Jesus’s ministry began with a ritual of death and rebirth, baptism; strikingly, the Gospels agree that on this occasion Jesus’s identity as “son” was first disclosed. Moreover, the baptism was followed immediately by the temptation in the wilderness, which can be understood as a Spirit person’s initiatory ordeal and encounter with the Spirit world. Jesus himself had “died to the world,” living without possessions, family, or home. Yet he did not make the details of his way normative, but only the basic pattern itself.
