Mt 3.13-17 Jan 11-25 Unburden the Soul: Faith, Forgiveness, and Mental Freedom

Send us Fan MailToday’s edition focuses on the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.  This is only recorded direct episode of Jesus interacting with John the Baptist.  To give you some context, John was inviting people to the Jordan River for a spiritual cleansing.  This spiritual cleansing has been referred to as Baptism.  John the Baptist was not the first to use this model of using water to wash away sin.  There are many examples in Scripture of special rituals used to described spiritual washing.  Two examples from the Hebrew Testament are Ezekiel 36:25 “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness.” From Isaiah 1:16 we have “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes.”  From the New Testament we have Hebrews 10:22, “Our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  There are others but you get the point.   This raises the question, why did Jesus request a spiritual practise that was used to wash away sin when Jesus did not sin?Complete our 1 Minute Survey