“So Shall We Bear the Image”

Each of the Gospel writers is recording the story of Jesus for their own community about a generation after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Mark is the first, around the year 70. The first Scripture Rachel just read, from Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, was written before any of the Gospels. It was written about 20 years earlier than Mark’s Gospel, in 53 or 54.
If we only had Mark’s Gospel, we would know nothing about Jesus until the day of his baptism. Only Luke and Matthew tell us about Jesus’ birth. Jesus’ baptism is the first event in Jesus’ life that all 4 gospels record.

Read Mark 1:1-13.

How did your mom or dad wake you up in the morning? At my house, we usually yell up from the bottom of the steps now to be sure that their alarm got them up. But, when the kids were little, I would go in and snuggle close until their little eyelids fluttered open. Good morning, love. I tried a few times to sing “Rise and Shine and give God the glory, glory…” but I soon realized that was going to instill more negative feelings than positive, so I stopped. Rev. Cecelia Armstrong’s mom had a different song she sang every morning, one I knew but that never occurred to me. She woke her up with “Hey, good lookin.’ Whatcha got cookin’? How’s about cookin’ something up with me?” What a way to start the day! You are good lookin’ I care about your plans for the day, and I hope you’ll include me in them.

Parent-child relationships are special. Scripture tells us they are an illustration to us of the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us. And in Jesus, we see that example lived out in the flesh among us.

Mark begins by declaring that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God. “The beginning of the Gospel, the good news, about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” The good news, the Gospel is that Jesus is the Messiah, the one who is anointed to be the leader of the people, and the Son of God. Mark is alluding to another story, that began “in the beginning…” when all creation was good and humanity was pronounced “very good.” And then he puts together what Malachi and Isaiah have foretold, and he expects the reader to make connections to all the prophetic promises as they read his good news that Jesus is the one that the prophets foretold would be the beginning of a new creation.

Mark’s community would have realized that he was obeying the prophet Isaiah in writing down this good news. He quotes Isaiah 40 verse 3, and the rest of the passage would have been in their minds, “You who bring good news go up on a high mountain. Lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say, “Here is your God!” Mark is lifting up the good news, a new beginning, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one, and he is not afraid to say, Son of God, the divine, here, among us.

After his baptism, Jesus is sent out to the wilderness where Satan tempts him. When Satan tempted Adam, he succumbed to the temptation and it destroyed peace and harmony. It led to hostile relationships and friction between people and struggle between humanity and animals and land to produce what we need for survival. Now, Satan tempts Jesus, and he does not succumb. When Mark writes he was with the wild beasts, what came to his mind is probably not what comes first to our minds. Mark is thinking of the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel:
Where animals that usually eat each other live together – wolf and lamb, leopard and goat, calf and lion, cow and bear, children and snakes, God promises that when the earth fully knows God, harm and destruction will be no more. Creation will be restored. Then the lame will leap like deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. God promises through Ezekiel a covenant of peace between people and animals, people and climate, people and the land, and between nations. “Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.’”

And, Mark says, this is the beginning, it is starting now, as Jesus is baptized. People have been flocking to John, who is proclaiming with joy, “Your sins are forgiven! I am baptizing with water, the one who is coming in power after me will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Turn and live like forgiven people! Let God reform you, reshape you, make you new!” When Jesus comes, Matthew’s Gospel tells us that John isn’t comfortable baptizing him…it is you who should be baptizing me…but in all 4 Gospels, it is John who baptizes Jesus. The heavens are torn apart, the same tearing apart that describes the Temple curtain tearing when Jesus dies, it is the tearing apart of what divides us from God. And in all 4 Gospels, the Spirit descends, like a dove, not necessarily in the form of a dove, but they are describing what we can imagine…God’s Spirit gracefully wings its way and settles, remaining upon him, as God speaks, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright points out that “Though the early Christians realized quite quickly that ….It was because Jesus was and is Messiah that God said to them, as he does to us today, what he said to Jesus at his baptism.” That’s what Paul is explaining in the passage we read from First Corinthians, “The first man Adam – the word Adam means soil in Hebrew – became a living soul when God breathed into him” and then we know what happened from there; the second Adam, Jesus, has become a life-giving spirit. The earth man shares his earth nature with all those made of earth; likewise the divine man shares His nature with all those who are baptized – because in baptism the divide between earth and heaven is torn apart and we are born anew. Just as we have carried the image of the earth man in our bodies, we will also carry the image of the divine man, Jesus.

Throughout Advent and Christmas we considered the question, “How does a weary world rejoice?” Ultimately, our joy is rooted in the fact that we belong to God, and that we are the source of God’s joy. When we trust that we are God’s beloved children, and God is well-pleased with us – it changes our lives.

Henri Nouwen, a Dutch priest and theologian wrote in his book Life of the Beloved about how the world sees us compared to how God sees us. In a world that is always sending us messages of you’re not enough, you need to improve, you don’t look good, you aren’t as ______ fill in the blank as so-and-so, you are just a nobody, God says here is the truth:
“You are my Beloved…I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours… I have molded you in the depths on the earth and knit you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with care more intimacy than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. . . wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”

May we find joy in God’s song to us: Hey, good lookin’. You bear my image. Whatcha got cookin’? Share your plans, your dreams, your hopes, your sorrows and your joys with me. How’s about cookin’ something up with me? For you are my beloved child, and with you, I am well-pleased. Amen.