined to control Judea,

because it gives them a buffer zone

between Rome and their archrivals

the Persian Empire, to the east.

Persia basically being modern Iran.

♪

- The Emperor Augustus has issued a decree

that a census be taken of the entire Roman Empire.

All land, slaves, and cattle in the province of Judea

must be registered.

You are ordered to return

to the town of your birth immediately!

Anyone failing to follow this command

will be dealt with accorngly.

- A census is one of the Roman methods for finding out

how many people are in an area.

Therefore, how much money they can raise by taxation.

♪

The Romans like to squeeze people till the pips squeak,

so there's a great resentment for the taxes

that are paid to Rome, from Judea.

[donkey braying]

- For Mary and Joseph, the census means

that they have to travel from Nazareth

all the way back down to Bethlehem of Judea,

because this is Joseph's ancestral hometown.

There are two major problems

with the census described in the Gospel of Luke.

The first is that the census takes place about a decade

after Jesus has already been born.

The second problem is that Roman censuses did not require

people to return to their ancestral home.

Most scholars think that Luke used this census as a device

to get Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem,

because the prophecies say that the messiah will be born

in the city of David, in Bethlehem of Judea.

- Scholars have debated this, but in fact,

we do have evidence of tax records from Egypt

that the Romans would require people to group together,

according to their ancestral groupings.

If part of the family had moved to some other town,

they needed to come back and register with the full family.

And so, the way Luke tells the story is perfectly plausible.

[soft music]

- As we left on the road to Bethlehem,

I had no idea if we would ever see home again.

[dramatic music]

- The trip from Galilee to Judea was very dangerous.

♪

They have to travel 100 miles, over hills and valleys.

♪

Many inscriptions on tombstones

in this region state that people were killed

by bandits along the road.

[soft music]

♪

- This was not a pleasure trip.

It was an onerous duty they felt compelled to do,

and they barely got there

before it was time for Mary to give birth.

♪

- The traditional Christmas card of Jesus

being born in a barn,

on the outskirts of town, is just wrong.

♪

- Joseph.

- We've been ordered to register in Bethlehem,

by the Romans.

This is my wife, Mary.

- Is there somewhere we can rest?

- Sorry. You can't stay here.

The house is full of our family.

- The text that always gets translated--

there was no room at the inn--

should be better translated as,

"There was no room in the guest room."

- She's pregnant.

Baby's due anytime. Please.

Anything.

♪

- So they're invited to stay, instead,

down on the ground floor where the animals are kept,

and that's where Jesus is born.

♪

- Childbirth is always dangerous,

and it's particularly dangerous

in pre-medical societies.

♪

- Some food.

- There's no real understanding of bacteria,

the danger of infections.

- Joseph?

♪

- Mary?

- Cesarean sections were known and practiced,

but the mother simply died.

♪

- It is time.

- Millions of women died in childbirth.

♪

[baby crying]

- When Jesus was born,

this changes everything.

- In Luke's birth narrative, we are told that

this is the birth of the savior of the world.

- You want to hold Him?

- How could I tell her

that I was scared to touch Him?

Scared

that I couldn't love Him

like a real father.

♪

How wrong was I.

♪

- Joseph chose to raise Jesus,

even though he wasn't his own biological child.

It shows us that Joseph was a selfless man.

A man of love. A man of great compassion.

- [sighs]

♪

- Do not be afraid!

[sheep bleating]

♪

I bring good news, for all the people.

♪

To you is born, this day, in the city of David,

a savior

who is the messiah.

♪

[sheep bleating]

♪

- The Gospel of Luke has shepherds visit Jesus,

because Luke wants his readers to see

Jesus as a descendent of King David

who was also a shepherd

called in from the field to lead his people.

- Can we see the child?

♪

- These are not, you know,

people whose hands are soft and gentle.

These are hard-working--these are people who fend off wolves.

♪

I think that's the message,

that this God, in human flesh--

this is about a love that is meant for us all.

- The angel had sent the shepherds to us.

He had told them of Jesus' birth,

but they were not the only ones

who were to learn of the child.

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- The Gospel of Matthew introduces us to the magi.

The wise men. Typically understood

to be astrologers coming from the East,

to Herod the Great, because they saw a star in the sky.

An omen of something special.

♪

- Herod's the king of Judea, appointed by Rome.

He's an absolutely ruthless dictator

who massacres any opposition.

♪

- Think Stalin. Kim Jong-un.

Meeting Herod the Great must have been terrifying.

♪

- At the time of the birth of Jesus,

King Herod the Great is the king of Judea.

He came to power because

of the backing of the Roman Empire.

He's essentially a puppet king,

and the Jews hate him for it.

- He dominated Judea and the Eastern

Mediterranean for 50 years.

Everything about him is titanic and over-the-top.

He has a huge harem.

500 beautiful women.

He is highly intelligent.

Greedy. Megalomaniacal.

He ruled with an iron hand,

and he delivered what Augustus and the Romans wanted:

peace in Judea.

- Your majesty, the soldiers are bringing the magi.

They are looking for the messiah.

- He immediately panics and summons together

all the chief priests

and the scribes and begins to ask them,

"What is said about the coming messiah?"

♪

The wise men, or magi,

are said to be from the East, from Persia,

but there may be a hint as to their true origin

from the gifts that they bring:

gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

These last two are incenses,

and they may have been traded along the incense route

that actually goes across the desert

of the Arabian Peninsula

and into the Mediterranean.

One of the oldest trade routes in existence,

and if this is the case, these wise men may have been

from what we would say is modern-day Yemen today.

- My priests tell me that you have come to worship a child

whom you believe is king of the Jews.

- Yes, your highness.

- Am I not the king of the Jews?

- From the point of view of the wise men,

it's a consultation that they would like to have avoided,

but felt they needed to do,

because they were in foreign territory.

- We followed a star that rose in the East.

Our charts tell us

that it heralds the birth of the messiah.

♪

- My priests have searched the prophesies.

It is written that the messiah will be born in Bethlehem.

♪

- Herod's very insecure about his Jewish-ness.

His father is an Edomite and therefore a second-class Jew.

His mother is actually an Arab, so his greatest fear

is that another candidate will come to be king of the Jews.

Someone from the legitimate, sacred house of David.

- When you find Him, bring me word.

- Herod the Great understood

that the Jews don't see him as a legitimate king.

He sees this as an absolute existential threat

to his reign,

and he wants to stamp it out immediately.

[insects chirping]

- [murmuring]

♪

[soft growl]

♪

We often see Christmas cards of the three magi

standing over the baby Jesus at his birth,

but the fact is not only does Matthew not tell us

how many there were.

The magi don't come till after Jesus has been born,

so it could have been days; it could have been weeks;

it could have been months; it could have been years.

♪

- We brought gifts. - We don't want your gifts.

- Please.

Take them. - Thank you.

- The gifts of the magi-- gold, frankincense, myrrh--

are gifts suitable for a king,

from birth to death,

from womb to tomb.

Frankincense, used in worship,

is a symbol of prayer ascending to God.

Myrrh.

Used as an odor retardant for the burial of a king.

♪

Gold. Well, what king doesn't need resources?

♪

- The diverse and different peoples of the Earth

coming to behold their God.

The magi are a way of the Bible saying

that God loves you all.

♪

- Who told you where you would find us?

- King Herod.

- What does he know about our son?

♪

- He told us where we could find the child

who will be the king of the Jews.

♪

- Herod knows of Jesus' destiny?

♪

You came to pay homage.

You brought us fine gifts,

but you put my son's life at risk.

♪

- Herod the great has no limits

in what he'll do to hold on to power.

♪

He's utterly ruthless.

♪

- When Mary and Joseph realize that Herod the Great

knows about the birth of Jesus,

they are immediately afraid for the future of their child.

♪

- Where are you going? - We have to leave.

- Back to Jerusalem?

- No.

♪

I had a dream last night

warning against meeting with Herod again.

We will travel home by a different route.

♪

May the wise Lord protect you on the journey ahead.

♪

- Herod was a monster who had murdered his own wife and son

to protect his throne.

What was to stop him from doing the same to my family?

♪

- Joseph keeps getting these dreams, in Matthew's gospel.

He gets the dream that tells him

the child is a miracle of God, and then he gets a dream

that tells him to flee Palestine and go to Egypt.

♪

- Your highness. - Speak.

♪

- The wise men have fled.

♪

- What?

- They have taken another road back to the East.

♪

- [shouts]

♪

- Send men into Bethlehem

and seek out all the children there under the age of two.

Put them all to death.

♪

There will be no new king of the Jews!

- Herod says, "I want you to take out the children

who possibly could be the messiah."

Here you have a grown man

who is intimidated by a little baby.

♪

- Mary? - Hmm? What?

What is it?

- Get the baby. We have to leave now.

[people shouting]

[indistinct chatter]

- The so-called Massacre of the Innocents

doesn't appear to be historical,

so why do we have this story?

Well, Matthew is obsessed with making Jesus look like Moses,

so in the same way that Pharaoh kills all the children,

but Moses escapes in a basket, Herod the Great is now coming

to kill all the children in Bethlehem.

♪

♪

- A lot of people have dismissed the idea

of the slaughtering of the innocents.

In fact, we know

Herod did all kinds of atrocious things like this.

- Come on! Get out!

- Executes three of his own children.

The Roman Empire is quite happy

for Herod the Great to rule,

providing there is calm.

- Not my son! [shouting]

- You can do what the hell you like in Judea,

but if there's any trouble,

we want you to crush it ruthlessly.

That's the Roman way.

♪

- Mary, come.

- Who is there? Who?

Who is there? Who?

- [crying]

- Ahh!

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- Okay. Go. Go, go, go, go.

- The Bible doesn't say precisely when

Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt with Jesus.

They could have just barely gotten away

from Herod the Great's men.

There is a long history, in the biblical text,

of Egypt as a place where people could flee,

in times of trouble, from Judea.

- It's a long, old hike.

It's going to take days and days and days,

but they had resources for travel.

There was gold.

- We don't know exactly where they went in Egypt,

but there are clear places that could have provided

any number of safe havens and refuge.

- There was a huge population of Jews in Alexandria.

They would, naturally, have gravitated towards them

when they arrived.

- The holy family become refugees,

and this is also important,

because when they return it will fulfill a prophecy.

A prophecy from the Old Testament book of Hosea

that says, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."

♪

- I wonder when he'll see the home I built for him,

or if he ever will.

♪

- His integrity is what speaks so loudly.

He makes this commitment to a child who is not his,

and Joseph becomes,

I believe, a beautiful model for fatherhood today.

Where would we be,

if we had more men who operated like Joseph?

[indistinct chatter]

- The happiest times, for me, are when I forget,

for a second, that Jesus isn't my flesh and blood.

That I'm the ordinary father that I'd always hoped to be.

♪

And I remember that my boy is a miracle,

and that it's my duty to protect Him,

until he can fulfill His destiny,

because in my heart, I know, on this Earth, at least,

Jesus is my child.

♪

That I will always, always love Him as my own.

♪

[epic vocal music]

♪

- The story of Jesus

is the greatest story ever told.

[camel grunts]

- Get out, you sinner!

- Where is he?

♪

male announcer: For over 2,000 years,

the story of Jesus Christ has touched the lives

of billions around the globe.

[whip cracks]

- [screaming]

- Jesus felt what we felt.

He faced what we face today.

♪

- If we want to understand Western history at all,

we must understand the story of Jesus.

announcer: Now, for the first time,

his story is told through the eyes

of those who knew him best.

- I am here to warn you.

- John the Baptist is the link

between the Old Testament and the New Testament.

He comes preaching a fiery message

of the coming of Jesus.

- You. What's your name?

- I am Jesus of Nazareth.

- Jesus' baptism by John

is one of the most important moments in the gospels.

This is the turning point for Jesus.

[water splashing]

- [grunts] [cage rattling]

- He's a troublemaker that's stirring up the people.

John the Baptist has to go.

♪

[sword whooshes]

[epic orchestral music]

♪

♪

[somber music]

♪

- I was put on Earth to do one thing.

One divine purpose.

To prepare the way for the Lord.

I should've seen there was more to Jesus than I knew.

[cymbal shimmering]

♪

- John the Baptist emerges in dark days

for the Jewish people.

♪

King Herod the Great is dead.

Most of Judea is now part of the Roman Empire.

It's understandable that in times of doubt,

of disillusionment,

that a preacher of great inspiration

like John the Baptist would emerge.

- Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord.

Make his paths straight.

Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and every hill shall be made low.

- John the Baptist is the forerunner of Christ.

He's the guy who paves the way,

who sets the stage for Jesus Christ himself.

- Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord.

- He is very much in the mold of an Old Testament prophet,

a wild man living out in the wilderness

eating honey and locusts,

preaching a fiery message

of the coming of the Kingdom of God

and the Messiah.

- The crooked shall be made straight

and the rough ways made smooth.

♪

- John the Baptist was well-known.

He's in the gospel narratives,

but from historical sources such as Josephus,

we know that he had a very large following.

- John the Baptist's father was a priest,

and this was traditionally a hereditary role.

So he must have rejected this role

and become this fiery prophetic figure,

preaching what we would call today social justice.

- And our flesh shall see

the salvation of God!

♪

Andrew.

♪

- One of the things that John does,

and this is where he gets his name,

is actually immersing people in the Jordan River.

♪

- Repent,

for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.

[suspenseful music]

- John was baptizing people for this renewal.

It is a renewal moment.

It is the ritual of the moment of saying that you are reborn,

that are you a new person,

that you are washing away that which is old.

♪

[water splashing]

[uplifting music]

♪

- [laughing]

- John's message is really simple:

repent your sins, receive baptism,

receive purification, and you will be saved.

[cheers and applause]

♪

[suspenseful music]

♪

[all cheering]

- You.

What's your name?

♪

- I am Jesus of Nazareth.

♪

- Welcome, Jesus.

- When Jesus meets John the Baptist,

this is the first time we see Jesus as an adult.

According to the Gospel of Luke,

Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins.

- But in our earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark,

they don't seem to be related.

When John the Baptist sees Jesus,

he doesn't recognize him at all.

♪

- I had always thought that my task was to find him.

[uplifting music]

♪

Instead, he found me.

♪

Did I not see who he really was?

- All the gospels tell us that people

were desperate to be around Jesus.

- Thank you... brother.

- There must have been something

naturally compelling about him,

and I would imagine that John the Baptist

felt that intense holiness as well.

♪

[new age music]

♪

- Eat.

♪

This is the way. It's all we can do.

- It's what we must do. - Yes.

- The gospels make it seem like the encounter between

John the Baptist and Jesus was very short.

But in reality, it's likely to have been

a much longer period of them being together

and learning from one another

and becoming part of the same group.

- There are indications that Jesus was, for a time,

one of John's disciples.

Their relationship probably went through different stages:

friend, mentor,

and then, in the end, the teacher becomes the student

and the student becomes the teacher.

- Your eyes--your eyes shall see your teacher.

He won't be hidden to you anymore.

♪

When I met Jesus, I felt kinship.

Here was a man of my spirit.

♪

I wasn't alone in my message.

♪

[sighs]

[uplifting music]

♪

I am the voice

of one crying out in the wilderness!

- You can understand why the Judeans,

crushed by Roman rule, disgusted by the venality

of the high priests in Jerusalem,

would turn to a preacher like John the Baptist.

- Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none.

♪

All the arrogant and every evildoer shall be stubble.

♪

The day that is coming shall set them on fire.

♪

- I think John the Baptist inspired Jesus.

Jesus saw something in John that caused him

to rethink his mission on Earth.

He felt, "Maybe I should be doing this too."

♪

[water bubbling]

- John the Baptist was expecting a Messiah

in the apocalyptic sense, someone who was

going to come down from the heavens

and burn up the Romans

and reestablish the Kingdom of God on Earth.

♪

- You tell us that there is another,

the one that has yet to come.

They think it's you.

- Some people thought that John

was the Messiah himself.

♪

But John did not believe that.

- Andrew, what do you know of the Messiah?

- He was very clear:

"I am not the ultimate.

I am not the-- the final stage here."

- See, I'm not worthy to carry his sandals.

♪

I baptize you with water.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

- This is a Messiah who is

going to turn the world upside-down.

This is an aggressive, disruptive action

that John the Baptist is anticipating.

- I am not the Messiah.

♪

But I have been sent ahead of him.

♪

[adventurous music]

♪

- He is a revolutionary preparing people

for another revolutionary...

by the name of Jesus.

♪

- Well, I should be baptized by you.

Why are you coming to me?

- This is how it should be.

♪

- The big question in the Gospels

is why Jesus needs to be baptized.

If John is baptizing out of repentance

and Jesus is sinless, why is Jesus getting baptized?

♪

To my mind, it seems that he may have wanted

to start his ministry

in a very dramatic and public way.

♪

- Jesus' baptism by John is a huge moment.

What is gonna happen when you have the charismatic,

infamous John the Baptist on the stage with Jesus?

♪

♪

- When John baptizes Jesus,

he probably doesn't know what's going to happen.

He doesn't know it's gonna be such a pivotal moment,

when everything changes for him and for Jesus

and for the rest of the world.

♪

- The Bible says that we hear

this booming voice of God coming out of the heavens

saying, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased."

♪

[uplifting music]

♪

- [yelling]

- That's the first time we see God directly interacting

with Jesus from the scriptures.

♪

- Jesus saw something,

but he would not tell me what.

Something had happened to him.

Something separated him from me,

and I did not understand.

- In some Gospels, the people who are with him

understand what's happening.

In others, it's more of a private event.

But certainly Jesus understands his identity,

which is revealed to him very clearly for the first time.

- My brother.

- Jesus seems to realize what God's plan is.

He seems to surrender to the future

that God has in store for him.

- All four gospels suggest that this encounter

between Jesus and John is absolutely pivotal.

Before then, Jesus didn't have a ministry.

After then, Jesus began to take on his ministry

with both hands.

- What couldn't I see?

♪

What couldn't I see?

[chuckles]

- Jesus realized, I can't remain sheltered

in Nazareth anymore.

I've got to do what John is doing,

and I've got to take an unpopular message

to the people, even if it kills me.

[suspenseful music]

[bell ringing]

[horse snorting]

[ominous music]

♪

- He set out before sunrise.

♪

- I knew by then that he was no simple carpenter...

but I could not say more than that.

And before I could ask, he was gone.

♪

[epic music]

♪

- Immediately after Jesus' baptism by John,

we're told that he is driven into the desert

for 40 days and 40 nights.

- The number 40 is very important here.

Moses fasted for 40 days

as he was writing the Ten Commandments,

and then the Israelites were in the wilderness

for 40 years,

and so this was, once again, a reflection of something

that happened in the Old Testament.

♪

- The Judean desert

is one of the hottest places on Earth,

with temperatures routinely over 100 degrees.

- Praise the Lord. God Almighty.

[sniffling, panting]

- There is a tradition in the early church that says,

"You go to a mountain to find God.

You go to a desert to find your soul."

- [panting]

- And after 40 days,

when he is as hungry as hungry can be...

[suspenseful music]

♪

Then the Devil shows up.

♪

- Satan, according to both Jewish

and Christian tradition, is a fallen angel.

He was originally a good creation of God,

but he went wrong.

♪

- The word Satan comes from the Hebrew word "Hasatan,"

which means "the adversary,"

who stands against the created order,

an enemy of the divine

and an enemy of humanity as well.

- If you are the Son of God,

command these stones to become loaves of bread.

- In the 40 days in the desert,

Satan tempted Jesus three times.

The first temptation that Satan offered Jesus

was telling him, turn stones into bread.

[somber music]

- [moans]

[stone clatters]

- This is a reference to when the Israelites were lost

in Exodus in the desert.

They were hungry,

and God gave them manna from Heaven.

But it's also a reference to the temptation

of Adam and Eve when they were offered fruit.

The second temptation is that Satan takes Jesus

to the high point of the temple.

- [panting]

♪

- And he tempted Jesus to leap from it,

knowing that God would save him.

♪

- Do not test the Lord my God.

♪

- Thirdly, Satan offers Jesus

the rule of all the kingdoms of the world,

an earthly empire.

- If you worship me...

- This is a reference to the Roman Emperor,

ruler of the entire Roman world.

♪

- Worship me.

[echoing] Me...

- Away with you, Satan.

I worship only the Lord God, and I serve only Him!

♪

[panting, whimpering]

- Satan offers Jesus everything

a would-be Messiah might want:

power, fame, comfort, a life of ease,

but Jesus rejects that definitively.

Resisting those temptations shows really that Jesus

is ready to start his public ministry.

[uplifting music]

♪

[ominous music]

- Following the baptism of Jesus,

John is also inspired, and he decides to up his game.

After all his time preaching in the wilderness,

telling Jews to repent, he decides to take on

the political leaders of the time.

- Jesus inspired me.

I would drag immorality out of this land by the root.

I knew where I would start-- in Tiberias.

♪

- So he has to go to the place of sin,

the locus of all iniquity,

and those are the cities in Galilee.

- Most of Judea is now ruled directly by a Roman Governor,

but Galilee is different, it's to the north,

and it's ruled by a Roman client ruler,

the Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas.

He was one of the sons of Herod the Great,

and when Herod the Great died,

Antipas had longed to inherit the whole kingdom,

but instead, he'd been disappointed

by the Roman Emperor, Augustus.

He'd just been given a third,

and hence, he was not the king of Judea

but the tetrch of Galilee.

[ominous music]

Antipas is the ideal target.

His lifestyle is decadent,

and John believes that if he can persuade Antipas

to repent of his notorious sins,

that might filter down to the people too.

- John decides to march right in and stick it to the man,

and that's a dangerous thing to do

when the man is Herod Antipas.

- Herod Antipas!

I am here to warn you!

- John is taking a big risk.

The Herods are a dangerous family.

They have a history of killing anybody who takes them on.

[suspenseful music]

- The Jews hate Herod Antipas for a number of reasons.

For one, he built Tiberias

on a graveyard,

which is against Jewish custom,

and while Jews are struggling,

Herod Antipas is living this life of opulent luxury

in a palace.

But there's something else that Herod Antipas did

that really made the Jews hate him,

and that is, he married Herodias,

the wife of his half-brother, Herod the Second.

- And now you ignore God's will

with your new incestuous marriage.

It is an affront to Jewish law.

- Herodias liked powerful men.

When she met Herod Antipas and they fell in love,

she couldn't resist marrying

the powerful tetrarch of Galilee.

So she ditched her husband and went off with him.

He ditched his wife, an Arab princess.

He's locked her up in prison,

and it was this that outraged the Jewish people

and outraged John the Baptist.

They regard it as incest.

- Do you hear me, Herod Antipas?

It is unlawful to have your brother's wife.

- It's humiliating.

- He's insulting you, and he's insulting my mother,

and yet you do nothing?

- Salome, Herodias' daughter

from her previous marriage,

is a young lady who is now part of the royal court

of Herod Antipas.

♪

- What do you expect me to do?

The people love him.

- But this isn't just about a woman's hatred

for John the Baptist.

This is really about power, of course.

Herod Antipas is actually in

an extremely fragile situation.

His only reason for existing

is to ensure that there's peace in Galilee.

John the Baptist looks like

he could be gathering a rebellion.

- Repent! Repent!

For the Kingdom of God has come near!

[grunting]

- Herod Antipas knows

that if there was a rebellion in Galilee,

the Romans would get rid of him,

and all he wants to do is keep power.

- As a result, John the Baptist

is a giant pain in Herod Antipas' backside.

Pains in the backside need to be gotten rid of.

[dramatic music]

- Herod Antipas has John the Baptist imprisoned

in his mountain fortress of Machaerus,

one of the fortresses built by his father,

Herod the Great, where he could hide

in case he lost his throne.

♪

- It's a 40-mile walk from Jerusalem

and a hundred miles from Tiberias,

through a punishing desert road along the Dead Sea.

Getting to Machaerus is not easy.

- We're talking about an impregnable fort,

hundreds of feet up on a cliff,

overlooking a Dead Sea that is so salty,

nothing can grow in it.

♪

- Its incredible walls, its dungeons,

all of that is something

out of a "Game of Thrones" scene.

- [grunting]

- It cuts John off from his followers.

[lock clanging]

It's the perfect place to store a troublemaker.

- [yells]

- In the ancient world,

you didn't worry too much about human rights.

Prison was horrible, miserable.

You didn't get three meals a day and yard time.

[man screaming]

- Please, please, please.

[chains clinking]

- [groaning]

[water sloshing]

[moaning]

[dramatic music]

- This was punishment. It wasn't, uh, rehabilitation.

Prison was meant to break you.

[ominous music]

You were essentially dependent upon food

that your friends or relatives brought.

♪

- The Lord is coming with fire!

♪

And his armies with clouds of dust!

♪

- Teacher.

- Andrew, why are you here?

♪

- To give you this.

- [panting]

- And to tell you that a great prophet has risen among us!

- Who?

♪

- You know him.

♪

It's Jesus.

[uplifting music]

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

- After John the Baptist is arrested,

Jesus basically picks up the baton and runs with it.

John the Baptist was the big movement,

and once John is arrested,

Jesus says, "This is my turn. This is my time."

- He preaches in Galilee.

To forgive your enemies, bless those that curse you.

♪

- Love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you.

Bless those who curse you.

If someone slaps you on one cheek,

you turn to them the other, also.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

- Jesus came back with me to my home.

- He goes back to Galilee.

He even recruits some of John's followers like Andrew,

who became one of Jesus' disciples.

- For John the Baptist, we have an image

of a prophetic voice from the wilderness.

Whereas with Jesus, Jesus goes to the people.

Jesus goes into the homes of his prospective followers.

- Everyone's living at subsistence level.

You're one bad harvest or you're one bad boat ride

away from starvation.

- Brother! - Andrew.

- According to the Gospel of John,

Andrew introduces Jesus to his brother, Peter.

- We've been working all night long but caught nothing.

- Put out into deep water,

and let your nets down for a catch.

- Jesus had an uncanny ability

to meet people where they are

and to try to speak in their language

to recruit disciples.

[suspenseful music]

♪

- [chuckles]

From now on, you'll be catching people.

♪

- I've never seen anything like it.

It was a miracle, John.

[uplifting music]

- John the Baptist has a very deliberate idea

of who the Messiah was going to be,

that he was going to usher in this age of fiery judgment,

and he has this person in front of him

who's preaching a message of kindness

and love and forgiveness.

This doesn't square at all

with what John the Baptist believed in.

♪

- Ask Jesus this.

[ominous music]

"Are you the one who is to come or are we to wait for another?"

♪

- Herod Antipas has arrested John the Baptist

because he's pressured into doing so by his wife Herodias.

[lock clicks]

[suspenseful music]

[chains clinking]

- Herod has fundamentally violated

some very important moral issues

in the Jewish faith.

- You can't get any more questionable than the fact

that he married his own brother's wife,

even while his brother was still living.

- [panting]

- And so he's intrigued by John the Baptist,

sort of seeking John the Baptist's teaching.

- Maybe Herod Antipas was genuinely interested

in listening to the message of John the Baptist,

or maybe it was a political calculation.

There's a history of leaders listening to Jewish prophets.

If Herod Antipas listened to John the Baptist,

repented of his marriage,

then maybe the people and God would forgive him of this sin.

- [groaning, panting]

♪

- I've been very curious to meet you.

♪

- It's not too late for you.

♪

- What can I do?

♪

Be baptized?

♪

- He knows what he wants to do,

but it's not Herod, it is his wife,

is the one that has it out for John the Baptist.

♪

- Let me show you the way.

[panting]

♪

I have the ear of Herod Antipas.

If he is seen to repent,

if I can cleanse him of his sins,

I can still serve.

♪

Hey, I shouldn't be in here!

♪

[grunting]

- Herodias seems to be scheming her way to the top.

- [grunting]

- She's prepared to use anything to achieve her ends.

- John the Baptist has to go.

♪

[ominous music]

♪

[water dripping]

- We can't tell how long it took

for John to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

- [groaning]

- I mean, he had his own ministry.

So it was probably hard for him to let go of his status.

♪

[chains clinking]

- The beatings meant nothing.

The greater agony was not knowing.

♪

Waiting for Andrew to return with my answer.

- Even in the midst of a beating,

he refuses to let go of who he is.

♪

- You spoke with him?

- He's cured many people.

He can even rid people of evil spirits.

- [gasps] Tell me.

- We were in Capernaum.

[dramatic music]

[whooshing]

- [groaning] No, no, no, no!

- Be silent, and come out of him!

♪

[uplifting music]

♪

- Taking care of the poor, the widows, the orphans,

the disenfranchised-- Jesus is asking John

to rethink what it means to be the Messiah.

- Do you have a message that I can take back to him?

[solemn music]

- He must become greater...

♪

...and I must become less.

♪

- All of his work is all coming together.

He is thinking that there is someone

outside of this jail,

by the name of Jesus,

who is doing work that no one has ever seen.

♪

- John at this point is convinced

that Jesus is the Messiah.

[chains click]

- I must make my way back to him.

I will bring followers from this fortress.

I will see him with my own eyes.

- John's mission therefore was a more hopeful one,

not just rescuing himself, but seeking to rescue others.

But that's not the end of the story.

[upbeat music]

- [cheering]

♪

- Machaerus is not just a jail--

it also is a palace where Herod Antipas could go

and entertain his followers or hangers-on.

- [laughing]

- [laughs]

[clapping] Come on!

- Herod Antipas gives Herodias something of the lifestyle

that she's really looking for:

somebody who actually has some genuine influence,

not only in Roman Palestine but with the emperor too.

[suspenseful music]

- So, it's simple:

Herodias has to get rid of the man who threatens this,

and that man is John the Baptist.

- She and her daughter together conspire to bring him down.

♪

The gospels paint for us this absolutely lurid scene.

It's alcohol-fueled.

♪

Herod is schmoozing with dignitaries.

♪

[distant clanging]

♪

- [laughing]

[upbeat music]

♪

[woman vocalizing]

♪

♪

[rhythmic clapping]

♪

[woman vocalizing]

- Salome is dancing.

and I don't mean just doing the Texas Two Step.

That is turning on Herod Antipas

and all of his friends.

The Jews would have understood this to essentially be incest.

♪

- [stammering] Wait, wait.

- And Herod Antipas is so enthralled

with what his stepdaughter, Salome, is doing,

that he says,

"Anything you want, one wish, I'll give it to you."

♪

- Anything?

- Whatever you ask of me.

♪

- And what does she ask for?

She asks for what her mother tells her to ask for.

[dramatic music]

♪

- I want you to give me, at once...

♪

The head of John the Baptist.

[dramatic music]

- Herod makes a promise, a very public promise,

that he'll give Salome the head of John the Baptist

on a platter.

But Herod really doesn't want

to execute John the Baptist.

- And, of course,

because he's made this declaration

publicly at a party,

Herod Antipas doesn't want to look like a weakling,

so he actually says,

"Go and bring me

John the Baptist's head on a platter."

♪

[clanging]

♪

[lock clicking]

♪

[shackles clicking]

♪

- Now is my chance to show my worth.

♪

I must not fail.

♪

[dramatic music]

[grunting]

♪

- I don't think John wanted to die.

I think he was afraid.

I think--I think he was sad,

but I also think John understood his role.

- Understanding the profundity

of the sacrifice that was to come,

understanding that John and Jesus were on the verge

of a moment that would change the world....

♪

- Did I do enough?

♪

I hope so.

♪

- [yells]

[dramatic music]

♪

[eerie music]

- [sobbing]

♪

- As Herodias and Herod are looking into the eyes

of John the Baptist's decapitated head,

I think Herodias felt accomplished and successful.

She got what she wanted.

[solemn music]

♪

- They killed him.

John the Baptist is dead.

♪

- John the Baptist's death would have been

a bitter blow for Jesus.

Not only are they cousins, according to the Gospels,

and that John the Baptist was probably Jesus' mentor,

but they were friends, and so he would have missed

John the Baptist's presence

at a very important time in his life.

- Lord.

Teach us to pray as John did his disciples.

- In Luke's Gospel,

one of Jesus' disciples asks him,

"Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples,"

and then Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer.

♪

- Our Father in Heaven...

[uplifting music]

Hallowed be your name.

♪

Your kingdom come...

- The Lord's Prayer is important to this day

I think because it connects us

to this larger tradition of prayer.

As Jesus prayed and taught his disciples,

he's following the pattern of John the Baptist.

- Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

♪

Give us this day our daily bread.

- John's legacy is one of a good and faithful servant

but a fiery one at that.

He never pulled any punches.

He never spoke anything but the truth,

no matter where he was.

He said he was there to prepare the way

for the one who was to come,

and that's exactly what he did.

He was a faithful servant.

♪

- Today, every single time

a Christian is dipped in that water

or sprinkled with that water and is baptized...

♪

There's a little bit of John the Baptist there.

- John had laid the groundwork.

The seeds that he placed around Palestine

were taking root.

♪

- I was put on Earth to do one thing.

One divine purpose.

I knew Jesus as a student and as a friend.

♪

I had always thought that my task was to find him.

Instead, he found me.

♪