Date: February 18, 2024

Bible Text: 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15 |

Series:

This is the first Sunday in Lent, and we're starting a new sermon series called, "Life, Death, and Jesus." The series will be focusing largely on Jesus' predictions of his own suffering and death (and resurrection), and how his approach to both living and dying can inform our own. We begin this week, not with a passion prediction, but with a text we've visited several times lately, Mark's telling of Jesus' baptism, his temptation in the wilderness, and the beginning of his preaching ministry. It's a short passage, as Mark rarely provides many details, but what is in the text is evocative. To receive a powerful blessing in his baptism, followed immediately by being driven by the Spirit to face testing by the devil, followed immediately by taking up John the Baptizer's mantel preaching repentance, must have been a remarkable roller coaster ride! Can we learn from his experience how to handle the rough rides we face in life?

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