3. John's attitude here seems significant to me. He had a function in the work of God to point to Christ and to prepare a people for Christ's ministry. He did not cease in performing that function once Christ came on the scene--he continued to do the work that God had given him. And yet, selfless man that he was, he was not bothered that his own ministry, his own function in the work of God, wained as Christ's waxed. His ministry wasn't bound in his own ego but in the work that God had given him to do.