BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

“The kingdom of Heaven is near!” claims the brazen, bug-eating preacher who draws crowds out of Jerusalem, into the wilderness. John’s fashion choices recall the prophet Elijah (2 Kgs. 1:8), and his words hyperlink to a web of Hebrew Bible passages. He’s anchoring a new claim with God’s proven words.

Evoking the garden of Eden story, John calls a group of religious leaders a “brood” or “seed” of snakes—it’s a warning. They are not bearing life-giving fruit but are, instead, producing poison. Then he borrows farming language from the psalms and prophets to essentially call them bad trees and agricultural waste, the worthless chaff. John is intense, but he’s not lying.

Then Jesus arrives. John baptizes Jesus, and the Spirit of God—appearing as something that looks like a dove—rests upon Jesus. A booming voice from the skies declares that Jesus is the Father’s beloved Son.

Jesus travels deeper into the wilderness to face a test. God gave Adam and Eve the same essential choice in Eden, where they rejected his good plan to trust the voice of another. From that point on, every human being made the same choice. Until Jesus.

Jesus breaks humanity’s predictable pattern. Rather than trusting the voice of another (the Satan), tempting him with the allure of immediate satisfaction, he stays faithful to God the Father’s will. Victorious, Jesus begins his ministry.

Notice how Adam and Eve’s choice in the peaceful, life-giving garden resulted in exile, out into the life-taking wildlands where people return to dust. Matthew sees Jesus’ feet in that dust, suffering in those wildlands and showing people the way back in. “The kingdom of Heaven is near!”

Jesus’ good choice to stay true to God’s instruction becomes the way into God’s peaceful, life-giving Kingdom. It’s a victory over the Satan’s cruel temptation and the start of Jesus’ ministry.

Today’s video previews Jesus’ first big teaching block: What will Israel’s long-awaited Messiah say to his people and the world?

Reflection Questions

• How do you see God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit each at work in Matthew’s story about Jesus’ baptism?
• Think back to Israel’s time in the wilderness after they left Egypt. What parallels can you find to Jesus’ test in the wilderness? Why do you think Matthew wants to make those connections? To go further, consider hyperlinks that weave through the garden of Eden story, Israel’s exodus story, and Jesus’ temptation narrative: What key threads connect all three? What do they suggest about human nature, God’s will, human suffering, etc.?