Baptism
If days are pages in the story of existence, what page number are we on today? What page # was it when:
John the Baptizer appeared in the wild, preaching a baptism of life-change that leads to forgiveness of sins. People thronged to him from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, were baptized by him in the Jordan River into a changed life. John wore a camel-hair habit, tied at the waist with a leather belt. He ate locusts and wild field honey. As he preached he said, “The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will change your life. I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you from the inside out.” At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.
See the man from Galilee walking up to the waters of Jordan, you can put your feet on that same muddy shore today, but the intrinsic fabric of every dust grain there was changed once he dipped below the waves and rose out again -a ripple that extended to all ends of the cosmos: the Creator poured himself into humanity and entered our world completely as Jesus, the Genesis One Revelation.
First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning— Day One.
Who knows what the Day count was when Moses penned that ancient poem... who's been there for all of them to give the account? (are we on Day #1,6570,100,000,000 or Day #2,190,000) Apparently it's infinitely more important to know the significance of this Day you are in right now than it's #(number). But that's only because of what happened on a particular Day about 2000 years ago when God entered our story and wrote in the way for us, now, today, to enter His.