Whenever crafting a sermon, one of the best pieces of advice the teachers give is don't try to tell the congregation everything you learned about the passage. Yes, sir, yes ma'am. Always leave 'em wanting more.
Yesterday was Baptism of the Lord Sunday. The sermon was titled "New Beginnings". These paragraphs lasted for a couple of drafts of the sermon, but were edited from for length and because they do not belong to this sermon. I may write that sermon someday. This would have been inserted after the paragraph ending “with whom God is well pleased.”
Just a quick note about our reading, the way this piece of Mark’s gospel is written, Jesus alone sees the heavens torn apart. Mark is very specific about this. Nobody in the valley of the Jordan can see this.
But as for the voice, this sentence is less specific. It would not be too far of a stretch to think that Jesus alone heard this voice. There is no reason to automatically assume that we go from Jesus seeing the blessing alone to everyone hearing the blessing. Still, there is nothing in the writing that prevents us from taking this leap. Did everyone hear the voice that came from heaven?
Different evangelists see this event differently, as we see this presented by Matthew and Luke. Is one more right where the others are more wrong? Well, maybe, maybe not. This is the sort of thing biblical scholars, theologians, and everyday people have discussed since this was first put to scrolls, but that discussion is for another day.
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