Mark 1: 9-15
Some distance from the towns where Jesus walked there was a river called the Jordan Jesus’ cousin John lived there. John gathered people around him so that he could teach them about being sorry for the bad things they had done and the sins they had committed. When they remembered what they had done, John took them into the river to wash all those bad things away from them so that they could start over again to be God’s people.
One day Jesus went to the Jordan River to see his Cousin John. When he got there, he asked John to baptise him in the river so that he could start a new part of his life.
Why have you come to me?’ John asked. ‘I am the one who needs to be made clean, not you.’ John did not want to baptise Jesus because he said that Jesus had never done anything wrong and was without sin. But Jesus wanted John to baptize him, all the same when Jesus came out of the water, a wonderful thing happen. The heavens suddenly opened up above Jesus, and the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove, came down and rested on Jesus. A voice from heaven said, ‘You are my Son, my Beloved. I am very pleased with you’.
After hearing God’s voice Jesus decided to go alone to the wilderness to pray. He was there for forty days and forty nights. He didn’t take anything with him. He slept out in the open air and used a stone for his pillow. Jesus became very hungry because he had no food.
When Jesus was weak with hunger, Satan God’s enemy began to test Jesus. He was trying to make Jesus disobey God, to spoil his work. Satan said to Jesus ‘You are hungry. Turn these stones into loaves of bread.’ But Jesus refused. God had given him special powers. But he was not to use them selfishly.
Then Satan said ‘Kneel down. Worship me and I will give you the wealth of the world.’
Again Jesus refused. ‘God says we must worship him and no one else,’ he answered.
Satan tried all his tricks. But he could not make Jesus disobey God. At the end of the forty days Jesus set out for home. He was ready, now, for God’s work that lay ahead.
This lesson shows us that temptation comes to everyone, even to Jesus. But sin is the act of doing what we are tempted to do. We can follow Jesus’ example and refuse to do what we are tempted to do. We must be strong and overcome temptation. When we refuse to sin and give into temptation we can live in a right relationship with God.
Thank you to Revd Peta May for this week’s Sunday School lesson.




