When I lived in Chicago, I was always struck by the crazy street preachers when I went downtown. Here were guys with electric bullhorns, often standing on a bucket, shouting at people as they walked by. I wondered if their message was ever heard. I wondered if there was any point to the screaming they were doing. Every now and then someone would stop to talk with them, but it wouldn’t be a conversation, it would end up being an argument. And I’ve discovered that arguing people away from their lack of faith, arguing people out of their sin, usually doesn’t work.
But then I think of the Old Testament prophets and I think of John the Baptist. Here were guys who would put on displays. The prophets would stand on a street corner declaring God’s truth for anyone who might listen. The prophets would act out declarations of God in unique and powerful ways. They would argue with the kings and sometimes have their lives threatened because of it. They were the crazy preacher standing on his bucket on the street corner with his bullhorn. But not John the Baptist.
Let us open in prayer
I. To Repent
John told those around him to “repent and be baptized.” We like to focus on the baptism that he performed, after all, we call him John the Baptist. But John makes it pretty clear that the baptism he did was just a baptism of water. It wasn’t sacramental. It was a ritual cleansing that was connected to something that, for John, was even more important: repenting.
What does it mean to repent? When we try to figure it out, when we try to answer that question for ourselves, I discover that I find myself coming up short. Perhaps we think that repenting means that we feel sorry for our sins. Perhaps it means to us that we confess our sins. However we put it, we know it has to do with acknowledging the things we do wrong and trying to move away from those things.
The actual word in Greek that we translate as “repent” actually means to “turn around”. And it’s a pretty dramatic word. It means to be heading in one direction, turn 180 degrees and start moving the opposite direction.
Did you know that in the Old Testament, God would repent at times? This doesn’t mean that God had committed a sin and needed to repent for it. No, it meant that God had been heading in one direction and changed his mind and headed in the opposite direction. This happened when Israel was wandering in the wilderness for forty years and they sinned against God. God declared to Moses that he would smite them, wipe them out, and start fresh with Moses and his descendants. Moses talked God out of this, and we are told that God repented of his plans to destroy Israel. God’s plans weren’t evil, they weren’t sin, they came from a place of justice and righteousness. But then he changed his mind, and he headed in a different direction.
I fear that we sometimes make repenting too easy. We make it about feeling bad about our sin. We make it about confession or saying sorry. But repentance is more than that. It is truly something that we are not capable of on our own, it comes from the strength the Holy Spirit gives us. When we repent of our sins, we move beyond them, we turn in the opposite direction and head the opposite way.
II. “You bring me great joy”
When Jesus is baptized, we see an amazing thing happen. The Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice comes out of heaven saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It is interesting that in both Mark and Luke the voice is talking to Jesus, but in Matthew the voice is talking about Jesus. “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” In Matthew we hear what the crowds around Jesus heard, a voice proclaiming for them the wonder of Jesus. But here in Mark and in Luke we instead hear God’s words to Jesus, words of love. It even becomes more real when we read it from another translation, the New Living Translation: And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” I love what this translation does here because it takes something that comes across as a bit formal and out of the head and brings it down to the heart. “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” You’ve got to imagine that as Jesus faced difficult times, as he was persecuted and reviled by the religious leaders throughout his ministry, as he headed for the cross, these words gave him strength, they gave him hope.
On Wednesday night we were looking at this passage together in our Bible study and someone asked a powerful and insightful question. They asked whether this was what God thought or said when one of us were baptized, they asked if this was God’s reaction to our coming to him.
At first I wanted to say, “no” because Jesus was special. Jesus is the Son of God and stands out as unique and different because of this. Jesus has a special relationship with the Father that is beyond anything we can possibly hope for. But then, as I looked at Jesus’ teachings, as I looked at everything we see in the Bible about God’s great love for his children, I realized that the answer to this question was “yes”.
In the gospel of John (17), at the end of the Last Supper before Jesus heads off to Gethsemane to have his private time of prayer, Jesus prays with his disciples and for his disciples. And as he prays he talks about his special relationship with God. “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” But then he shows that he wants to share that special relationship he has with the Father with the disciples and all who come after them: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me… Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
Jesus wants us to share the relationship he has with the Father. Though he is special, though he is unique, he opens his arms and invites us in. And therefore, when we repent, when we turn away from ourselves and towards God, when we step out of the sins that overcome us and enter into right relationship with him; we too can hear God’s voice speak to us and say, “You too are my dearly loved child, and you bring me great joy.”
But then I think of the Old Testament prophets and I think of John the Baptist. Here were guys who would put on displays. The prophets would stand on a street corner declaring God’s truth for anyone who might listen. The prophets would act out declarations of God in unique and powerful ways. They would argue with the kings and sometimes have their lives threatened because of it. They were the crazy preacher standing on his bucket on the street corner with his bullhorn. But not John the Baptist.
Let us open in prayer
I. To Repent
John told those around him to “repent and be baptized.” We like to focus on the baptism that he performed, after all, we call him John the Baptist. But John makes it pretty clear that the baptism he did was just a baptism of water. It wasn’t sacramental. It was a ritual cleansing that was connected to something that, for John, was even more important: repenting.
What does it mean to repent? When we try to figure it out, when we try to answer that question for ourselves, I discover that I find myself coming up short. Perhaps we think that repenting means that we feel sorry for our sins. Perhaps it means to us that we confess our sins. However we put it, we know it has to do with acknowledging the things we do wrong and trying to move away from those things.
The actual word in Greek that we translate as “repent” actually means to “turn around”. And it’s a pretty dramatic word. It means to be heading in one direction, turn 180 degrees and start moving the opposite direction.
Did you know that in the Old Testament, God would repent at times? This doesn’t mean that God had committed a sin and needed to repent for it. No, it meant that God had been heading in one direction and changed his mind and headed in the opposite direction. This happened when Israel was wandering in the wilderness for forty years and they sinned against God. God declared to Moses that he would smite them, wipe them out, and start fresh with Moses and his descendants. Moses talked God out of this, and we are told that God repented of his plans to destroy Israel. God’s plans weren’t evil, they weren’t sin, they came from a place of justice and righteousness. But then he changed his mind, and he headed in a different direction.
I fear that we sometimes make repenting too easy. We make it about feeling bad about our sin. We make it about confession or saying sorry. But repentance is more than that. It is truly something that we are not capable of on our own, it comes from the strength the Holy Spirit gives us. When we repent of our sins, we move beyond them, we turn in the opposite direction and head the opposite way.
II. “You bring me great joy”
When Jesus is baptized, we see an amazing thing happen. The Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice comes out of heaven saying, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It is interesting that in both Mark and Luke the voice is talking to Jesus, but in Matthew the voice is talking about Jesus. “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” In Matthew we hear what the crowds around Jesus heard, a voice proclaiming for them the wonder of Jesus. But here in Mark and in Luke we instead hear God’s words to Jesus, words of love. It even becomes more real when we read it from another translation, the New Living Translation: And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” I love what this translation does here because it takes something that comes across as a bit formal and out of the head and brings it down to the heart. “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” You’ve got to imagine that as Jesus faced difficult times, as he was persecuted and reviled by the religious leaders throughout his ministry, as he headed for the cross, these words gave him strength, they gave him hope.
On Wednesday night we were looking at this passage together in our Bible study and someone asked a powerful and insightful question. They asked whether this was what God thought or said when one of us were baptized, they asked if this was God’s reaction to our coming to him.
At first I wanted to say, “no” because Jesus was special. Jesus is the Son of God and stands out as unique and different because of this. Jesus has a special relationship with the Father that is beyond anything we can possibly hope for. But then, as I looked at Jesus’ teachings, as I looked at everything we see in the Bible about God’s great love for his children, I realized that the answer to this question was “yes”.
In the gospel of John (17), at the end of the Last Supper before Jesus heads off to Gethsemane to have his private time of prayer, Jesus prays with his disciples and for his disciples. And as he prays he talks about his special relationship with God. “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” But then he shows that he wants to share that special relationship he has with the Father with the disciples and all who come after them: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me… Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
Jesus wants us to share the relationship he has with the Father. Though he is special, though he is unique, he opens his arms and invites us in. And therefore, when we repent, when we turn away from ourselves and towards God, when we step out of the sins that overcome us and enter into right relationship with him; we too can hear God’s voice speak to us and say, “You too are my dearly loved child, and you bring me great joy.”
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