Mary and Elizabeth
“Art is long and life is short.”
This proverb reminds us of the permanence of art and the fleeting nature of
human life. While I was visiting the Holy Land, there were several moments where
this proverb came to my mind. The Church of the Visitation was one of
them. This church was built to honor Mary, the mother of Jesus, who visited
Elizabeth after she heard the news of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. The façade of the
church is adorned by a beautiful mosaic. The inside of the church contains
several paintings that tell us the story of Mary and Elizabeth. The external wall
of the church is decorated with Mary’s praise, known as the Magnificat (Luke
1:46-55) in many different languages. As I was walking around the church yard,
once again I experienced the power of artistic imagination. I felt like all
the artworks were taking me back to the times of Mary and Elizabeth, connecting
the dots.
The Bible says Mary and Elizabeth were “relatives” or “kinswomen” (Luke 1:36). Apparently, Elizabeth was an important person in Mary’s life. When Mary discovered Elizabeth was pregnant, she immediately left Nazareth and traveled for nine days to visit Elizabeth in Ein Karem, just outside Jerusalem. There Mary stayed for three months to help her cousin or aunt Elizabeth until she gave birth to her son John.
Jesus and John
John and Jesus were cousins, born
about six months apart, with mothers who were very close. You may recall that
in Jesus’ time all Jews should make a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem three times a year (Passover, Shavuout, and Sukkot). Each feast
lasted for a week. And those who visited Jerusalem typically stayed with their
closet of kin. There was a good chance that Mary and Joseph would stay with
Elizabeth and Zachariah during those annual feasts. So every year perhaps John and Jesus would spend time together, play together,
dream of God’s kingdom together since they were young.
John and Jesus had many things in common. Both of them had a miraculous birth. They were six months apart in age. They had a shared mission from God, calling people to repent and be part of the kingdom of God. When the time had come, John started his ministry first.
Qumran
The Bible says that John was in the wilderness until he
began his public ministry (Luke 1:80). Many scholars assumed that John
would have belonged to the Qumran community. At that time, a group of people,
called Essenes, set themselves apart and moved here to Qumran to prepare the
way of the Lord in the wilderness (Isa 40:3). Their lifestyle was quite simple
and focused. They lived in tents and caves. They got up early in the morning,
did their physical labor (farming, hunting, pottery, laundry, and so on). Then,
about noon, there was a ritual bath followed by a ritual meal, and in the
afternoon they studied and copied the Scriptures, and kept the scrolls in the
jars. Unfortunately, the Romans destroyed Qumran in 68 AD, and the Qumran
community was not known to the world until 1947. A shepherd boy searching for a
lost goat threw a stone into one of the caves and heard a jar breaking. Then,
the scrolls were found in eleven of the caves.
Anyhow, for the Qumran Essenes a ritual bath was extremely important. Visiting the ruins of Qumran, you can see multiple baptistries called mikveh that were used for a ritual bath. Usually, mikvehs contain two sets of stairs, so that the bather goes down ritually unclean and exits on the opposite side ritually clean. For the Essenes, a ritual bath was a daily practice as a sign of their desire for purification and holy living. It was also a means of signifying a new birth, drowning to the old person and coming out of the water as the new. The practice of the ritual bath serves as the origin of the Christian baptism. It helps us to understand why John so emphasized to be baptized as he preached the message of repentance. For John and his followers, baptism was an expression of their desire to be clean before God, and also a sign of God’s forgiveness.
The Jordan River
And so John
appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance that leads to
forgiveness of sins. “Repent, because God’s kingdom is here.” People
responded from all different places – Judea, Jericho (6 miles) and Jerusalem
(30 miles). They went out to see and hear John, they confessed their sins, then
they were baptized in the Jordan River. The Jordan River is a very meaningful
place for the Jews and Christians. It was in this very place that Joshua and
the Israelites cross the Jordan and entered the Promised Land. It was in this
very place that Naaman was healed. It was in this place that Elijah left this
world, and John began his ministry here. Most importantly, it was in the Jordan
River that our Lord Jesus Christ was baptized. After 42 years as a closed
military zone (covered in mines), the historical site where Jesus was baptized
was now open to the public since 2011. When our conference team was there to
have our baptismal renewal service there, Israeli soldiers were standing their
watch on one side of the river, Jordanian on the other. There we praised Jesus
who came to this world as the Prince of peace. There we renewed our baptismal
vows to live as messengers of peace.
Back to the story. One day Jesus came all the way from Nazareth in Galilee (65 miles) and arrived at the Jordan River and said to John, “Baptize me, brother!” John was confused and said, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus insisted, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John agreed, and Jesus was baptized. Why must Jesus who knew no sin receive the baptism of repentance? The answer is Jesus waded into the water not for his sake, but for ours. In his baptism, Jesus identified with sinners. “For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21, NRSV). John proclaimed, “Look, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)
At the moment when Jesus was baptized, he broadened the meaning and application of baptism. By that time, baptism was for the forgiveness of sins. But when Jesus was baptized, the heavens were torn apart and the Holy Spirit came down upon him. Not only that, there was a voice saying, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Since then, when we are baptized by faith in the name of Jesus, we are also baptized with his Holy Spirit as well as with water (cf. Mark 1:8). When we are baptized, we are adopted into God’s family, we become God’s beloved. When Martin Luther struggled with bouts of depression, when he was at his lowest, he would look into the mirror and say to himself, “Martin Luther, you are baptized. Don’t forget.” Baptism is once for life, but we need to remember our baptism every day. I prepared a simple prayer and printed it out for you. I invite us to hang this prayer somewhere in the bathroom and to recite the prayer when we step into the water or wash our face each morning. The card says:
Lord, as I enter the water to bathe,
I remember my baptism.
Wash me anew.
Fill me with your Spirit.
Give me strength to love
And to live as your beloved child today
And honor you in all that I do. Amen.[1]
The Judean Wilderness
Right after Jesus was baptized and
coming up out of the water, by the Holy Spirit he was led to the Judean wilderness,
just as Israel had been led to the wilderness centuries before. Both Jesus and
Israel faced the same challenging test in the wilderness by the heavenly
Father: “Will you trust me no matter what? Will you
choose me over the fundamentals for survival?” Israel failed. They
complained about the lack of food and water. They followed after other gods.
Jesus remained faithful. He chose to trust God over
food, health, wealth, fame, power. He chose to trust God’s word: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that
comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Matt 4:4).
David also spent time in this wilderness. As a shepherd, he had to move his flock to the wilderness pastures. During the Holy Land pilgrimage, I saw Bedouin shepherds with their flocks here and there in the wilderness. It was amazing to see how the members of the flock follow their shepherd. Probably David also observed how his flock trusted him and followed him. He longed to trust the Lord in the same way. His prayers and thoughts turned into words, the psalm of trust, Psalm 23. I prepared another prayer adapted from Psalm 23 and printed it out for you. I want to invite us to share this prayer with those who are facing seasons of wilderness in their lives.
I
remember who you are.
God,
you are my Shepherd,
I lack
nothing.
Whether
I am led into green pastures,
or into
Death Valley,
I’m not
afraid,
for you are with me.
I
choose to trust you today,
and
follow you all the days of my life. Amen.
[1]
Prayer adapted from Adam Hamilton, The
Way, (Abingdon Press, 2016), Kindle Edition. Location 309 of 2317.
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