Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Mark 1:9-11 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased."
WELL PLEASED WITH ME
If you didn't know Jesus and had seen Him approaching John to be baptized, you'd assume that He was just another repentant sinner seeking God's forgiveness.
But Jesus wasn't there because He had sins to wash away. He was there because that's where God’s people were. The "repenters." The ones who, yes, sinned, but didn't embrace sin as their way of life. The ones who continually dropped their sin and turned away from them, relying on God to forgive them.
Jesus was also there because John was God's prophet. The Pharisees didn't accept John as God's prophet and therefore weren't baptized by him. Jesus basically had two groups he could be associated with: the followers of God who got baptized or the self-righteous rejecters of God. The choice wasn't hard.
Like I said, if you didn't know better, you'd assume that Jesus was just another repentant sinner as He approached John to be baptized. But God the Father wasn't going to let anyone misunderstand what was going on here. So God tore open the sky and sent the Holy Spirit to rest on Jesus in the form of a dove.
It was through *this* Man that sinners like you and me would finally receive peace with God through the forgiveness of our sins. How fitting that that a Dove rests on His shoulder. And God the Father also spoke from above declaring Jesus to be His beloved Son with whom He was WELL PLEASED.
On the last day God will call us righteous too, not because of the things we have actually done, but because we are in Christ by faith.
