Humiliation Before Exaltation

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5:19)

 

 

          It was as close as we Americans come to a coronation. Last Tuesday, Inauguration Day, always is replete with tradition, with proper form and governmental etiquette, topped with a nice dash of culture (did you see Aretha? and Yitzak and Yo-Yo Ma?).

          We Americans take pleasure in a little pomp and circumstance every now and again. When it comes to our leader, we really want a little nobility: maybe an Ivy League pedigree, perhaps a hometown of note, a family of record. Regardless of our particular views, you and I want to point to our leader and say to the world with pride, “Here is our man.”

         

This is why today’s text from St. Mark 1 jolts you and me: the evangelist presents Jesus not in clouds of glory but in the dust of humanity. We see Jesus being baptized by John the Baptizer, then entering the wilderness – where the wild beasts roamed, ominously – and enduring Satan’s wretched temptations for forty days. Certainly the Father rent the Heavens and declared His Son’s beloved status, but still we see hardship. We don’t see Jesus on a throne but, rather, laboring amid our fallen world.

Not pomp and circumstance, to be sure – but necessary humility and service nonetheless. Mark presents Jesus as identifying with you and me, as empowered by the Spirit, and as obedient to the Father on our behalf.

So the paradox God presents you today: in order to lead you to glory by his obedience, our Lord Jesus Christ needed to identify with you in deepest humility.

 

          Mark shows us, first, that the One who is our Savior truly had to identify with us as humans before the face of God.

          For one, Jesus identifies with you and me in his humanity (except, it should be observed without sin). The very birth of our Redeemer speaks of his perfect humility and of his identification with us as those he came to save. Last week we noted how John Baptist set the stage and paved the way for Jesus, calling “religious” people to repent and to clear the highway of their hears for the Savior. Honestly, though, you and I might have expected more flourish to Mark’s description of Jesus’ arrival on the scene. All we see, however, is Jesus coming from Nazareth of Galilee.

          Nazareth of Galilee – even his home was despised of men! Jerusalemites viewed Galilean religious ideas as suspect; and as Nathaniel retorted when told of the Messiah’s advent, “Can any good thing come from Nazareth?” Yet our Savior came unto his own, not concerned for a glorious hometown but devoted to the will of the Father – to identifying with you and me in our humanity, no matter our hometowns.

          Jesus also identifies with us in his being baptized by John, which the Baptist actually tried to prevent. Indeed, such an arrangement strikes us as odd, because you and I customarily assume that dignitaries should not have to take part in the daily activities of the common person. (The French statesman Charles de Gaulle famously became indignant when he had to wait in line with everyone else at Galatorie’s Restaurant in New Orleans, which is that establishment’s unusually democratic custom). John admitted that he had need of being baptized by Jesus, but the Lord corrected him: it was fitting, Jesus said, for John to baptize him in order to “fulfill all righteousness.”

          Jesus’ baptism was a part of his fulfilling all righteousness, for it signified his identification with us as we submit to his commandment to be baptized in the Name of the triune God. His baptism also helped fulfill all righteousness in that it pointed to his taking our sin upon himself so that he might wash us clean with his blood. Although it seemed at first to John to be “undignified,” Jesus’ baptism was absolutely necessary if he were to redeem us humans from our sins and set us right with the Father.

          Jesus also identified with you and me in being tempted by Satan, for in being tested by the Adversary he is able to comfort you and me in our daily trials. Indeed, St. Paul in writing to the Hebrews declares we have a merciful and faithful High Priest who is not insensitive to the feeling of our infirmities. He instead is able to comfort and to strengthen you and me as we not only battle cancer and grief and fleshliness but also an enemy who prowls about, ready to swallow us whole. Jesus can do this because he has been there, enduring the enemy’s most-vicious attacks – yet emerged victorious.

          You and I often want to place our leaders on a hundred-foot-high pedestal, thinking their elevation will bolster us. Thankfully, our Redeemer identifies with you and me in this cursed world – paving the way for his glorification.

 

          Mark’s description of Jesus’ advent, second, points to his need for empowerment by the Spirit to accomplish his saving mission.

          Christ’s entrance into public ministry did not commence with regal celebrations, nor did he step into a life of ease. Quite the opposite! After his baptism, he immediately – Mark’s favorite term in this action-filled history – received public blessing from his Father. And he immediately was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. Jesus’ mission would be rigorous as he combated the forces of Hell.

          Thus the Father’s empowerment of His Son through the anointing of His Spirit.

As Jesus obeyed the Father and fulfilled all righteousness in being baptized, the Father rent the Heavens and proclaimed that Jesus was His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. Not only did this declaration truly fulfill the pronouncements made in Psalms 2 and 45 about the earthly kings of Israel, it also gave public notice to the unique role of the Son in God’s plan of salvation. This King was not like all the other kings of Israel, for he was (and remains) the Son of God and Conqueror of sin and death. Jesus did not “become” the Son of God at this point; rather, God-in-the-flesh, Immanuel, was declared the unique King and Redeemer of Israel for all to behold.

          But this declaration did not conclude the Father’s empowering of the Son for his earthly mission of salvation. The Spirit then came and descended on Jesus like a dove, giving Jesus a particular anointing unlike any before seen in Israel’s history. (Now, it is true that the Father, Son and Spirit have mutually coinhered with each other from all eternity. The Second Person of the Trinity did not lack the Holy Spirit before this time; rather, the Son as a true human received a special anointing as the true Prophet, Priest and King over the people of God.)

          You and I will not, and cannot, fully grasp the degree of suffering the Savior endured while on earth. We cannot understand how he in his perfect holiness must have felt enduring Satan’s buffets. Surely the One who hungered, wept and grew weary also carried a special burden as he ministered in this world of sin.

          We can be sure of this, however: the Holy Spirit’s empowerment brought strength to our Savior in this hostile, hateful world.

 

          Third, Mark’s description of Christ’s early ministry shows you and me the necessity of his obedience to the Father.

          You will recall that in Eden, in the Covenant of Works that God made with Adam, the Lord positively commanded Adam to tend and to keep the Garden. We often focus on God’s “negative” commandment to Adam, but recall that the Lord also gave Adam something to do. When Adam and Eve did what God had forbidden and failed to obey what He had required of them, they brought double accusation upon themselves (and you and me in Adam).

          So you and I rejoice in the Second Adam, who not only suffered for our sin to cleanse us from guilt but also obeyed his Father’s commandments to earn glory for us. Jesus’ obedience – here, his baptism and his resistance of Satan’s temptations – merited Heaven for you and me. Consider the parallel (in Greek and in English) in verse 10: as Jesus came up out of the (likely very shallow) river, having obeyed his Father’s plan by identifying with you and me in baptism, the Spirit descended upon him. This parallelism is no “accident!” The Son obeys in submission and is blessed by acclamation.

          In the same manner, Jesus’ forty days of testing, deprivation and obedience in the wilderness stand in marked contrast to the forty years of wandering, grumbling and general disobedience of Israel (also known as God’s Son under the Old Covenant). Think of the extremes Jesus endured in the wilderness, where – aren’t the details in St. Mark’s brief gospel fascinating?! – he was with the wild animals and the enemy. The text indicates Satan continually tested Jesus, although Matthew and Luke specifically note three instances when the devil tempted Jesus at his weakest point. Each time the devil quoted Scripture in an illegitimate context, trying to lure Jesus to seek glory apart from the way of the cross. Each time, Jesus rebuffed Satan with the correct Scripture in the correct context.

          Jesus, we are told, “learned obedience” as a Son by the things he suffered. In order to reconcile you and me to God the Father and to qualify us for Heaven, he had to succeed where Adam – and you – failed. From his circumcision to his baptism to his testing in the wilderness to his teaching to his life to his death, Jesus did his Father’s will. Rugged as it sounds to you and me, this was his meat and drink. As you feed on him by faith, you will enjoy the glorious rewards that the Righteous Servant has claimed on your behalf.

 

          After all the fanfare, will our president accomplish his mission now that the grind has begun? Does any president? It seems the sobriety of Day Two hardly resembles the jubilation of Day One.

          In our glamour-frenzied country, you and I do well to delight in the deep humility of our Savior, who understood his mission perfectly. He came not to hover over us, but to wash our feet. His life, though empowered by the Spirit, followed the course set out from eternity by his Father – wherever that course took him. Even to Hell.

          Do you embrace such a humble Savior?

          If you do, is yours a life of ease – or a ministry that follows the Father’s call?