Today’s passage is Mark 1:1-11. Mark quotes the passage in Isaiah prophesying John the Baptist’s proclamation of Jesus as the Lord. John baptizes people in water. He says Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit. When Jesus is baptized he sees heaven open and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove.
God the father says Jesus is his son, he loves him and he is pleased with him.
What words did your father say to you?
What do you seek forgiveness for?
I don’t remember a lot of harsh words from my father.
I remember the first time I made my son cry with my words when he was not even two years old.
I think I cried more than he did because I couldn’t believe I had hurt the son I loved.
God the Father never had a harsh word for his son Jesus.
I think that’s probably the way God imagined things could be when he created Adam and Eve and things went awry and they brought death into the world through their sin.
#65279;
When I first made my son cry with my angry words, I can’t even say I tried my best or I was doing it for his own good.
There were other times when my son was older that I could say that, not many but a few.
But in the first time I was just a tired, angry dad who selfishly wanted things to be nice and calm and good for my own self-centered pleasure.
I didn’t look on my son with love or understanding until I’d hurt his feelings.
And when I did it was too late. All I did was cry myself and say I was sorry.
When I was a teenager I showed my loving father little respect.
When I was a boy, I loved him and I remember him fondly.
When I was a man and setting out on my own I remember his gifts to me and his saying he was proud of what I had done, which was just graduate from university and get a job.
#65279;
I wasn’t proud of myself because I saw myself as having failed to live up to my pridefully lofty aspirations.
I was so glad and so blessed that I got to see my dad before he died of cancer and ask his forgiveness for my arrogant and antagonistic attitude towards him.
In the end, in his hospital bed, I finally saw a man who had simply loved his son, me.
When I left the hospital I was crying at my stupid, sinful waste of so many years of living largely estranged from my father.
I have been asking God’s forgiveness ever since.
And for making my son cry the first time. Lord, have mercy.
Application: write my son a letter about that time.
#65279;
Lord, let not my heart ever harden to my children as it did to my father. Keep my heart soft to love others the way you do.
