Mark's gospel gets straight to it. It skips the Christmas story and runs throughout at a quick pace. Because of this and it being the shortest gospel, it is my preferred gospel to recommend to people who want to start reading the Bible.
The first character is John the Baptist - a man with a spiritually given message to deliver to the people, much the same as an Old Testament prophet. That message is clear: "Sort out your act, and get yourself ready for God's plans that are about to unfold". With that John did a baptism thing: dunking people in the river. They would have seen this as a 'ritual cleansing', admitting their hearts had become hard to God's purposes, that they wanted to change their minds, to be forgiven of past hardness, and get back on track with God's purposes.
This was all preparation. John the Baptist knew he was just the warm up act, ready for someone who would baptise not with mere water, but with the Holy Spirit. That person was Jesus!
In v9 Jesus appears on the scene, meeting with John the Baptist. His first action is to baptised by John. We might think that odd: if Jesus is so special why doesn't he baptise John? Jesus insists it is this way round - in doing so he identifies as an ordinary human, with you & I and the whole of humanity. As Jesus is baptised he shows that he is fully submitted to the purposes and plans of God the Father, and he stands in that great story that God started long ago, which will now continue through Jesus. That's why we as Christians make a big deal of baptism: Jesus was prepared to do that public declaration, so why wouldn't we do the same?
Then something very special happens. Jesus in the water is not just another person being dunked by John: a tear appears in that divide between physical and spiritual and the Spirit is seen descending and resting on Jesus. With it is an audible voice: 'You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am pleased'. This is Jesus fully affirmed in who He is from God the Father - and this is the basis of His ministry. The same principle applies to us - we minister from whom we are in God. We cannot minister for a single minute without having some awareness of who we really are in God. (Recall last summer our series of Affirmations!)
That is why we are doing this series in Mark - we will look at the stories of Jesus to learn about Jesus. We will practice telling the stories - our family resource this term will help us do that in our homes. The stories point to who Jesus is, and are useful to point other people we might meet to Jesus. Learning who Jesus is opens the way to faith in Jesus, and through faith we discover who we are in Jesus and hence in God. And knowing who we are in Him, we are then able to minister too. So our key question for this month is:
[UP] Who do you really believe Jesus to be?
Challenge: Turn belief into action
Who we believe Jesus to be is fundamental to our faith and therefore what we will do with our faith ... and therefore our ability to minister. It's all about who we believe Jesus to be!
After this incredible Father-Son affirmation, in v12 Jesus is then sent straight into the wilderness and a difficult time. He was led to a time when 'knowing' who He is in God wasn't actually enough - it was a time when He will have to rely on who He is in God. A time to utterly depend on God in faith. It didn't get easier for John the Baptist either - in sticking to his faith principles he ended up in prison. We must not pretend that for ourselves discovering Jesus and putting our faith in Him will suddenly make all of our lives perfect. In fact in serving in His name is guaranteed to bring us trouble! If we are going to act on who we are in Christ, we too must learn to totally depend on God. Hence the challenge above - turn belief into action.
Jesus is now on the scene and He announces: 'The time has come: the Kingdom of God is near, repent and believe the good news!'. He comes straight in with this announcement, effectively "Let's go ... and get on with it!". Remember the 'repent' means to 'change your mind'. You used to think and act in one direction, which led to hardness of heart, was not aligned to God's purposes, lost with all the things that go with that. Now change, turn with faith in Jesus. Put away your old self, re-think, make it your desire to do the will of Jesus.
With that see who Jesus is really is, believe in Him and take action. That way you will discover who you are in Jesus, and be able to minister - learning to depend on Him as you go. The preparation that John the Baptist declared to those first century Israelites is the same for us: repent and believe, get straightened out, get ready for God's purposes, mark it with baptism! Jesus is now on the scene, God's purposes are unfolding. Be part of it!
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