With the focus of scripture on Mark1: 4-11, Rev. Warren Coile recounts the recent world history of refugees returning home to find only piles of bricks. He compares that image to what the Jewish people must have felt when they returned home after their exile to Babylon. But the Judean exiles understood their situation was of their own making. They took for granted that they were God's chosen people and used that thought as a free pass to do whatever they wished. As the Judeans weighed the loss by their own doing, a word came from God. A word of forgiveness, love and hope for a better future. Rev. Coile connects that word of God with the anointing of Jesus in Baptism and God's plan of forgiveness for our sins. As Jesus was anointed in Baptism, so are we. Who? Me?
