Then when he is born, his names defines his vocation and mission, the name given by God through the angel — Johanan, “the Lord works mercy” — and his father intones a Messianic psalm in thanksgiving and praise of God, but in which he also addresses his son: “And you, who now are little, will be called prophet of the Most High and will walk before the Lord” (Lk 1,76). This is how into the world came “he who is the greatest of those born of woman… more than a prophet” (Lk 7,28), according to Jesus’ confession about him: he is not the light come into the world, but “the lamp that burns and illuminates” (Jn 5,35) to testify to the light.
All his earthly life is intertwined with that of Jesus, and the events of his life narrated in the Gospel not only prefigure what will happen to Jesus, but are synchronous with them, contemporary, even superimposed and mingled together: John and Jesus lived together! Even when John will be violently killed, his life and his mission will appear fully in that of Jesus. It is certainly not by chance that the Gospel registers king Herod’s opinion about Jesus: “It is John the Baptist risen from the dead”, nor that the disciples report to Jesus the views of some contemporaries who said about him “it is John the Baptist” (cf. Mt 16,14 and par.).

When John will die, he will anticipate Jesus’ death and will prefigure it as the passion of the prophet persecuted and killed in his own land, but just as in his death Jesus too dies, so in Jesus’ resurrection John the Baptist also rises.