Heaven Torn Open
Mark 1:1-20
And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. – Mark 1:10
This is one of those verses that has intrigued me from way on back. “He saw the heavens parting…” In the New International Version [NIV] it says, “He saw heaven being torn open…” And that is actually the verbiage that intrigued me way back when I bought my first Bible. It was an NIV Bible. I wasn’t a Christian at the time, but the summer going into my senior year of college, I decided to get a Bible and begin reading. A friend helped me pick out a Bible and told me to begin at the New Testament. So, I began at Matthew and read all four Gospels in about a week. I didn’t understand much but this verse, Mark 1:10, captivated my attention. “Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” Why was heaven being “torn open?” I thought to myself.
Well, since then I’ve come to understand this verse a little better. There is separation between heaven and earth because there is separation between God and man, i.e., God’s holiness and man’s sin don’t mix. But precisely at that time, when the Perfect Man Jesus was baptized, heaven was “torn open” and the two touched. God became visible and tangible to the world in Jesus His Son.
It was, however, only after the Spirit descended upon Jesus that Jesus’ earthly ministry began. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, touched, and cleansed the leper, and raised the dead. It was from that point that Jesus publicly began to serve. He came to this earth as the Servant-King, and when heaven was “torn open” you get the sense that God had waited long enough for that dayto come.
But here’s the deep truth for you and I to ponder. Heaven wasn’t torn open so that the Spirit would lead Jesus back to the Throne, at least not initially; rather He was led to the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil and then ultimately to the Cross of Calvary.
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” [Mk 10:45] This is a key verse in the Gospel of Mark, and we would do well to commit it to memory as we spend the next several months in this action-packed Gospel. Mark is brief and to the point, and the emphasis is on serving and sacrifice.
