The Reveal

January 10, 2021

Mark 1:4–11 NRSV

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And 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. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

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 has been said that this Gospel was the one written for the Romans, more concerned about the action that is going on and less about the fulfillment of prophecy.

But what a story that Mark tells. It begins with a man named John. ow, we have met John during Advent, but it is important to revisit this man who is so important to the story.

John comes in Mark proclaiming a baptism of repentance that is for all the people. 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 seemed to be 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 had crossed into the land of promise. Where better to symbolize the turning of the people from sin than at the place where their ancestors had left behind the wilderness and came to where God had led them to be.

And John was quite a sight. Dressed in camel hair with a leather belt, he must have struck some as quite the character, maybe even a bit on the side of being crazy. But there would have been others who saw something different, they would have seen Elijah. Elijah who was the one 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 was the one who lived in the wilderness. This was who the people would have seen when they looked at John.

John was proclaiming a message that would have resonated with those who were listening: that one “....one who is more powerful than I is coming after me”. This could only mean one thing: The Messiah. The one who would throw off the yoke of oppression and make Israel a nation on its own once more. A leader in the mold of David, the greatest leader of them all.

But John tells them something that they might never have heard before. The one coming is so powerful, so much above John that he (John) is not worthy to untie this coming one’s sandals. That the one coming will baptize them with the Holy Spirit while he only baptizes them with water.

Immediately after all of this, we, the readers, meet Jesus whom we already know is the Son of God. But 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 looks like all the others, is standing with all the others 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. One commentator 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” (a literal translation), is a phrase that has a scriptural ring to it, 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.

With this introduction we have no explanation of why Jesus is there. It seems that Mark is not interested in the theological issues that are raised in the baptism of Jesus. He seems to be interested in letting his readers know what happened in this particular baptism.

When Jesus comes up out of the water, he sees the sky ripped open. Some translations say that the sky was “opened” but that really does not convey what happened. The word used for ripped open in the Greek is where we get our word schism, which is the tearing apart of something or, usually, some group. What is significant about this? When something is opened, it usually can be closed again, correct? But when something is torn apart or split, there is a bit more difficulty in correcting the matter. Takes a lot of scotch tape to fix a page that is torn in a book and even then you know something happened. In this case what has happened is far more significant than anyone could have imagined. When Jesus comes out of the water, “all heaven breaks loose”, as one commentator puts it. It is that God comes near to us in this moment and nothing will be the same.

At the same time the Holy Spirit, what John says that the coming one will baptize the people with, descends and lands on Jesus like a dove. This shows not that Jesus was receiving the power of the Spirit, but confirms that the Spirit was already with Jesus.

Finally a voice is heard saying: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It is clear from the text that when all of this occurred that Jesus was the only one who saw and heard these things. Those gathered around did not have any indication that something new and powerful was happening. That God broke through to us and was now here among us. No, we the readers are aware. Those in the story will have to wait until the right time to be told who Jesus is.

Today is the celebration of the baptism of the Lord. It is the time when the Christmas season officially ends and we begin to celebrate 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 (Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 294).

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.

This reveal was to us as the readers of Mark. Later in the story there was another reveal to those who followed Jesus. This revealing was that Jesus shared with us a baptism that brings us into the body of Christ and that lets us claim the right to be children of God. Let us remember our baptism. Amen.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.

Garland, David E. Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996. Print. The NIV Application Commentary.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.”