Down By the Riverside (Jan. 14, 2024) Mark 1.4-11

Mark is the Gospel that cries out to be read in one sitting. It is short (can be read in about 2 hours or less), concise and is the basis for at least 2 of the other three (Matthew and Luke). And what a story it is. He opens not with a lovely story of the birth of Jesus, but with the proclamation that this is the gospel of the Son of God. It doesn’t get more direct than that. There is no easing into the story, no genealogy (see Matthew), no miraculous birth announcements and stories that accompany them (see Luke) and no philosophical/theological expositions (see John). In Mark the story is simple, quick and to the point. It is almost as if Mark is saying, “I have a story to tell and there is not much time. So, pay attention.” Mark’s gospel is one of action, of power, of a sense of a mission to accomplish. When we see Jesus here, he is constantly on the move (the phrase “and immediately” is so frequently used that it becomes almost a background). It is a gospel that gets down to business and remains that way from the beginning to the end.

In the beginning we are told that is this the beginning of the good news, the gospel, of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Right away Mark is telling us who Jesus is and what he is trying to tell those who are reading or listening. There are no elaborate introductions here. Just a beginning that tells us about whom this story is being told. But we the readers are the ones who are told this; those in the story have no idea what is happening. They are a part of the story, and they are kept in the dark.

Into this story comes a man named John, who is preaching a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Unlike Matthew and Luke, his message is simple and to the point. There are no exchanges with those who are coming to be baptized and nothing that he extols those listening to come. He is just preaching a baptism of repentance, a turning from the ways of sin that the people have been going down for years.

John’s baptism was a full immersion baptism. One did not have water simply poured over them but rather they were dunked (like a dunking booth) into the water, going fully under and coming back up sputtering and wet. Now this may not sound like a big deal, but the full immersion baptism that John was doing was not done for the Jews. It was only for the Gentiles who were converting to Judaism. The Jews were considered to be in with God and only needed a cleansing when they repented of sin. John’s proclamation was that they all (all people) needed to be baptized. This baptism was considered to be the preparation for the coming of the end times. What John was preaching was the coming of the end of the age that would bring about the redemption of Israel.

And it was a message that was well received. John’s preaching was heard by the whole of Judea and by all of Jerusalem. Though this is most likely an exaggeration, it does tell us that there was a hunger for the message that John was bringing to the masses. They came and there were baptized in the waters of the Jordan. This was highly symbolic as the Jordan was where the Israelites crossed into the land of promise. Where better to symbolize the turning of the people from sin than at the place where their ancestors left behind the wilderness and came to where God led them to be.

And John must have cut quite a figure. Dressed in clothes of camel hair and a leather belt, known to eat locusts and honey, he would stand out in a crowd wherever he went. In fact, he would seem to be quite the character; living in the wilderness and proclaiming a message of repentance he would be seen as…eccentric, crazy even. But the people came because he was preaching something they clearly wanted and believed that they needed. But there were others who saw something different; they saw Elijah. Elijah, who was to come before the Messiah. Elijah, who called for the nation of Israel to turn away from the foreign gods they were following and come back to the LORD, the God of their ancestors. Elijah, who lived in the wilderness. This was who the people would see when they looked at John.

John is telling them that there is one coming who will baptize them not with water but with the Holy Spirit. This one coming is to be more powerful than he, John, is. In fact, this one is so powerful, so much larger than John, that John proclaims that he is not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. John is saying that he is lower than a slave, one who was required to untie the sandals of the master.

Immediately after all of this, we, the readers, meet Jesus whom we already know is the Son of God. But again, those in the narrative do not know that. What they see is a regular man coming to them in the crowd. He might have even been standing in line like the rest of those waiting to be baptized. Now this is perhaps difficult for us to understand. Here is the Son of God standing in line to be baptized with all the sinners. Why was he here? Doesn’t he know that he is not like any of those in this line? Shouldn’t he be watching approvingly from the sidelines? Or maybe even going out into the water, coming up to John and telling him that he was doing a great job, but that now that he (Jesus) was there, he would just take over and do the work that was begun. That is what we should be reading.

Instead, we are introduced to a man who, looking like all the others, is standing with them and is from a town that most likely no one had ever heard of in these parts, Nazareth. And to top that all off, he is from Galilee, the place from where nothing good comes. The place no messiah would ever claim as a home base. David Garland says this about what is happening here: “Jesus’ arrival is an anticlimactic entrance for one so rousingly introduced. Although the introduction, “It came to pass in those days” (NIV “at the time”), is a phrase that has a scriptural ring to it (Judg. 19:1; 1 Sam. 28:1), one might expect a more eye-catching appearance for the greater successor to John. Jesus appeared as unpowerful as a powerful one could get. One might also assume that the Messiah, the Son of God, would cut a more imposing figure, who would immediately capture the attention of the crowds. Instead, this Messiah, the one who comes from No-wheres-ville in rustic Galilee, seems indistinguishable from the rest of the crowds. He does not come with some special aura or halo.”[1]Jesus comes to the riverside and takes his place as one who is ready to be baptized. We wonder why Jesus came to be baptized. Again, this is the Son of God, the only perfect human to walk upon this earth. What was he thinking when he was there waiting to be dunked by John? Perhaps, as some commentators say, Jesus was showing his solidarity with humanity, that he was not just the Son of God, but that he was also one of us, sharing our pains and tribulations, but also our joys and celebrations. Whatever it was, here is Jesus waiting to be baptized.

And when he is baptized, something big takes place. Mark tells us that, “just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”[2] Torn apart is better put as “rent apart” or “split apart.” Ripped open might even be a good phrase here. The other gospels tell this occasion as that the heavens were “opened.” This a bit more sedate and not nearly as catching the essence of what happened. Garland says this: “Mark does not use the word “open” (anoigo), as some translations render it. Instead, he describes that the heavens are torn (schizo), as one might imagine a bolt of lightning tearing its fabric. It is a significant difference. What is opened may be closed; what is ripped cannot easily return to its former state. When Jesus comes out of the water, Mark tells us, all heaven breaks loose.”[3] When something is torn or ripped, it is hard to put it back together. It takes a lot of Scotch tape to repair a page in a book and even when this is done, you know something happened. When the heavens are ripped open, we discover that God comes into our midst. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus like a dove, signifying not that God was adopting the man Jesus as God’s son, but that God was with him and through him all this time. God is now on the loose among us and that can be scary. If God is loose among us, what will God do with us? When we think about that, we can be a bit nervous because of the possibilities that God will call on us to do something with which we might not be comfortable.

Then a voice is heard, one saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”[4] It is clear from the context of the text that Jesus is the only one who sees the heavens split and who hears the voice. The voice is using the second person, not the third which will be heard later in chapter nine. This voice tells us, the readers, that God’s Son is among us and that nothing will be the same.

Today we celebrate the baptism of the Lord. It is the time when the Christmas season officially ends and we begin to worship in Ordinary time. But it is a time when we remember our baptism. A time when we remember who it was that brought us here and what we have become because of our baptism.

It is, of course, God who brought us to our baptism and who gave us the grace that comes with it. In baptism we symbolize that our sins have been washed away. But we also begin our life of discipleship in the imitation of Jesus who was baptized. This is not to say that Jesus needed to be cleansed from sin. We know that he was the only perfect human who lived on this planet. What it is saying is that we are to imitate what the baptism of Jesus showed to the world: That Jesus was willing and did share solidarity with a lost humanity. That he came and shared our pain, our sorrows, but also our joys and triumphs. Jesus’ baptism, as Daniel Migliore says, states that this self-identification with humanity is met by the Father’s identification of Jesus as the beloved Son and by the descent of the Spirit of God upon him.

With baptism we are also incorporated into the body of Christ. When we celebrate a baptism, there are questions asked of the congregation. As members of this body of Christ we commit to help those being baptized to form their Christian life. We are not called to be lone rangers but called to assist others in their discipleship. This is why there are questions to the congregation when a baptism is performed. We are called to be together in God and in God’s work.

David Garland says this about the baptism of Jesus, “God comes whether we choose or not.” The barriers are torn down and torn open, and God is now in our midst and on the loose.”[5] “The barriers are torn down and torn open.” Did you ever think of that when you think of baptism? Jesus came down to the riverside to bring God to us, something we could never do on our own. The good news is what Mark tells us: that Jesus came as one of us and shared with us the baptism that bring us into the family of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1]Garland, David E. Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary. [2] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [3]Garland, David E. Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary. [4] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [5]Garland, David E. Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary.