Jan 14 2019 Mark 1:1-13

And a voice came from heaven, You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.  And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness
This, to me is wonderous. First of all, I’ve never had this kind of theophany, or where I see or hear God so clearly, either acting in myself or with someone else. To hear God saying ‘you are my beloved’, or to see the spirit descend like a dove would be awesome, if not a little frightening.  And also marvelous. To be that clearly owned and claimed would be comforting, I think.
And yet, I think it does happen to us. First at our baptism, when with they oil of baptism, the sign of the cross is made on our head, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Maybe we cannot see it, but I know of priests, parents and people baptized who have experienced this kind of marvelous, awesome, comforting and frightening claiming. 
So after this beautiful claiming by God, the Holy Spirit sends him out into the wilderness. Not just sends, which could be a peaceful departing, but Drives him out, which doesn’t sound so peaceful. Instead of a great post-baptism party, Jesus is driven out into the wilderness to be with the beasts. While there, he was tempted by Satan.
Mark’s Gospel doesn’t tell us anything about Jesus’ time in the wilderness; the next narrative is Jesus returning to Galilee to proclaim the good news after John’s arrest.  But I imagine it was a challenging time, tested by Satan.  Despite that, Jesus returns to talk about Good News.  Clearly the Satan-temptations didn’t deter or change his mission. He had a bigger vision of the world than Satan’s.  He had a stronger drive for Good News than Satan did for the opposite. He was marked as God’s own, God’s beloved.  Just like we are.