Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, "Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'" 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased." (ESV)
The actual text for this Sunday does not include vss 1-3, but for the sake of my 'thoughts' going in, I wanted to include those verses.
This Sunday marks the Baptism of Jesus--and there's a LOT of stuff going on here. At the very least, 3 things confront the preacher going into this Sunday:
1. The liturgical theme of the day/season. This is the first Sunday following Epiphany. EPIPHANY ITSELF (Jan 6th) is a greater festival on the church calendar. The story of Christmas is that God becomes human, but other than some animals and a few shepherds, NOBODY KNOWS about it. The major themes surrounding EPIPHANY are all about PEOPLE FINDING OUT that God is Emmanuel.... God really is with them in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. GOD IS HERE! Historically, there have been 3 events from the Gospels that were given special attention as proclaiming the Epiphany theme: (a) The story of the great star and the Magi from the East; (b) the accounts of the Baptism of Jesus where the voice from heaven is heard and the Spirit descends as a dove; and (c) the performance of the first "sign," the first public miracle of the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana. At issue in terms of Epiphany is the tendency to 'historicize' things. For instance, for the people alongside the Jordan River that day, God **WAS there in the person of Jesus. That was an Epiphany moment for **THEM. Cool. But that was in a land far far away a long long time ago. Where are we in this story?
2. The Narrative of the story itself--as presented in MARK'S GOSPEL. Having 4 Gospels is challenging. It is, to be sure, a great blessing...but on the other hand it can lead to some textual and narrative laziness on the part of a preacher. You know this has happened if/when the preacher "fills in the gaps" of a story with pieces of the same story from one of the other Gospels. For instance, in Mark's story John the Baptist says that the one coming after him will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (v8). The end. But Matthew & Luke's version say "the Holy Spirit AND FIRE." Why do they *add fire, or why has Mark *omitted it? In the end it DOESN'T MATTER. What matters is the narrative that we have & being fair to what Mark has given us. In that sense, it's noteworthy that in the Gospel as a whole, Mark has NOT given us a birth narrative. His "beginning" begins with the Baptism of Jesus. The "birth" in Mark's Messiah-story is the birth of the TASK of being the Messiah, doing the will of the Father,....and the pivotal role Jesus' baptism plays with that.
3. Baptism itself. If radio and tv are representative of anything, it seems safe to say that the most predominant form of Christianity in our culture is an ANTI-sacramental, and hence, ANTI-baptismal form of the faith. "The Gospel," as such is routinely preached as lots of things: asking Jesus into one's heart; accepting Christ as Lord & Savior; answering the call of God; acknowledging that God loves me & has a wonderful plan for my life...etc. etc. Baptism, however, is nowhere in sight. If it should be mentioned at all, it's usually done so as an addendum to a "conversion experience," often times called "the first step of discipleship." But it's viewed as an otherwise meaningless event. One of the things that seems evident from Mark's telling of the story is that even if we use the paradigm of the "first step of discipleship" in the life of Jesus, it is ANYTHING BUT A MEANINGLESS EVENT! The voice of the Father claims Jesus as his own; the heavens are torn apart, and the Spirit descends INTO Jesus (eis in the Greek, vs 10 means 'into.' The Spirit did not perch on Jesus' head; the Spirit entered INTO Jesus. His body became the Temple of the Holy Spirit--as St. Paul later says is the case of all believers.)
In tying it all together, talking about Jesus' baptism MUST lead us to talk about our own. For Mark the story of Jesus began not at his birth, but at the birth of his ministry at his baptism. That says something important about us and our lives. True, meaningful life.... in terms of the spiritual, in terms of the heavenly, and in terms of our relationship with God begins at OUR BAPTISM. Also, Epiphany should be de-historized. For the people in the story in a land far far away a long long time ago, God really was with them in the person of Jesus in the Jordan River. But Epiphany is MORE than a past event or group of events. In the waters of OUR baptism we are joined to the son in whom the Father is well pleased. The font is OUR JORDAN where the Holy Spirit enters US. We come up out of our baptismal waters prepared for the life of service God has intended FOR US..... being Christs to the world He's put US IN.
cheers,
TM
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