For 2000 years the world had been waiting. Ever since God called Abraham and promised to bless his descendents forever. It was 1500 years since Moses had led the Israelites out of slavery and Joshua had led them into the promised land. It was a thousand years since the time of David, Israel’s greatest King. 1000 years of waiting for the Messiah, God’s anointed king who would be greater even than David.
For 2000 years God had been preparing His chosen people to receive their Saviour. The Law, the sacrifices, the whole of the Old Testament had all been God’s way of preparing the world to meet with God. And now the Good News was about to be revealed: the Good News which is all wrapped up in the person and the Teaching of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
But God’s chosen people still weren’t ready. So God sent one final messenger to make the last vital preparations so that the Jews would not ignore their Messiah. God sent the forerunner he had promised to pave the way.
Isaiah 40: 3 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
So it was that
John came baptising
Mark 1:4 And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
Baptism was not a usual practice among the Jews. In fact it would be very unusual indeed for a Jew to be baptised because baptism was the way that somebody who wasn’t a Jew could become a Jew. Baptism was the mark of conversion for Gentiles into Judaism. What John’s baptism was saying was that even the best Jews had fallen so far away from God that they needed to become Jews all over again.
John’s baptism was a sign of repentance. Like the Christian baptism which followed, John’s baptism was an outward sign of an inward change. It was n expression of repentance, an acknowledgement of sin and a desire to be washed clean. So people came to John confessing their sins and they were baptised in the Jordan. There were two reason why they were choosing to be baptised.
1. So that God would forgive their sins. John brought a warning that God’s judgment was coming. The Jews all knew that their repentance wouldn’t earn God’s forgiveness, but they were trusting in God’s mercy and living kindness and they knew and believed the famous saying of the Jewish teachers of the law, “If the whole of Israel were to repent for just one day, then the Messiah will come!”
2. To be ready to meet with God. Mankind’s evil and rebellion had tried to squeeze God out of the world He had created. When God entered the world as Saviour He sent John as messenger to prepare his people so they would make room for God again. People wanted to be ready for the Messiah.
But there was more to John the Baptist’s message than a call to repentance. He came to point the way for the one who was to follow him.
Mark 1:6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John was impressive. But he only came to point to somebody who would be even more impressive, the “one more powerful” who was about to arrive. John didn’t draw attention to himself, but to Jesus. John’s gospel records that John the Baptist said, “He must increase – I must decrease.”
John pointed forward to the one who will baptise not with water, but with the Holy Spirit. John initiated people by immersing them and overwhelming them with water – but the one to come would immerse and overwhelm in the Holy Spirit – an initiation even more dramatic and radical and life-changing.
So God send John the Baptist to prepare his people to meet Jesus. John was just the messenger in the desert, preparing the way of the Lord. But Jesus also had to prepare Himself for the ministry God had given him. That is why
Jesus came and was baptised
Mark 1:9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
Here was a surprise. Jesus didn’t need to repent. He was pure and holy – he had no sins needing forgiveness. And Jesus was the person John was preparing the way for, the one everybody was waiting for. Others were getting baptized so they would be ready to meet HIM. So why was Jesus baptised? Three reasons.
1. Jesus was identifying with human beings. Jesus didn’t need to be baptised, but he chose to be baptised to be united with the rest of humankind.
2. Jesus’s baptism was a sign of his dedication and commitment to God’s will and the ministry God had sent him to fulfil.
3. Jesus’ baptism was specifically to equip him for his ministry as Saviour of the world.
In these respects Jesus’s baptism is not a pattern for our baptism. Rather it was unique, because Jesus Himself was unique in his person, and his ministry too would be unique. And then two things happened at Jesus’s baptism to prepare him for his ministry, which again would be unique to him.
Mark 1:10 As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. We might think of a dove as a symbol of peace. In fact in the Bible a dove is more often a messenger of Good News – remember the dove which brought the olive branch to Noah on the ark. The Holy Spirit descended on Jesus to equip Him to be a Messenger of Good News.
Of course we know that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God, one with each other and with God the Father. So why did Jesus need to be anointed with the Holy Spirit? Well that is because Jesus was also completely human. And all the mighty acts he would accomplish during His ministry would be done as man, but as a man filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit of God. All Jesus’s miracles, all the acts of healing and deliverance, all his wonderful teaching would come from Jesus the man. So Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit for that ministry, equipped to serve God as a perfect man, not in his own strength as the Son of God but in the strength of God the Holy Spirit.
Then as a confirmation of God’s call on Jesus’s life, there came the voice from heaven.
11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
There words were not only for Jesus Himself, but for all those people around who heard them. And they echoed prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Isaiah 42:1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. 2He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. 3A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 4he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.”
Echoes also of Psalm 2:
6“I have installed my King on Zion, my holy hill.” 7 I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.
8Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

So in these ways God’s son was prepared for the ministry the Father had sent him to fulfill. John’s baptism had prepared the people for their Messiah. His baptism prepared Jesus for the work he had come to do. But there was just one more thing to be accomplished before Christ began His public ministry. And those final preparations could only take place in private.
Jesus was tempted by Satan
Mark 1:12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, 13 and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
Jesus was in the desert for 40 days. We will save the details of those temptations for another day. Suffice it to say that here was spiritual warfare at its most intense. It had taken the nation of Israel forty years of wandering in the wilderness to discover what it meant for them to be God’s chosen people. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert fasting and praying learning from painful experience how hard it is to be the Son of God living as Son of Man in a sin-spoiled world. Angels were there. Demons were there and for 40 days and 40 nights the prince of darkness tried every trick he knew to extinguish the light of the world. And then the battle was over – Satan was defeated, the Son of God was victorious and the strong man was bound.
Jesus was then completely ready and equipped to begin his ministry of bringing God’s Good News to a dying world. Jesus had put the devil in his place, more than that, Jesus had faced all the temptation the devil could throw at him, all the temptations we ever face, and had learned by experience how to help others who so easily fall to those temptations. Jesus was now fully equipped to begin His ministry as Saviour of the world.
Hebrews 4: 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
So here is the beginning of the Good News – John the Baptist came to prepare the way of the Lord. But would we be ready to meet with God? If we mean business with God, if we really want to meet God, then John the Baptist’s message is as relevant to us today as it was to the people then. We need to prepare the way of the Lord, by repentance, by recognizing that things we do and think and say can be sinful. We need to be sorry for our selfishness and disobedience and rebellion. And we need to resolve to turn away from those sins and live an new life, with God’s help. In our natural state we are too blind to see God, and too deaf to hear Him. We all need not just one single act of repentance, but a continuing process of turning our back on sin and turning towards God, stopping going our own way and choosing to go God’s way.
But God didn’t wait for human beings to reach perfection before He stepped down among us. Instead, Jesus came and shared in our baptism, shared in our human condition and identified with our weakness. Tempted as we are – but without sinning! God came down and met us at our own level. So Jesus can help us and save us, right where we are. That’s why the message of Jesus Christ the Son of God is such Good News!