Jesus appeared in Galilee at a time when the Jewish people were going through a great religious crisis. They had been away from God for a long time. Heaven was closed to them. There was like an invisible wall separating them from God and making communication very difficult. Nobody was able to hear His voice. There were no prophets and no one felt inspired by the Spirit of God.
Still worse, everyone felt that God had forgotten them. God did not seem to be interested in Israel and its problems. Why was He hiding away?
Why did He seem to be so far? Surely, some people must have remembered
a prayer that an old prophet had used: “I wish, God, that you would tear the heavens and come down!”
The first people who heard the gospel of Mark must have been really surprised. When he describes the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, St. Mark writes, “No sooner had he come out of the water than he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending on Him.” Finally God had become visible
and this man full of the Spirit of God walked upon the earth. His name was Jesus and He came from Nazaret.
This Spirit that descended upon Him was God’s Spirit that created everything – the strength that came to renew everything and give life to everyone; He was the Love that would transform everything. From then on, Jesus began to liberate every human person and to cure everyone, making them more human. The first Christians did not want to be identified as disciples of the Baptist. They claimed to have been baptized by the Spirit of Jesus.
Without this Spirit everything else in Christianity has no meaning. Trust in God disappears. Faith weakens and Jesus becomes a historical person, while the Gospel is not more than a dead document. Love gets cold and the Church is no more than just a religious institution.
Without the Spirit of Jesus, freedom is stifled, joy is killed, festival becomes custom and communion is broken up. Without the Spirit, the mission is forgotten, hope dies, fears multiply and the following of Jesus becomes a mere religious mediocrity.
Our greatest problem today is that we have totally forgotten Jesus and do not even think of the Spirit. We are making a great mistake when we try to organize something, start any work, or introduce some devotions or any other practice when all these things will only stay alive with the Spirit. We have to return to the roots and regain the Gospel in all its freshness and truth and be baptized in the Spirit of Jesus.
We must not deceive ourselves. If we do not let ourselves be recreated by this Spirit, Christians today will have little to contribute to modern society, which lacks any spiritual content and is totally incapable of bringing about human solidarity and real hope for the future.