Funny things sometimes happen in church,
especially surrounding special ceremonies like baptism. When I baptize young
people or adults, I usually like to use a lot of water because it is supposed
to be a visible sign of invisible grace. I remember one time when I was
baptizing a group of four siblings. When I came to the youngest, whose name was
Ryan (meaning “little king”), he had already seen how much water I could hold
in my hand and pour over the heads of his brothers and sister. Therefore, when
I scooped a big handful of water out of the baptismal font and poured it on his
head, he quickly moved his tie to one side so that it would not get wet as the
water descended. He was smiling as he did this and it brought a big smile to
everyone in the congregation. Baptisms are joyous times.
I think Jesus’ baptism also must have been a
joyous time. Let us see what Mark has to say about it in Mark 1:9-13….
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was
baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water,
he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And
a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the
wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was
with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
This story raises a big question: if John’s was a baptism of
repentance for forgiveness of sin, why did Jesus go to John to be baptized?
After all, Christianity teaches that Jesus was without sin.
I think part of the answer is that Jesus was baptized in
order to identify with us. Matthew and Luke would want to point out to us that
Jesus identified with us from the moment of his birth: thus the inclusion of
the birth narratives in their Gospels. But Mark wants to emphasize that Jesus
identified with us as sinners right at the beginning of his ministry, in his
baptism by John.
Now, the next step is very important. Not only did Jesus
identify with us through his baptism, but also through our baptism, we identify
with Jesus. Baptism is part of how we get connected to Christ and benefit from
his life, death and resurrection.
Now, here is the truly great news…. If we have identified
with Jesus, if we are in Christ, then
everything that Mark says of Jesus in this passage will, I believe, be true of
us….
First, if we identify
with Jesus in baptism then I believe God will be doing unexpected things in our
lives. Nothing could have been more unexpected to the Jews of Jesus’ day
than that the Messiah would come from Nazareth in Galilee. Remember what
Nathaniel says in John’s Gospel: “Nazareth? Can anything good come from there?”
(John 1:46) It was not that Nazareth was a particularly bad place. It is just
that there was no mention of Nazareth in connection with the Messiah in the
Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, God was doing something unexpected by having Jesus,
the Messiah, come from there.
I wonder: given that we serve the God of wonderful
surprises, what unexpected good thing might God do in your life and in mine in
2017?
A second thing we see
in this passage is that if we identify with Jesus in baptism, there will be
times when we will see the heavens torn apart. Now, let me explain what I
mean by this. When Mark says that Jesus saw the heavens torn apart, I do not
think it means that there was literally a hole up in the sky and that Jesus saw
through that hole into God’s heaven. Notice, that Mark says Jesus saw this. He does not mention
anyone else seeing this. It was a personal revelation to Jesus. “The heavens
being torn open” was, for Mark, a traditional way of expressing revelation.
Therefore, if we are in Christ I think that at times we will
have similar personal revelations. We will have times where we will be more
supremely aware of the “God dimension” in our living. I believe that the veil
between our earthly existence and God’s heavenly abode is very thin, perhaps
more thin in certain times and places than others. However, the key thing is
that if we are still, we will know that God is God (Psalm 46:10); we will be
aware of his presence.
Third, if we are in
Christ then the Spirit will descend upon us like a dove. Throughout the New
Testament baptism and the impartation of the Holy Spirit are connected with
each other (Acts 2:38; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5). The interesting thing
to me in this passage is that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove. I imagine that John the
Baptist expected something much more violent. However, here the Spirit comes on
Jesus in a gentle and peaceful manner. I think that is most often the way with
us as well. I do not believe that the Holy Spirit is usually manifested in a
violent manner, but in a peaceful, gentle, quiet way.
Fourth, if we
identify with Christ then we will hear the voice of our heavenly Father,
telling us that he loves us. Jesus heard this voice audibly. It may happen
that way with us, but it may happen in other ways as well. Again, I think when
we get quiet, when we seek the still, small voice, we will hear God telling us
that he loves us. When we read Scripture, we read the message that God loves
us. I am here today to tell you that God loves you. You are loved by the
Father.
Tom Wright has this to say about this passage….
A famous movie-maker had a huge legal
wrangle with his long-time mentor and guide. The younger man simply couldn’t
handle criticism, and ended up rejecting the person who had helped him so much.
When it was all over, a close friend summed up the real problem. ‘It was all
about an ungenerous father,’ he explained, ‘and a son looking for affirmation
and love.’
It happens all the time, in families,
businesses, all over. Many children grow up in our world who have never had a
father say to them (either in words, in looks, or in hugs), ‘You are my dear
child’, let alone, ‘I’m pleased with you.’ In the Western world, even those
fathers who think this in their hearts are often too tongue-tied or embarrassed
to tell their children how delighted they are with them. Many, alas, go by the
completely opposite route: angry voices, bitter rejection, the slamming of
doors.
The whole Christian gospel could be
summed up in this point: that when the living God looks at us, at every
baptized and believing Christian, he says to us what he said to Jesus on that
day. He sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ. It
sometimes seems impossible, especially to people who have never had this kind
of support from their earthly parents, but it’s true: God looks at us, and
says, ‘You are my dear, dear child; I’m delighted with you’ Try reading that
sentence slowly, with your own name at the start, and reflect quietly on God
saying that to you, both at your baptism and every day since.[1]
This leads to a fifth point. If we identify with Jesus then our lives will be pleasing to the Father.
Not only does he love us for who we are in Christ, God will actually be
pleased with our actions, our accomplishments, because the Holy Spirit working
through us will produce the fruit that is pleasing to the Father: love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self-control.
Some of us may feel like we could never please our earthly
fathers. However, that will not be the case with our heavenly Father. Our lives
will please him; our lives do please him in Christ.
Sixth, if we have
identified with Jesus in baptism then the Spirit will drive us into the
wilderness for our forty days.
Here is where the story begins to have an edge to it.
Everything seems very positive up to this point: John the Baptist preaching in
the wilderness preparing the way for the Lord, Jesus being baptized, the Father
confirming his love for his Son. All is good.
So why would the Spirit drive Jesus out into the wilderness,
the same Spirit who just descended on Jesus in the form of a gentle, peaceful
dove? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that, as we saw with John the
Baptist, there are some lessons we can only learn in the wilderness of
loneliness. It is only when we have all our normal resources stripped from us
that we realize just how all-sufficient God truly is.
The wilderness, the desert, was a place of temptation, a
place of testing, for Jesus. If we have
identified with Jesus, then Satan, the adversary, will tempt us; there will be
opposition. You cannot choose the way of Jesus and not face some push back.
I suppose some people have a hard time believing that there
is such a person as Satan, the adversary. Personally, I have no such problem.
It seems obvious to me that there is such a thing as evil in the world. I also
believe in a supernatural realm, so why should there not be evil on that level
as well? I agree with what C. S. Lewis had to say about this….
There are two equal and opposite errors
into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their
existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy
interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail
a materialist or a magician with the same delight.[2]
So, I believe in the existence of the devil. However, the
good news in all of this is that if we identify ourselves with Jesus then he
will also equip us, through the Spirit, with strength to overcome the
adversary.
In the midst of the testing in the wilderness, we get an
interesting picture that is only in the Gospel of Mark. We read that Jesus was “with
the wild beasts”. Now this can be a threatening picture if we imagine it one
way, but there is an alternative way of looking at this cryptic phrase. I think
here we have a picture of Jesus as the Second Adam, in harmony with all
creation, just as the first Adam was in harmony with all creation before the
fall when he named all the animals.
Just so, if we
identify with Jesus then we too will find harmony with all of God’s creation.
This may not happen at first, but I believe we should be working toward it.
Paul gives us a vision of God renewing all creation in Romans 8.
Because this is where we are heading, toward the renewal of
all creation with ourselves in harmony with all God has made, therefore we
should not act as though it does not matter what we do with our bodies. We
should not act as though it does not matter how we treat God’s creation. It
does matter. We need to be good stewards of all that God has made, good
custodians of this world that God has entrusted to our care….
This passage ends with some very good news. If we identify ourselves with Jesus, then
we will have the help of the angels. Throughout Scripture, we see the
angels assisting God’s children. How much more will the angels assist us if we
are in Christ? People talk about having a guardian angel. However, I do not see
in Scripture where we are limited to the assistance of one angel per person. I
believe that God will do whatever it takes to assist his children, whether that
means dispatching one angel or a legion of angels to help us in our time of
need.
The following story is told about a Christian minister in
Iran….
As the minister was driving with his wife,
they stopped in a small Iranian village to purchase some water. Before
entering, the minister noticed a man holding a machine gun and leaning against
the wall outside the store. The minister’s wife looked at the man’s face and
the gun, then put a Bible in her husband’s hand and said, “Give that man this
Bible.” Her husband looked at the man—his menacing beard and his machine
gun—and replied, “I don’t think so.” But she persisted: “I’m serious. Give it
to him. Please, give him the Bible.”
Trying to avoid the issue, the husband said,
“Okay, I’ll pray about it.” He went into the shop, purchased the water, climbed
back into the car, and started to drive away. His wife looked at him and said,
“I guess you didn’t give him the Bible, did you?” Looking straight ahead, he
replied, “No, I prayed about it and it wasn’t the right thing to do.” She
quietly said, “You should have given him the Bible,” and then she bowed her
head and started praying. At that point, he turned around and told his wife, “Fine!
If you want me to die, I will.”
When the minister returned to the store,
the man with the machine gun was still standing against the wall. The minister
approached him and placed the Bible in his hand. When the man opened it and saw
it was a Bible, he started to cry. “I don’t live here,” he said. “I had to walk
for three days in order to get to this village. But three days ago an angel
appeared to me and told me to walk to this village and wait until someone had
given me the Book of Life. Thank you for giving me this book.”[3]
I believe in angels. I believe they are around us all the
time. They are here to assist us. They are messengers of God for our good. If
we identify with Jesus, then we will have the assistance of the angels. We will
experience harmony with God’s creation. We will know deliverance from
temptation. We will know the all-sufficiency of God in the wilderness places of
life. We will live lives pleasing to God. We will experience God’s love. We
will have the Holy Spirit. We will receive revelation, and God will do
unexpected, glorious things for us. The only question is: have we identified
with the One who identified himself with us?
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