Mark 1:1-5, and 9-11 (GNT)
1 This is the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 It began as the prophet Isaiah had written:
“God said, ‘I will send my messenger
ahead of you to open the way for you.’
3 Someone is shouting in the desert,
‘Get the road ready for the Lord;
make a straight path for him to travel!’”
4 So John appeared in the desert, baptizing and preaching “Turn away from your sins and be baptized,” he told the people, “and God will forgive your sins.”
5 Many people from the province of Judea and the city of Jerusalem went out to hear John. They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan River.
9 Not long afterward Jesus came from Nazareth in the province of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
10 As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw heaven opening and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.”
1 This is the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 It began as the prophet Isaiah had written:
“God said, ‘I will send my messenger
ahead of you to open the way for you.’
3 Someone is shouting in the desert,
‘Get the road ready for the Lord;
make a straight path for him to travel!’”
4 So John appeared in the desert, baptizing and preaching “Turn away from your sins and be baptized,” he told the people, “and God will forgive your sins.”
5 Many people from the province of Judea and the city of Jerusalem went out to hear John. They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan River.
9 Not long afterward Jesus came from Nazareth in the province of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
10 As soon as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw heaven opening and the Spirit coming down on him like a dove.
11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my own dear Son. I am pleased with you.”
Matthew 4:1-11 (NIV)
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.
9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.
9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Todays scripture of Jesus’ baptism is a story that begins with John the Baptist. We just heard the scripture passage in the Good News version but in the Message version there is a wildness to match John’s own calling. After all John is no ordinary prophet; he comes wearing clothes made of camel hair, tied at the waist with a leather belt and eats locusts and wild honey. He comes from the wild places in the desert where reality is what stares you in the face and there is no hiding from it. John preaches the world as he sees it: “Turn away from your sins and be baptized,” he told the people, “and God will forgive your sins.” His truthfulness is what will later get him in trouble as he rebukes Herod for marrying his brother’s wife but for other abuses of his power, as well. Being a prophet is no easy vocation.
So The Message version reads:
4-6 John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change
that leads to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and
Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the
Jordan River into a changed life.
9-11 At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John
in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open
and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit,
a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Can you just envision it, Jesus feeling compelled by John’s preaching, as many Israelites did, to come as a spiritual journey to reflect on his own life, his own failings, his own relationships and confess the harm he has done to himself and others, and to receive the cleansing waters of John’s baptism over him. The lightness and joy as he comes up out of the water. He is a new man, he has a new life. And he hears, sees, feels to the very core of his soul God’s blessing. He is being called by God.
Well, after a call by God to go in a certain direction in your life, you usually want to take a deep breath and wrestle with it, because hearing a call is not like taking over the store from your parents, it’s not following in the footsteps of your father who was a Levite or priest and so you too become a priest, or a rabbi, or a carpenter. In the church we call it the discernment phase which can last many years. You have to test it out: “Does God really want me to?” and “Do I really want to?”
Jesus spends forty days alone in the desert and then the temptations come because if you are going to do something with God you have to do it with your whole heart. God was calling Jesus into ministry, it’s scary,it’s exciting, the path is uncertain. What if he failed? What if he was successful? What is he, Jesus, was the Messiah? There had been Messiah’s before and maybe there would be Messiahs after. What kind of messiah could he be, Israel wanted a messiah who would gather Israel together, and rout those Romans right out of what clearly belonged to Israel. Get rid of the oppressors; that is what people wanted a messiah to do. But could a Messiah also announce a new way of being the world, the Kingdom of God in the world as it is, what would that look like? So you can see how easily the whole time, forty days and nights is a prayer with God. Back and forth, back and forth.
Not as easy as we tend to think when we just read scripture; the story about the event. And the temptations that come, imagine what the calling of God looks like when those desires comes on the horizon.
Forty days and nights without food, Jesus was hungry!
And he has the power to make himself more comfortable, to turn stones into bread, to eat locusts and honey like John the Baptist did – and he doesn’t.
Jesus has the power to flaunt his power - and he denies the power is his.
Jesus has the power to rule the world- and he rejects it.
And all the while he had to be asking, in the back of his mind: Am I the right one? Has God really chosen me?
I am so hungry, I could turn stones into food. Can I really do this, I could test God and throw myself off the tower. If I controlled the world, I could really change things.
You see, only if Jesus is really tempted, really considers the possibility of saying yes to the temptations, can we consider and appreciate the temptations as real temptations.
It’s like you have a fleeting thought, say I am tempted to ignore the COVID restrictions and regulations, I mean wouldn’t it be nice to do whatever it is you want to do: meet with friends, play pickleball, go to the legion, or the gym, or to concerts – you see it could be anything but then you sigh and dismiss the idea.
But what if you already planned the trip, bought the plane tickets, and you are excited and everyone is excited, and you really have an investment in this- and you start seeing the number of COVID cases going up but the planes are still flying and you are vaccinated – but you’ll be on the plane with 300 other people and your partner is immune-compromised and your family has a young baby. It’s getting harder and harder to balance all these things and you so want to see your family.
Jesus is so hungry he really is tempted to turn those stones into bread.
Jesus is so tempted to try out his relationship with God, will the angels really catch him if he jumps from the Temple’s highest point?
Jesus is so wanting to bring about the Kingdom of God, what better way to do if not as Supreme ruler of the Roman Empire and more.
Just think of all the good Jesus could have done, the Jews would no longer be oppressed, they could be the ones calling the shots. Those idolatrous temples could be destroyed, people would bow down to Yahweh, the widows and innocents would be looked after, things would be done according to the Torah, men would be circumcised, all peoples would be united under the tribe Israel.
There was a Messiah who arises in Israel around 135 CE, named Simon bar Kokhba. He united well, conscripted all the men in Israel to join together to fight the Roman, punishing any Jew who wouldn’t join and torturing to death the Christians who refused to fight against the Romans. The initiation into his army was either by having a finger cut off or by being forced to uproot a cedar tree. Bar Kokhba managed to rule as prince over an independent state of Judah for about three years
when Rome killed him and crushed the Jews who were left after these years of fighting, starvation and disease. This is a terrible story of a messiah. This is not the story of Jesus but in his temptation to be the ruler of a united Israel and Judah and more, his thoughts must have roamed over all the Kings and military leaders in Jewish history. There is no denying the violence inherent in such liberation and then Israel would be no different from Rome and Jesus would be no different from Caesar or in our example Bar Kokhba.
And Jesus rejects it all- all of it:
The power over all nations, the Pax Romana of coercion, and the violence of gaining and maintaining such power.
Jesus rejects this vision of the Kingdom of God. Right from the beginning Jesus knows he is on a different path. Right from the beginning Jesus stands for a new way of being in the world. Right from the beginning Jesus has a vision of the Kingdom of God not in some future time and place; not up in heaven, pie in the sky after we die kingdom.
Right from the beginning, before he even begins his ministry Jesus understands the Good news is that the possibility and promise of the Kingdom is here and now. The Good news is that God is with us now, in a relationship of love. The Good News is that we live out our relationship with God in how we live with each other.
And every time we hear a story Jesus tells, every time he answers a question, heals someone, - his preaching, his teaching, his learning all show us what God is up to in the world. Jesus’ ministry tells us that God loves us, loves everyone, so that we should love our neighbours as ourselves.
But then he tells stories like the Good Samaritan and your neighbour is not just people you like, not just people in your family, not just people you worship with but someone you wouldn’t notice, someone you wouldn’t talk to, someone you wouldn’t touch. This other, this stranger, this betrayer, this leper, this Samaritan, this woman who is bleeding, this Roman soldier, this blind beggar, this Pharisee, the tax collector, Herod’s managers wife who follows along in his wake listening and learning, this Mary Magdalene who had seven demons before he met her – they are all people you should love. People you should take into your heart. Not because they are worthy or unworthy of our love but because God loves them just as much as he loves me or you. And that is hard., or least it is not easy.
But that is our calling as Christians, as followers of Jesus, as people on The Way. That is our calling. Amen
So The Message version reads:
4-6 John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change
that leads to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and
Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the
Jordan River into a changed life.
9-11 At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John
in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open
and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit,
a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Can you just envision it, Jesus feeling compelled by John’s preaching, as many Israelites did, to come as a spiritual journey to reflect on his own life, his own failings, his own relationships and confess the harm he has done to himself and others, and to receive the cleansing waters of John’s baptism over him. The lightness and joy as he comes up out of the water. He is a new man, he has a new life. And he hears, sees, feels to the very core of his soul God’s blessing. He is being called by God.
Well, after a call by God to go in a certain direction in your life, you usually want to take a deep breath and wrestle with it, because hearing a call is not like taking over the store from your parents, it’s not following in the footsteps of your father who was a Levite or priest and so you too become a priest, or a rabbi, or a carpenter. In the church we call it the discernment phase which can last many years. You have to test it out: “Does God really want me to?” and “Do I really want to?”
Jesus spends forty days alone in the desert and then the temptations come because if you are going to do something with God you have to do it with your whole heart. God was calling Jesus into ministry, it’s scary,it’s exciting, the path is uncertain. What if he failed? What if he was successful? What is he, Jesus, was the Messiah? There had been Messiah’s before and maybe there would be Messiahs after. What kind of messiah could he be, Israel wanted a messiah who would gather Israel together, and rout those Romans right out of what clearly belonged to Israel. Get rid of the oppressors; that is what people wanted a messiah to do. But could a Messiah also announce a new way of being the world, the Kingdom of God in the world as it is, what would that look like? So you can see how easily the whole time, forty days and nights is a prayer with God. Back and forth, back and forth.
Not as easy as we tend to think when we just read scripture; the story about the event. And the temptations that come, imagine what the calling of God looks like when those desires comes on the horizon.
Forty days and nights without food, Jesus was hungry!
And he has the power to make himself more comfortable, to turn stones into bread, to eat locusts and honey like John the Baptist did – and he doesn’t.
Jesus has the power to flaunt his power - and he denies the power is his.
Jesus has the power to rule the world- and he rejects it.
And all the while he had to be asking, in the back of his mind: Am I the right one? Has God really chosen me?
I am so hungry, I could turn stones into food. Can I really do this, I could test God and throw myself off the tower. If I controlled the world, I could really change things.
You see, only if Jesus is really tempted, really considers the possibility of saying yes to the temptations, can we consider and appreciate the temptations as real temptations.
It’s like you have a fleeting thought, say I am tempted to ignore the COVID restrictions and regulations, I mean wouldn’t it be nice to do whatever it is you want to do: meet with friends, play pickleball, go to the legion, or the gym, or to concerts – you see it could be anything but then you sigh and dismiss the idea.
But what if you already planned the trip, bought the plane tickets, and you are excited and everyone is excited, and you really have an investment in this- and you start seeing the number of COVID cases going up but the planes are still flying and you are vaccinated – but you’ll be on the plane with 300 other people and your partner is immune-compromised and your family has a young baby. It’s getting harder and harder to balance all these things and you so want to see your family.
Jesus is so hungry he really is tempted to turn those stones into bread.
Jesus is so tempted to try out his relationship with God, will the angels really catch him if he jumps from the Temple’s highest point?
Jesus is so wanting to bring about the Kingdom of God, what better way to do if not as Supreme ruler of the Roman Empire and more.
Just think of all the good Jesus could have done, the Jews would no longer be oppressed, they could be the ones calling the shots. Those idolatrous temples could be destroyed, people would bow down to Yahweh, the widows and innocents would be looked after, things would be done according to the Torah, men would be circumcised, all peoples would be united under the tribe Israel.
There was a Messiah who arises in Israel around 135 CE, named Simon bar Kokhba. He united well, conscripted all the men in Israel to join together to fight the Roman, punishing any Jew who wouldn’t join and torturing to death the Christians who refused to fight against the Romans. The initiation into his army was either by having a finger cut off or by being forced to uproot a cedar tree. Bar Kokhba managed to rule as prince over an independent state of Judah for about three years
when Rome killed him and crushed the Jews who were left after these years of fighting, starvation and disease. This is a terrible story of a messiah. This is not the story of Jesus but in his temptation to be the ruler of a united Israel and Judah and more, his thoughts must have roamed over all the Kings and military leaders in Jewish history. There is no denying the violence inherent in such liberation and then Israel would be no different from Rome and Jesus would be no different from Caesar or in our example Bar Kokhba.
And Jesus rejects it all- all of it:
The power over all nations, the Pax Romana of coercion, and the violence of gaining and maintaining such power.
Jesus rejects this vision of the Kingdom of God. Right from the beginning Jesus knows he is on a different path. Right from the beginning Jesus stands for a new way of being in the world. Right from the beginning Jesus has a vision of the Kingdom of God not in some future time and place; not up in heaven, pie in the sky after we die kingdom.
Right from the beginning, before he even begins his ministry Jesus understands the Good news is that the possibility and promise of the Kingdom is here and now. The Good news is that God is with us now, in a relationship of love. The Good News is that we live out our relationship with God in how we live with each other.
And every time we hear a story Jesus tells, every time he answers a question, heals someone, - his preaching, his teaching, his learning all show us what God is up to in the world. Jesus’ ministry tells us that God loves us, loves everyone, so that we should love our neighbours as ourselves.
But then he tells stories like the Good Samaritan and your neighbour is not just people you like, not just people in your family, not just people you worship with but someone you wouldn’t notice, someone you wouldn’t talk to, someone you wouldn’t touch. This other, this stranger, this betrayer, this leper, this Samaritan, this woman who is bleeding, this Roman soldier, this blind beggar, this Pharisee, the tax collector, Herod’s managers wife who follows along in his wake listening and learning, this Mary Magdalene who had seven demons before he met her – they are all people you should love. People you should take into your heart. Not because they are worthy or unworthy of our love but because God loves them just as much as he loves me or you. And that is hard., or least it is not easy.
But that is our calling as Christians, as followers of Jesus, as people on The Way. That is our calling. Amen
