Thursday, January 26, 2012
Mark 1:7-8 After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
MIGHTIER THAN I
In the Old Testament of the Bible there's a prophecy that predicts, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord" (Isaiah 40:3-5). John was the fulfillment of that prophecy. He was the voice in the wilderness. But here we find John not only fulfilling prophecy, but also announcing one that was yet to be fulfilled.
John said that the Savior would baptize with the Holy Spirit. That happened on Pentecost Sunday years later. After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, after Jesus had ascended into heaven, He poured out the Holy Spirit onto his disciples so that they could speak languages that they had never learned. And they used this miracle speaking to communicate the Message of sins forgiven through Jesus to thousands who were in Jerusalem for a special festival.
We can take a little lesson from John's humility. Yes, people were coming from all over to hear him preach and to be baptized by him, but he recognized that he was just the doorman to the Savior, and that the Savior would do much greater things that he.
That's what we need to remember when it comes to our own repentance. It's important to recognize our sins as evil. It's necessary that we drop our sins and turn away from them when we realize we're sinning. Repentance is good, but without Jesus, it wouldn't make any difference. We can be sorry about sinning all we want, but without Jesus -- who stood in our place when the hammer of God fell -- well, without Jesus we'd just be sorry and damned sinners.
To simplify, being sorry about our sins is great, but it's Jesus' suffering and death in our place that saves us, not our own personal sorrow.
