Sunday we began a new series journeying through the Gospel of Mark, thinking about all kinds of big ideas, concluding with the prophet John the baptizer out in the wilderness – both helping the Hebrews recall their history and proclaiming that God would soon act again, liberating and delivering them from oppression and into blessing.

N.T. Wright explains it this way: “The bright light John the Baptizer was shining in their faces was the story they all knew very well, but with a new twist. Every year, at Passover-time, they recited the story of the Exodus from Egypt, telling over and over how God rescued Israel from Pharaoh, bringing them through the Red Sea and away across the wilderness to their promised land. Along with the creation story, it’s the most important story in the whole Old Testament, and John’s hearers would have known it well. But instead of simply hearing the words and remembering the story, John was turning it into a drama, a play, and telling his hearers that they were the cast. They were to come through the water and be free. They were to leave behind ‘Egypt’ – the world of sin in which they were living, the world of rebelling against the living God. They, the Israel of the day, were looking in the wrong direction and going in the wrong direction. It was time to turn round and go the right way (that’s what ‘repentance’ means). It was time to stop dreaming and wake up to God’s reality… Someone was coming very soon, and John was getting people ready.”

So this week we turn to Mark 1.9-13:

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.