B2MEM Banners, Lent #3

[kayleearafinwiel]

I can't seem to figure out how to put a banner on my Dreamwidth or Livejournals, but if I could it would probably be this one, as it matches the icon (I love this icon! Thank you to whoever created it!) Back to Middle-earth Month is coming! I love this castle, it gives me a Dol Amroth sort of feeling. Perfect place for seagulls. Or *ahem* bay gulls. *snickers at Donut-muse*

Anyway, speaking of birds and water leads me to my next Lenten study...

The baptism of Jesus. Matthew 3:13-17, Mark 1:9-11, John 1:19-34. There's a few questions in the study and I'll try to answer them...

Why do you think John didn't want to baptize Jesus?

Kind of odd, isn't it? They were cousins. They might have grown up knowing each other very well. John was the elder of the two (by about six months, assuming I followed my reading correctly) I have to wonder what young John and young Jesus were like to each other, if that's not terribly irreverent. I mean it's one thing to baptize complete strangers or random townsfolk I suppose, but his younger cousin whose mother had been disgraced and who was claimed to be...well, I wonder how far around it was sounded that Jesus was the Lamb of God. I can imagine Mary and Elizabeth talking about it at family gatherings, or Elizabeth telling John at home, "Why can't you be more like your cousin Jesus? He's perfect, you know, he's the Son of God!"

...okay that just got weird. *snorts* Sorry. But yeah, it's one thing to be dealing with travelers, townsfolk, church members (or no, it'd be temple, wouldn't it?) and another to be having his perfect younger cousin showing up and being like "I know our mothers say I'm perfect, but do this thing for me you do for all the regular imperfect people."

...yeah again, that got weird. *lol* Next question...

Why did Jesus insist that John baptize Him?

Yeah you know, I bet John was wondering the same thing... Probably because Jesus knew it was His Father's will? I don't know. I'll have to think about this one some more. (adding) Maybe so he could visibly receive the Holy Spirit (see next question) in front of other people?

What descended upon Jesus after he came out of the water? What did "it" look like?

The Holy Spirit, which appeared to be a dove. This is the first easy question lol.