‘Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion’ (Ps 22.13)
1. Jesus humbles himself so that he is in a position in which he can receive from God
Jesus chooses to come to John the Baptist to be baptised, to receive the gift of God.
He did not need to be baptised. He had no sin for which he needed to be forgiven.
But he chooses to be baptised, to identify himself with John the Baptist, with his message of repentance, and with God’s amazing offer of forgiveness. And he chooses to identify himself with those who recognised their need for God’s washing, God’s forgiveness; with people who recognised that they needed God.
And so Jesus allows John to baptise him. He goes ‘down’ into the water and receives baptism.
And Mark tells us that it is ‘as Jesus was coming up out of the water’ that he sees the heavens being torn open, the Spirit descending on him in physical form like a dove (park in Kislovodsk and these tiny sparrows settled on our hands to eat the crumbs) and the voice from heaven with its incredibly personal message: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’.
Baptism is a precious gift that God offers to us.
But it is a gift. It cannot be earned. It can only be received.
It is the gift of forgiveness (washing clean), of – in the words of 1 Peter – ‘the pledge of a good conscience before God’. That is not just about having a feeling that we have nothing to be ashamed of before God; it is also about beginning the process by which we are changed so that in reality we have nothing to be ashamed of before God.
I don’t remember my baptism.
I have an excuse! I was only a few weeks old!
I did not have any say in what happened to me.
But that in a sense makes baptism even more special.
It really does show that my baptism did not depend on me. I was helpless in the whole process. I was a baby.
People sometimes say, ‘Have you had the baby done?’ Not the most ringing endorsement of baptism or christening as some people call it, nor the most theologically astute question. But actually – baptism really was ‘done’ to me. In my absolute helplessness I was being blessed whether I wanted to be blessed or not!
The point is not when or how we are baptised, as a baby or as an adult, by sprinkling or by full immersion – although it is important, an act of obedience, that we have received baptism.
The point is whether I am choosing to live my life now as a baptised person, in the spirit of baptism – as one who now voluntarily chooses to go down - to empty myself so that I am once again in that place of complete vulnerability and dependence on God, to receive the blessing of God.
And Lent, these 40 days before Easter, is one time when we can intentionally try to do that.
We choose to go down into the water, in order to receive from God.
Maybe it is about making a decision to commit ourselves to communion weekly during Lent. As we come forward to the altar, the Lord’s table, we come with open hands, as people who have nothing to offer, maybe even our faith is a bit shaky. But it is a bit like going down into the water. We come simply to receive, so that by faith Jesus comes deep into our very being.
Maybe it is about making the decision to put time aside for one of the Lent courses, or to listen to the Bible being read (Public Reading of Scripture) or to read the Bible for ourselves: reading not just for intellectual knowledge, but coming empty asking God to fill us.
Maybe it is about putting aside special time to pray.
There are some helpful daily reflections from the Church of England.
Often people say, ‘But I don’t know how to pray’.
That is OK. Prayer is about coming to God in our emptiness and helplessness. It is about going down into the water, the place of death – and receiving from Him the gift of life.
Or maybe it is about fasting.
Again, we do not fast because we are spiritually strong. Nor do we fast to make ourselves spiritually strong. We choose to fast for a season, so that we strip ourselves of some of the things that we put in place of God (food, fitness, work, TV, alcohol, puddings or cakes, non-essential shopping, gaming, constant music or social media). Fasting should lead us to that point when we come face to face with our vulnerability and weakness – and for our need for God.
But the model of baptism is that when we choose to follow Jesus and empty ourselves and symbolically go down into the water, to come to God in our weakness and openness and need then we will –not necessarily in the way we expect - receive from him.
We place ourselves in a position in which we can receive from God.
2. Jesus is sent by the Spirit into a place where he can be transformed by God
Jesus, immediately after his baptism, after the voice from heaven, is ‘sent out into the desert’… and he was tempted by Satan’.
Mark does not tell us how Jesus was sent into the desert. It may have been an inner prompting, or it may have been external circumstances.
Nor does Mark, unlike Luke or Matthew, tell us what the temptations are. That is not important for him.
What is important for Mark is that Jesus, having received baptism, having heard the voice, is sent into the desert to be tempted by Satan. He is surrounded by wild beasts:
We think back to Psalm 22, the Psalm Jesus speaks when he hangs on the cross: ‘Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion’ (Ps 22.13)
And when we deliberately choose to put ourselves in a position to receive from God, to come to that place of complete dependence on God, we sometimes find that God takes us deep into the desert.
Sickness, the death of someone we love, redundancy, loneliness, failure and disappointment, false or true accusations, economic desperation, when nothing seems to go right for us, even the apparent absence of God can all be desert experiences. There are no safe places, we are surrounded by wild beasts, and we struggle with temptation.
Two years ago, our Ash Wednesday service in Moscow came two weeks after President Putin had invaded Ukraine. The vast majority of our congregation in Moscow were broken and scared. Many of the westerners were preparing to leave the place that they had called home, some for many years. Many of our young Russians – who saw their future in relation to the West - were crushed: ‘What has he done’, said one person. ‘He has put us into the fire’. For so many, it was not as if we had chosen to enter into Lent, but that Lent had entered into us.
One young man wrote to me yesterday: he fled to Indonesia. He writes, “I am afraid I have to admit that I am completely lost and helpless now. Navalny is dead, the war goes on, Indonesia is likely to become a dictatorship again with their new [war criminal] president, and I cannot handle it anymore. It's just too much, so I cannot even focus on anything.
And for many of the young Russians we knew, and certainly for Ukrainians or those living in Gaza, or waiting to hear news of those taken hostage, they did not choose to go into the desert, but the desert came to them.
The Christian calling is not a calling to success or to victory in this life. It is not even a call to security and comfort.
Mark makes that clear. It is a calling to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus – who walked on the way to the cross.
But notice it is not hopeless. There are those four words, ‘and angels attended him’. Even in the despair and darkness and confusion and temptation, even when the wild beasts are out there on every side waiting to get us, there is hope.
Hugh Latimer was one of the bishops who, in the C16th was arrested by Mary. He was in prison, awaiting his execution. They would tie him to a stake, surround it with wood, and then set it on fire. That is a pretty extreme wilderness place. And it was a place of testing for him. He was surrounded by wild beasts. And he writes, “Pardon me, and pray for me. Pray for me, I say, pray for me, I say. For I am sometime so fearful, that I would creep into a mouse hole.” But then he adds, “sometime God doth visit me again with his comfort.”
And perhaps you may know glimpses of breathtaking beauty in the wilderness, or moments of deep peace in the middle of a crisis - as we call upon God.
And I think that Mark is also trying to tell us that the desert can also be a place of preparation.
The Israelite people were slaves in Egypt. They were led through the red sea in an amazing act that showed the power and love of God – and Paul later writes about how the people of Israel were ‘baptised’ in the red sea. But then they were led into the wilderness for 40 years. And when they came out of the wilderness and entered the promised land, they established what was meant to be the Kingdom of God.
And now Jesus is sent into the desert for 40 days to be tempted.
He is being prepared for a far greater temptation that will face him in the future.
There will come another day when he will need to choose to give himself up to the wild beasts, to be falsely accused, mocked and shamed and humiliated, nailed to a cross. He will be tempted by the voices challenging him to come down, challenging him to despair and give up on God.
He never does that. Notice that even when Jesus says, ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me’, he is not giving up on God. He is asking God why God has given up on him.
And this desert experience prepares Jesus for his future ministry.
He comes out of the desert, hears of the arrest of his cousin John, and then begins his ministry. He proclaims that the Kingdom of God has come near. And he calls people to repent and believe, to put their trust in the good news:
God has not abandoned his world. There is justice and mercy. His Kingdom will be established. There is resurrection.
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For some of us this Lent, these 40 days before Easter, can be a time when we choose to go to that place of vulnerability and brokenness with Jesus. If you like, we become again like babies and return to the font of baptism – with nothing to offer apart from ourselves and everything to receive.
And for some of us, we may find this Lent that we have had no choice in the matter. We have been sent into a desert place.
The temptations are fierce. The wild beasts are many and vicious and they are out to get us.
But please do not despair.
You are not on your own. There will be ‘angel’ moments:
And God can use this time to prepare you for something so much more.
The Kingdom of Heaven is very close. Jesus is near. Hold on. Believe it and trust Him.
Our Father God, we pray that this season will bring us back to that place where we throw ourselves on your mercy and receive again your grace and love.
Father, lead us by your spirit into desert with your Son. Show us our idols. Strip away those things that are not of you in which we put our trust.
But do this, we pray, with gentleness.
May we hear your voice declaring your love and may we know your angels ministering to us.
And we pray that as we are brought out of the water, as we are led out of the desert, your Spirit will empower us to declare your Kingdom and to glorify your name.
