Somewhere along the journey of faith, too many of us get the mistaken notion that following Jesus somehow drapes our lives in an invisible cloak of spiritual bubble wrap that wards off all trial and tribulation. Actual experience proves otherwise: bad and evil things really do happen to good and faithful people.
While surely we experience moments of accommodation in lush paradise, faith and belief in Jesus won’t entirely prevent long, winding detours through unforgiving desert wilderness. And all things being equal, barren wasteland is not a particularly safe place to be – which becomes painfully clear in this morning’s Scripture lesson, Mark’s brief-but-powerful account of John baptizing his cousin Jesus.
Biblically speaking, deserts in particular and wilderness in general are always signs and signals of grave spiritual danger. “Wilderness” is shorthand for temptation, for the devil’s realm, for threats to life, limb, and also soul and spirit. And here’s where it gets dicey: If you accept the Lord’s invitation to follow him to the Cross of our upcoming season of Lent, then you must take the first steps of that long walk in precisely the same place that Jesus does.
Baptism begins the march of Christian faith, and you must start your trek in the wilderness – stepping across a steep, rocky, intimidating threshold from one way of living, moving, and being to another. And the Holy Spirit puts our feet in the starting blocks.
That’s the essence of John’s baptism – and why he baptizes folks in the Jordan River. John’s baptism points God’s people down the same pathway that brought their ancestors from slavery into freedom. John’s baptism of repentance invites the faithful to recommit themselves to a life lived as God’s chosen people in a promised land flowing with goodness.
The power and blessing of John’s baptism hinges on the Lord’s promises that repented sin is truly forgiven and that repentance is an act of preparation for a holy encounter with the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. John as much says so himself: “The one who is more powerful than I is coming!”
With all your senses, take in now – from the Gospel of Mark – the beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ.
“You are my dearly loved Son,” God the Father guarantees Jesus. “And you bring me great joy,” Parent announces of Child.
As he immediately sallies forth to face temptation in the desert – day after day tempted to doubt by encountering the brokenness of the world, and later as Jesus continues to endure scorn, ridicule, and abuse – in the Garden of Gethsemane pleading for his Father to take away the bitter cup of crucifixion, Jesus survives on the nourishment of being bound to heaven with a bond that cannot be broken. That’s definitely the kind of blessed assurance that sticks with a body.
Like white on rice, God’s pledge of gluey love covers Jesus with a sense of calm despite his circumstances – a feeling of peace not as with the absence of conflict, but peace in the courage and resolve to face the hardest of callings and greatest of sacrifices. Jesus abides in the adhesiveness of a love that – no, does not do all that he asks of it; no, does not swiftly end every challenge he faces; no, does not stop every physical attack and fend off every verbal abuse. Jesus clings to words of love that sometimes seem to fall silent.
Yet, as co-heirs with Christ to the grace of God, we like he remember with thanksgiving our baptism – our sign and seal that you and I without question are children of God, beloved and cared for no matter what. We are the very people for whom God willingly splits open the heavens to reveal and express his love for us!
You remember, don’t you, that, as Jesus dies on the Cross, another splitting open occurs. The temple curtain in the holy of holies that shielded God’s presence from sinful humans is torn asunder from top to bottom. In Jesus’s birth, life and ministry, death and resurrection, ascension and promise of return, the drumbeat of good news beats without end: God’s love will not be held back from God’s beloved.
In Mark’s telling, the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ starts with someone else – John the Baptist. In this our moment, maybe that someone else is now you and me – in the promised love of angels sent to stick close by our side through the harshest of temptations and the worst of storms.
“Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rodgers once declared. Baptism assures that surely they’re right there – as we love to sing, attending angels keeping us “firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Sunday, February 9, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Chelsey Harmon and Scott Hoezee inform the message. Video and audio clips are from the Lumo Gospel of Mark.