You are My beloved Son

 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As it is written in the Prophets:

"Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You."
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make His paths straight.' "

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And he preached, saying, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.  Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.  And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.

- Mark 1:1-13

Yesterday, we read the end of the Gospel of Luke:  As the disciples were gathered listening to the story of the two who had made the journey to Emmaus, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you."  But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.  And He said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."  When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.  But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?"  So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb.  And He took it and ate in their presence.  Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.  Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."  And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.  Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.  Amen.

 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As it is written in the Prophets:  "Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, Who will prepare Your way before You."  "The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  'Prepare the way of the LORD;  Make His paths straight.'"    Gospel is εὐαγγέλιον/evangelion in the Greek, literally "good news" or "good tidings."  We see the word "angelion" and note the word for angel as part of "gospel."   An angel is a messenger; this is the "good" message.  This "good news" is the story of the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the good news of the One who came to save us.  This beginning is the opening events of Christ's public ministry, the preparation by John the Baptist, called the Forerunner, and of Christ's encounter with him.  John preaches to the people the words of  the prophets:  Here the first line is from Malachi 3:1; the second is quoting Isaiah 40:3.  John fulfills both as messenger who comes before the Messiah, preparing the people.  Often, in icons of the Eastern Church, John the Baptist is depicted with wings, like an "angel," as he is the messenger of the tidings of the Messiah soon to come.

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And he preached, saying, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."  John is preparing the way for Christ not only by preaching but with a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  We read of the tremendous popularity of his ministry, where even those from the center of Jewish religious life, Jerusalem, come to be baptized in the Jordan and to confess their sins.  John's clothing reflects a radically ascetic, humble lifestyle.  He is like one of the prophets of the Old Testament (indeed, his clothing resembles that of Elijah - see 2 Kings 1:8).  This is a sign that John also fulfills the prophecy of Elijah's return before the Messiah; Jesus will say this of John Himself (see Matthew 17:12-13).  In the fullness of his role, John the Baptist is the greatest and last of all the Old Testament prophets, preparing the way for the story of the New.  John gathered many disciples, most of whom would become followers of Jesus, several of the early apostles were first followers of John.

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.  Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.  And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.   John's baptism fulfills prophesies and begins the public ministry of Jesus Christ.  We note that this is a picture of the Trinity:  present is the Spirit which descends "like a dove," the voice of the Father, the declaration that Jesus is "beloved Son."  In these brief lines, this is Jesus' moment, the time when revelation brings forth this ministry, a revelation brought forward through the seeming handing off of the old to the new:  John the Old Testament-type prophet, to the new, the Christ.  The Spirit is the "author" of what happens in the world; via the Spirit Mary conceived, and now the Spirit drives Christ to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, being with the wild beasts, and also ministered to by angels.

The Gospel of Mark is brief in its accounting of these early stories of Jesus' ministry.  We begin, of course, with John the Baptist, who is also an essential part of this story, and that tells us something important that is related to the final ending of Luke's Gospel, which we read yesterday.  That essential thing to understand is that, indeed, everything is essential to this story of Christ.  There is nothing that is extraneous, and no one is simply expendable.  Even the betrayer Judas, one of the Twelve, is an essential part of this story.  Crucifixion was essential, all of Christ's suffering, as was His Resurrection, as was His Ascension -- as is John the Baptist, the last in the line of the Old Testament prophets, and the one whom the Church considers the greatest.  There is nothing left out of this story.  It tells us about how God works, and even, also, about our places in the cosmos.  In the law of Creator, there is nothing extraneous, nothing that isn't essential or that doesn't belong.  That's a human measuring of life, where expediency so often substitutes for wisdom.  But every human being is essential to the whole, because each one of us is endowed with the potential for relationship with the Creator -- and in that relationship, for purpose and for good.  This is where we are, and in some sense, it's our own choice to be "relevant" or to have purpose, to understand that there's a far bigger picture involved than an accident of our birth, and to choose to participate in that much greater picture via relationship with God.  This is where our story falls today.  Jesus has a mission, but in that mission and that very special and unique identity of the Christ, there are so many others who play important and unexpendable roles.  Each one has a valuable and unique contribution, but what seems to be most essential is simply to see that all of it makes up the story:  John the Baptist comes as fulfillment of Elijah's return, he's the last of the Old Testament prophets and the greatest.  Without his baptism, would we have our story with all of its meanings, with our understanding that this Messiah, the author of the New, is also the substance of the Old and permeates it through and through?  We wouldn't understanding the continuity of the unfolding of spiritual life, the hand of God present through the centuries.  Revelation isn't like the kind of "revolution" a radical dreams of but can never really create:  revelation brings in the substantially new and changes everything, and yet it illumines the past more for us, and brings about greater meanings than were understood before -- even in the Scriptures that record the spiritual history of the past.  When we apply this sense to our own lives we may come to see how each of us is also created for mission, but like Christ's example, we must turn to the divine for that place, that mission.  Jesus' immediate "job" here is to be driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, where He is tempted by Satan, He lives with the wild creatures and He's ministered to by the angels.  Each of us will have temptations and even "wild things" in our lives to contend with.  None is born into a perfect world.  We may each have difficulties presented to us by the circumstances of our births and our adulthood, but Christ sets the tone.  Our own mission is in contending with each, with all of it, in the ways that God leads us to overcome and to do proper "spiritual battle" -- this is in the disposition we learn at prayer, at worship, in the study of the Scriptures, in the development of the virtues the gospel message teaches us.  This is true for whatever our circumstances may be, whoever we are.  Each has his or her own cross.  Take on your mission.  You are, in that sense, indispensable.  Your birth and creation are not an accident.  Each of us is a "beloved son" - male or female, we are capable of being inheritors of this Kingdom.  Take up the challenge to be the one Christ calls to follow Him.