Prepare the Way of
the Lord -
there’s work for us all.
Some notes from Christina Baxter’s Evening Address
at Flames of Fire
Christina started with a reading from
St. Mark Chapter 1 verses 1-20. Here
John the Baptist is proclaimed as the one who feels unworthy to untie the thong
of Christ’s sandals for “He will come and baptise with the Holy Spirit”.
Nevertheless Jesus comes to be baptised by John, an “odd” person
living in the desert. She
focussed on Jesus’ baptism and asks why did he, the “one without sin”
need to be baptised? She
spoke of Jesus’ humanity, of his identifying with us and repenting for our
sin, the sin of the whole world.
We should never stop repenting and
asking God to restore us and renew us and here Jesus has shown the way, all our
sins have already been repented of by him.
Continuing with the reading we see that the “Place of repentance is
the place where the Holy Spirit comes.”
As we repent God wants to send more of His Holy Spirit, to receive more
we must start on our knees in repentance, for He longs to send the Spirit.
Jesus as a man needed to spend nights
in prayer, he needed the Spirit of God and so do we. When the Spirit comes we can hear God tell us that we
are His children, His beloved and we can call Him “Abba”, hear Him
say that He is well pleased with us.
The baptism of Jesus tells us of our
identity with him, of our purpose and of our way to be renewed and refreshed.
And as we stand in Christ in the Jordan we too are ready, like John the
Baptist to “Prepare
the Way of the Lord”.
It might be a small or invisible part that we have to play
but it is our part, no matter how “odd” a person we may be there is
space for us; but as for John the
Baptist the call is for obedience.
Jesus baptised the Church at Pentecost
and again and again throughout history when the power of the Spirit has been
experienced. We need to ask
for this blessing for our churches and leaders.
But what will it mean for us?
In Mark’s gospel we read that Jesus
was driven out into the wilderness by the Spirit, where he was locked in combat
with Satan. We are assured of
a victorious life but we must expect opposition. Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit went to the Cross to
win the final victory. We
gladly accept the victory but we do well to recognise that being filled with the
Spirit means engaging in warfare as He calls us.
We are not alone but in Him, with other Christians, knowing that
resurrection follows the cross, that victory is in Him and achieved through Him.
It means that we recognise that we will pass through tribulation,
persecution, trouble and temptation.
We come trembling, are we sure that we
want to preach the gospel boldly in all the places God may send us?
There are jobs for us all and there will be fruit from it and joy in it.
So it is: REPENT, BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT AND GO OUT AND TELL OTHERS……..
God enabled Jesus,
he preached and did miracles and prepared the way for us to follow in his
footsteps. There is
then no limit to what He can do……