Mark is simple in his story-telling: John the Baptist was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

It was a message that got a response. People walked for miles. People stood on the bank of the Jordan river and said that they had screwed up. That they had sinned. That they had broken God’s laws. Then they walked into the river where John was. He dipped them under the surface. They walked up the bank on the other side, soaked and relieved.

It was quite a show. But for the people going into the water, it was more than a show. It was hope. It was action. It was more personal than taking a couple birds or a lamb to the temple and watching the priestly system ritualistically kill them. This experience mattered.

So it had to be pretty startling when John said, “This is nothing. You feel free, but I am just getting you wet. There is someone coming soon who is remarkable, beyond what we can imagine.” Maybe he pointed to a guy on the clean bank, sitting on a stone, tying up his sandal after being baptized. “I am not fit to tie the sandals of the one who is coming.”

Then John made their spines tingle. “You know how the Spirit came upon Bezalel to build the tabernacle with Moses? How the Spirit was in Daniel? How the Spirit came upon Saul, how the Spirit came upon Zechariah? You know how they were creative and valiant and unstoppable? What if that happened to all of us?”

“I get you wet.” John said. “The Lord will get you filled.”

When you have grown up hearing stories of heroes and prophets being blessed by the Spirit of God, imagine the possibility of you joining them.