By Water And The Spirit- November 10, 2019

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Mark 1:1-13 Where you start your story says a lot. Especially when you’re only writing 15 short chapters. This is where Mark starts—out in the wilderness at the Jordan River with John the Baptist, or maybe better stated, John the Baptizer since he was no more a Baptist than a Methodist or Presbyterian. John was a Jew, who also baptized people. He was a prophet—someone called by God to speak hard truths and hold people accountable as he invited them back to right relationship with God. By our standards, he was kind of a weird guy—camel hair clothes, living in the desert—eating locusts/grasshoppers and honey.
In the desert, John is calling people to repentance and offering to baptize them n the river. Depending on how you grew up you might think that John was actually a Baptist since that sounds like something they would do. But actually,

baptism started as a Jewish thing, not a Christian one. Jews believed in baptism and used to have a special bath at the temple called a Mikveh for ritual cleansing—for baptism—before you entered the temple. It was an act of repentance—of recognizing you were sinful and needed to be washed before entering the holy place.
Now, what’s curious about our passage today is that John is in the wilderness baptizing, not next to the temple, and the people were coming in droves. Clearly, he’s been convincing and word has gotten out. This is a guy you want to hear. And as he preaches to the people he uses the words of the prophet Isaiah, “A voice cries out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord.”
It may not sound like much, other than a justification for being out in the wilderness, but it’s an indication of God’s spirit at work. It’s widely believed that prophets are God’s messengers. They’re the spokespeople, the mouthpiece of God. And they carry words with divine inspiration. That would be true of John and his predecessor, Isaiah. They would have prayed and meditated and listened for God’s prompting before speaking. So the fact that we have these words twice is important.
Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face who will prepare your way, a voice calling out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
John humbled himself and declared he was lower than the one who would follow and clarified something interesting:
I will baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
This bit about the Holy Spirit is new. Baptism with water was a normal and regular Jewish practice. You would be baptized often to be ritually cleaned and enter the temple but baptized by the Holy Spirit….that’s new. And…maybe a bit vague. What did John mean? How did he know? From all accounts, it wasn’t like Jesus was out preaching and going all Benny Hinn style popping people on the forehead and having them fall out as they’re slain in the Spirit.
According to Mark, Jesus hasn’t even gotten started yet. Does John even know what this will mean or is he just delivering the message the Spirit is giving him? We don’t know, but it seems like a fair question to ask. Then, in our story, Jesus comes out to the wilderness to be baptized with all the others.
Now, this is the place I’m inclined to pause and ask a few questions. The first is why? Why did Jesus come? I’m serious. Why here? Why now? We don’t know where he was before this since it’s the 1st story we have from Mark, but something led Jesus to this place at this time, and I would say that was likely the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t Facebook, or a phone call, or the Post. I doubt it was even Jesus and John conspiring to create this theatrical moment. I think it was the Holy Spirit leading and guiding to help bring things together at just the right moment.
So the Holy Spirit guided John out here, then Jesus, and when it comes time for Jesus to be baptized the heavens open up and Jesus sees (we don’t know if anyone else saw it, only that he did), Jesus sees the Holy Spirit like a dove descending on him. And a voice from heaven says: This is my Son with whom I’m well pleased.
Man, if Jesus the man had been doubting his identity or his mom’s stories about the angel Gabriel, or the fact that he might be kind of different from everyone else, I bet this moment cleared his head to know “God’s got something for me.” What a remarkable confirmation, affirmation, and blessing: This is my son with whom I’m well pleased. I imagine the human side of Jesus needed something to ground him, not just in this moment, but for his lifetime and this moment probably became a touchstone. How many of us have ever gone back to our big mountain top God moment as our assurance, or peace, or hope of what will carry us through the trials of today? (Probably lots of us!)
But, the Spirit wasn’t done there. Jesus wasn’t to get too comfortable. The Spirit immediately prompts him to go out into the wilderness for 40 days—the time in which he’d be tempted by the devil.
I imagine God knew Jesus would need a strong conviction to push through. We know he learned and studied the scriptures from an early age00he was teaching by 12, but to do all that would be required as an adult, he had to experience what he knew and it began here.
Now, I’ve read this passage a fair amount, but preparing or this series was the first time I’d read it to understand the Holy Spirit better. As I did, the Spirit was revealed in some cool ways.
1) The Spirit gives inspiration. The Spirit gave Isaiah the words, and John the words, and John the conviction to preach repentance and baptize the people. And the Spirit-inspired Jesus to go out to the Jordan at this time, seemingly, for this purpose.
2) The Holy Spirit blesses, affirms, and confirms our belovedness and our calling. Through that inspiration, the Spirit gives us the gift of a touchstone we can rely on for assurance and faith when things get tough.
3) The Spirit leads us to place of challenge and growth—not to tear us down or beat us up, but to give meaning to the ideas and lessons we’ve been learning, to take head knowledge and make it lived experience. (Let me be clear, I don’t think the Spirit tests us with terrible things like cancer, or loss of our home, or the death of a loved one—the spirit isn’t malicious or sadistic. I do think the Spirit helps us through those trials that are simply a part of life. And I think the Spirit does push us in good ways to rely on God and get out of our heads and into real-life experiences.
I also believe that who the Spirit was then is who the Spirit is now. The Spirit continues to inspire, to affirm and bless, and to challenge us toward growth.