On this third Sunday of Advent, our Gospel reading gives us John the Baptist confronting this very question at the beginning of his public ministry. He’s barely gotten settled at the banks of the Jordan River when his interrogators – priests and Levites from Jerusalem – show up to try and make sense of him and keep him in check. They have questions about who this wild, untidy preacher is who’s calling people to repentance. Do they even dare to entertain the possibility that he might actually be a messenger from God? Then John begins his answer to the religious leaders by saying who he’s not: “I am not the Messiah.” “I am not Elijah.” “I am not the prophet.”