I’m blogging for Lent! Hopefully. We’ll see. I tend to not
be so good at either regular blogging or regular Bible reading, so I’m
combining the two for some accountability. I hope. I'll link to the passage at the top, and then give thoughts (either written out or as a list or both). For what it is worth, I like the NASB translation since it is pretty literal.
Anyway. Mark 1:1-13. I’ve certainly read it before, but a
few things stick out to me this time around:
- John the
Baptist was preaching a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”.
Anointing with various liquids certainly happened in the Old Testament, but I
would have thought that most religious ceremonies like that would happen at the
Temple in Jerusalem, not randomly in the Jordan River, and not by a random guy
who eats grasshoppers and bee barf. Are grasshoppers even kosher? It’s a very
weird place for Jesus to start his ministry.
- “You are
My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” Classic line, but I think what I’m
noticing here is that this is really what anyone wants from another person (or
from God). We want to be loved, and we want to please someone. For a people
pleasing-y person like myself, this statement is pretty much the goal from any
person. Love and satisfaction.
- “And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him.” Love ya, son, but go suffer for forty days. Angels ministering sounds helpful, at least. Was it like manna? Or was it something else? Other gospels discuss the temptation in more detail, but I like knowing that Jesus suffered. It makes me, I don’t know, respect Him more? Understand Him more? It’s like how I kind of always hate the person with that squeaky-clean picture-perfect life because they have had things waaaaay too easy and you can’t trust them because they see everything as all bright and shiny. I could never trust a god like that, he would be too naïve. But someone who has suffered? They have the right to my respect, I guess. Also: I know we can serve angels nowadays, but I wonder if there are still angels ministering nowadays. Maybe there are.
An appropriate start to Lent, anyway. Onwards and upwards!
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