In about 28 CE, huge crowds had flocked from Judea, Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside to listen to the fiery preaching of John the Baptist beside the River Jordan. Clad in rough camel’s hair that recalled the garb of the prophet Elijah, John had urged them to undergo baptism as a token of repentance to hasten the coming of the Kingdom that God would establish to displace the wicked rulers of this age. This was no purely spiritual message.
