The Baptism of Jesus

This is the passage where Jesus is baptised and then the Spirit of God descended on him in the form of a dove. God then speaks and announces that Jesus is his son - so if John the Baptist wasn't enough to convince you hopefully the voice of God speaking from the sky is . A point of interest is that in John, John the Baptist says that he didn't know that Jesus was the one until the dove came. Remember they were "cousins", and probably knew each other reasonably well. God had independently sent John out to do His work, and so John must have found it slightly amusing that all this time he had known the saviour of the world, without knowing that he was the saviour of the world!

He Who Winnows the Grain

This is John's statement about what Jesus will do to us

"He is ready to separate the chaff from the grain with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, storing the grain in his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire."

Lets make sure that we are grain & not chaff!!

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

Wow these are some powerful passages - I really don't think that I can do them justice so I will only hit on some of the points that stood out to me

• John quotes Isaiah, and says that he is the voice in the desert preparing the way for the Messiah.
  
• This passage is one of the arguments against infant baptism (the main argument for being Acts 16:32-34) the argument against is that John gets them to confess their sins first (Matt3:6, and Mark1:5) He also gives the Pharisees and Sadducees grief when they turned up to be baptised, as they were being hypocrites, by not living their lives as men who had confessed their sins and turned to God. A demonstration that your actions need to speak louder than words. Personally I was baptised as an infant - and was very confused and upset when I was told that this wasn't right. I then went on to get baptised again as an adult, as an open profession of my faith. Our boys were not baptised as babies, and will make the decision for themselves when they are old enough. Either way baptism doesn't change your salvation, as it is the confession of sins and the acceptance of Christ as your Saviour who died as punishment for the sins you committed, and then conquered death by rising from the grave. It's these facts that result in your salvation not a bath or sprinkle at any age - or by any specific denomination.
  
• John warns them that being Jewish doesn't get them into heaven they have to act like Gods people too (professing their faith by the way they live their lives).
  
• John makes sure that the crowd knows that he is nothing compared to Christ.
  
• And finally John tells them that Christ will baptise with the Holy Spirit, which for the Jews was a really exciting prospect as they knew how infrequently that the Holy Spirit was handed out, so the thought of being bathed in the Holy Spirit would have been awesome to them. I am unsure as to what the reference of a fire baptism infers.

The childhood of Jesus

Jesus has quite an active initial childhood what with the escape to Egypt and then the return to Nazareth. This all happened when he was pretty young though. The only record that we have of Jesus doing something as a child is in Luke when he is 12 years old in the temple at the Passover festival. This is when he schools the teachers of the law who are "amazed at his understanding", he also gets busted by his parents for getting them worried sick about his whereabouts. One thing that might be worth noting is that Joseph is still alive at this point, so sometime between Jesus being 12 and 30 he dies, as he's not around during the time of Jesus's ministry.

The Birth of Jesus

These passages can be hard to find truly parallel parts, and break it down so that it makes sense. Here I cover the birth of Jesus - although as it includes the wise men as well I suspect it goes though to when He was a toddler. Is it just me or does anyone else think it's strange that Joseph keeps his family in Bethlehem for so long? They only went there for the roman census - you figure it can't take that long to fill out the form. Why didn't they go back to their home town and live closer to their families (especially as they had a new baby - what grandparent wants to miss out on that) Also wouldn't that be where Joseph had all his business contacts? Maybe there was a shortage of carpenters in Bethlehem, maybe they were trying to avoid any gossip that had occurred back home from Mary's pregnancy?, maybe by delaying the return home people wouldn't do all the month counting to figure out when Mary had got pregnant. Who knows, and who really cares? The important part is Jesus was born into the world, in humble circumstances. After his birth he is first visited by the lowest of the low (shepherds) and then the highest of the high (wise men) - which demonstrates his immediate, and intimate direct accessibility to all.

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

These passages cover the arrival of the angel Gabriel who tells Mary about how God is going to use her to carry his son!!! This passage speaks volumes about faith and trusting in God - I pray that I can have the same strength to listen to God when he speaks to me. Both Mary and Joseph are visited - Mary so that she knows what is going to happen, and Joseph so that he doesn't call off the wedding. I have always kinda wondered what the parents were thinking at this time. I am guessing that Mary's Dad would have got pretty angry about this - which suggests that either Joseph made sure that they had the wedding pretty quickly so that no questions were asked outside of the family - although that seems unlikely as Matt 1:19 talks of how he found out and planned to break the engagement quietly. The other choice is that the parents were exceptionally faithful too and either just believed what their kids told them, or were also told by God too. This is of course all hypothesis, and really not that relevant to the message which is.

Believe God when he tells you something (no matter how unbelievable it seems).

Follow through on God's instructions (so that you will be blessed).

Others can tell you are following God's instructions.

It's good to sing praises to God about the unexpected blessings in your life.

Introduction of John

John the baptist is mentioned to differing degrees in the different gospels - he doesn't even get a mention in Matthew or John until later (when he starts his ministry)

The story covered is the birth of John and how he was special, and set apart (in the same way that Samson was) for God. His birth was a miracle too as his parents were both very old (kinda like Abraham and Sarah when they had Isaac)