Shelby Olive, Communications Associate

Mark 1:7-12
 7 [John the Baptist] proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Reflection:
Princess Sarah Culberson didn’t know she was a princess. Adopted just after her first birthday into a white family, this biracial woman of West African descent decided in her early twenties that she was ready to find her birth family. Just four short days after writing to her father’s family, she received a call from her aunt. Not only was she delighted to have found her long-lost niece, but she had shocking news: her father is Sierra Leone royalty, and Sarah is the princess they’ve all been waiting for. Sarah boarded a plane to Sierra Leone to meet her father, and as they made their way into their village, the entire community gathered to welcome her home. But what she found in the adoring crowd was that they, fresh out of an 11-year civil war, were scarred by trauma and in deep need of healing. This trip to visit her dad immediately became something else entirely. It was the start of embracing a new identity and with it, a new calling. Sarah became Princess Sarah, and it was time to help her new community recover and heal.

We meet Jesus for the first time at his baptism in Mark’s gospel. Mark doesn’t have too much to say about the matter. In fact, Mark doesn’t tell us much about Jesus at all. We only know that he is a man from Nazareth who has come to be baptized by John. It isn’t until Jesus comes out of the water that Mark tells us just who Jesus is: he is the Son of God, with whom God is well pleased. And immediately, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness, kicking off the ministry that would lead him to the cross.

Jesus’ baptism is a model for our own baptisms, a threshold for a new way of life. We come out from the water — whether sprinkled or immersed—and take on a new identity as children of God. In being baptized we become heirs to Christ’s royal throne, but this royalty is something else entirely. With this new identity as members of Christ’s royal family bestowed upon us, the Spirit immediately leads us into spaces where we too face temptations and are called to a life that will lead us toward pouring ourselves out for the sake of the other.

We have a new identity. We are a new creation. We have a new call to enter the Christian life as heirs to God’s good Kingdom — a life where we continually accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they may present themselves. When our baptisms become real to us, we realize time and time again that the Christian life is one where we are constantly giving of ourselves. It does not relish in the power and the privilege of belonging to God’s Kingdom. Instead, it enjoys the outpouring of oneself to enact God’s healing and restoration in the world.

Indeed, this Christian life into which we are baptized is something else entirely.

Prayer:
Thank you for making me your child. I confess that I often forget that this identity is at the core of who you’ve called me to be, that you have called me to resist evil in all its forms and serve as an agent of your goodness within the world. Today, I remember my baptism and am thankful. Amen.