(1:4) Would You have been Baptized?

Mark 1:4 “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

Here’s the question that I have for you: if you lived there (Judea) at that time (in the days of John the Baptist), would you have gone out to the river and been baptized?

Let’s start here: John was kind of weird. His diet was weird (locusts and wild honey). His clothes were weird (camel hair and leather belt). His message was weird (“Prepare for the coming of the Lord.” “Confess your sins.”)

For a person at that time to go to John the Baptist was to step outside the normal flow of life. It was to step away from the established, accepted patterns of piety. It was to admit something was lacking. Something was wrong. 

If God was coming (how that would happen, people did not know), they somehow knew that they were not ready. Preparations should be made, but they didn’t know what, or how. John gave them a way, a weird way. Come on out to the river, confess your sins, and be baptized. 

This was not a baptism for babies. I doubt a single baby confessed his sins and got wet. It was for young people and adults who knew that things weren’t right. It was a pro-spective baptism, not retro-spective. You were identifying with a group of people who were preparing for the coming of God, and who knew they needed washing. I doubt that anyone thought the waters of the Jordan River would do the trick. They were merely admitting their need of a deeper, better cleansing - something that only God could do - and they wanted to be ready.

So would you have been baptized? You would go out there, and in front of this crowd of people, however many, whoever they were, you would confess your sins. Perhaps some people said, “I’m a sinner.” Perhaps some actually named their sins. Would you have done that? Would you have said, “The current system is not working. It’s time to follow the voice in the wilderness.”?

It’s as if the whole world is in line, marching single-file to hell. Everybody’s doing it. It must be right. But you know that something isn’t right. Something’s wrong, with the system; with other people; with me. Something’s definitely wrong, and I’m not ready for God’s arrival.

Are you convinced enough to step out of line, and to go to the Jordan? Would you have been baptized?