More from Pastor Douthwaite’s sermon on the Baptism of our Lord Sermon. He is expositing Mark 1:10: “And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove”:
Now that’s quite an unusual word to use there [the word for “torn open”]. But remember, Mark, the man of few words, chooses his words carefully, and so here uses a word he uses only one other time in his whole Gospel – and that was right after Jesus died on the cross, when Mark reports, “He saw Heaven being torn open.”“the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (Mk 15:38)
And so with this word, Mark connects the beginning of His Gospel with the end. He connects Jesus’ baptism with His crucifixion. That we may know that in Jesus taking our sins upon Himself in His baptism, and taking them to the cross, that the division that separated God and man, that closed Heaven to us, is abolished! With our sin on Jesus, and with His death for our sin, Heaven is open again! We are right with God. Our sins are forgiven, washed away.
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