Today’s Gospel reading comes from Mark which, despite being placed second in the Gospels in our New Testament, is actually the oldest of the Gospels.
Remember last week when I said that the four Gospels all took a different approach to the Virgin Birth? Two believed in it, on did not believe in it, and one simply ignored it entirely. That last one would be Mark.
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
After a few introductory sentences, which were not included in today’s Gospel reading, Mark begins his Gospel with what he considers the most important moment in Jesus’ life, His baptism. Mark never offers a genealogy of Jesus at all, never claims to be writing history, and moves at such a breakneck pace that there is little time for theology and certainly no time for poetry.
Instead, Mark jumps right into the fray and opens on the banks of the river Jordan, as Jesus is baptized. Why did Matthew and Luke make such a major point of beginning their narratives, their Gospels, with the story of Jesus’ birth? Why did John begin with His spiritual origin?
Here is an interesting tidbit. You may have heard of the Gnostic gospels, the heretical writings, discovered near Nag Hammadi in the 1940s, written by an early breakaway group from Christianity. Believed to have been written in the 2nd century, these gospels exemplify what can go amiss when the Virgin Birth or spiritual origins of Jesus are omitted.
Briefly summarized, the Gnostics believed that at Jesus’ baptism, “the Christ” took over His Body. In their view, a simple human being entered the water, “the Christ” descended on this mere mortal, and a body now possessed by “the Christ” emerged.
This being, this seemingly crazy person with world changing ideas, would travel the land for a few years, teaching, preaching, healing, before ending up on a cross. As the mortal body, the human being, Jesus, was dying, in the Gnostic view, “the Christ” left His body, and thus, just before the human dies, He looks up to heaven and asks, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Definitely not good idea to omit the infancy narratives, be they of the earthly birth or the spiritual one.
Of course, Mark never meant for his Gospel to be thus misinterpreted, but it is interesting to observe what people can do, what heresy they can create, when they don’t have the full story. In fact, sometimes they create heresy even when they know the full story.
But getting back to Mark and his real intentions, not unlike Jesus himself, Mark knew the Jewish scriptures well and quoted them often. He narrates the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, not as a new story about God and God’s people, but rather as a pivotal moment in the larger story of God making Himself known in human history. The God we meet in Jesus, Mark tells us, is the same God spoken of in the Hebrew scriptures, who is doing a new thing.
In the first few sentences of Mark’s Gospel, Mark points out that this Gospel is not all that can or should be said of Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, Mark makes clear from the first words of his Gospel that this is, “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
Then, Mark begins the story of baptism because it turns out that baptism works in much the same way – it’s just the beginning of the good news. In baptism, we don’t stop being who we are or get to ignore the history that inevitably and fundamentally shapes us. Just as Jesus doesn’t stop being Mary’s boy from Bethlehem, incarnate from the God we first met in the Hebrew scriptures, so too are we all someone from somewhere. When we come to the waters of baptism, we bring all of that with us—all of our humanity; all of the ways in which our families of origin and experiences have made us who we are—the good, the bad, and the ugly!
In other words, our identities can’t be centered purely in introspection and individualism. They must also be rooted in our communities and contexts as well. In order to know ourselves, we have to know each other.
And in the same way that Mark’s Gospel is the beginning rather than the sum total of all that can be said of Jesus, so too baptism isn’t a single social function, the time for a family gathering and celebratory party, or some sort of sacramental participation trophy to be displayed in a lighted and locked cabinet. Baptism is the beginning of our life in covenantal relationship with the living God, made known to us in Jesus Christ.
The baptized life is not a career that we can pursue part-time, or one day retire from. It is our calling, our vocation, meant to be lived out with every fiber of our being.
An essential part of our Christian vocation is reminding one another who and Whose we are. We do that by extending and receiving grace and mercy, by opening ourselves up to vulnerability, and ultimately by telling the story of the God we meet in Jesus—a story that continues unto the fullness of time.
In Mark’s Gospel alone, the word “immediately” appears 42 times—three times more often than in the rest of the New Testament and seven times more often than in the entire Old Testament. It is as if Mark’s style of writing is a sermon in itself: Just as the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection moves at a breakneck pace, so too does the life of the baptized! The work is urgent!
That’s why when Jesus is baptized, Mark wants us to feel the water and smell the breeze and see the spectacle!
As He was coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on Him.
Mark says the heavens were torn apart—schizomenous is the word in Greek. It shares the same root as the word Schizophrenia—a visceral and violent disruption in the status quo. God’s voice disrupts the status quo, declaring Jesus to be His own Beloved!
“You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
If we want life to remain exactly as it is, and if we want to stay exactly where we are, doing exactly what we’re doing, we are in spiritual trouble and perhaps we should re-think our baptism and reevaluate our Christian life.
But if, on the other hand, we desire a life dedicated to following the living God, as we work together to build God’s Kingdom, then we started at the right place, at the water’s edge.
Now, if we haven’t already done so, all we need do is find a good pair of shoes and a sturdy walking stick, because the work of the Kingdom is far too urgent to wait.
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, we give You our hands to do Your work. W give You our feet to go Your way. We give you our tongues to speak Your words. Please help us to keep the promises we made at our baptism, and be totally dedicated to You. All this we ask for Your Love and mercy’s sake. Amen.