ministry.

"Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan, unto John to be baptized of
him." What a meeting! Probably the first in their lives. It is no marvel
that John said, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to
me?" But he obeyed Jesus' bidding, "Suffer it to be so now." "So He was
baptized of John in Jordan." Then followed the prayer of the Son of God;
and then "the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon
Him"; and then the voice of the Father, saying, "Thou art my beloved
Son: in Thee I am well pleased." Let us remember that voice: we shall
hear it again.

And then for forty days and forty nights Jesus was hidden completely
from the face of man, alone on the Mount of Temptation, with wild
beasts, until ministering angels come to Him from heaven.

He returned to the region where the Baptist was preaching. "John seeth
Jesus coming to him." His eye is turned away from the multitude
thronging about him, and is fastened upon Jesus only. His thought is of
Him of whom Isaiah wrote long before--"He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter." Pointing to Jesus he exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world!"

The Galilean disciples were doubtless present, and were deeply moved by
their Master's exclamation. Because of their previous training in their
homes, and in the wilderness with the prophet, it must have kindled in
them deeper emotion than it did in any others of that astonished throng.
But it was to become deeper still. This was especially true of two of
them.