Points of light
John the Baptist, the greatest among all of the earth's children, was sent ahead of Jesus. John’s message aims to predispose mankind's hearts to Jesus' arrival and to humanity's encounter with him. John the Baptist focuses on how two points of light illumining two possible, terrible causes of darkness which can strike our mind and soul and render the life of man blind and empty.
All the people who listened, including the tax collectors, and who were baptized with the baptism of John, acknowledged the righteousness of God.
The first and most dangerous cause of darkness for the mind is thinking ill of God. When, for any rational or irrational reason, the mind starts thinking ill of God and reaches the conclusion that God is unjust, distant and unloving, it becomes stupid, completely. This is the genesis of stupidity.
But the Pharisees and scholars of the law, who were not baptized by him, rejected the plan of God for themselves.
The second cause of darkness, capable of extinguishing the soul and spirituality, is the conviction that there is no need to change the interests of our hearts, that there is no need for conversion and immersion in God's mercy.
This second darkness has the incredible power of rendering God's plan for us futile. God's plans and desires for man cannot be anything but beautiful intentions, full of well-being and peace, but they can be thwarted by the presumption that the heart of man has no need for inner change, no need for immersion in divine mercy and forgiveness.