John tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Paul tells us that Christ did not count equality with God as something to be grasped at or clung to - that is, Christ set aside the privileges of divinity and became a humble servant (Philippians 2:6-7). Jesus was fully God and fully man. And we ask ourselves, perhaps along with Nicodemus (John 3:9), “How can this BE?”

Perhaps we just accept “fully God, fully man” as something “not to be grasped” (understood). Perhaps we accept “fully God, fully man” as Job accepted, at the end of his long and instructive-for-us conversation with God, his own inability to see through the eyes of the God of the universe (except as the God of the universe chooses to bestow such sight).

Perhaps we think of “fully God, fully man” as a setting aside of power (as God becomes man) and as a growing up into knowledge (as a child becomes an adult). The appointed time comes, as Mark records, for Jesus to be baptized by John. And the Father reveals Jesus as “beloved Son” (however, we must presume that the Father didn’t speak in capital letters - that is, those listening must have been impressed, but they wouldn’t have known what “Son” meant!).

It was the Spirit who “impelled” Jesus to go out into the wilderness. Why? Marks gives no details regarding Satan’s tempting of Christ. But it would seem, from Matthew’s and Luke’s renditions, that Jesus spent “a long time” discussing with (praying to) the Father in order to discern and confirm how Jesus would and would not use divine power. Jesus COULD HAVE exercised marvelous economic power (meeting every human need), religious power (let’s just “wow” the people and all the leaders of the people), and political power (let’s claim world sovereignty by way of an untimely magic trick - all it takes is bowing down to Satan). He didn’t.

After Jesus’ time in the wilderness comes Jesus’ time of ministry - a private time of discernment leads to an outward gesture of mercy and encouragement: “The kingdom of God is at hand!” (Mark 1:15). As Paul prayed (Ephesians 1:18), may God enlighten the eyes of our innermost vision, so that we may understand, and rejoice in, this “kingdom of God”!