Passage: Mark 1:4-11
Preacher: Dr. Jim Standiford
Series: Who is This Shaping our Future?
In Jesus' baptism, God claims him as his son. We too are claimed by God as God's children, and that love shapes our lives.
Come, Lord Jesus, fill our minds with your word, fill our hearts with your love, and fill our lives with your light. Come, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.
There are hundreds of “app’s” or applications for smart phones today, and for those of us who aren’t so smart, we need every one. There are also a number of different applications of the word “baptism”, and we need each of them as well.
We can speak of “a baptism by fire” meaning a terrible ordeal. We can say, “He got his baptism in spring training,” meaning his beginning experience. We can also say, “It was a baptism of grace,” meaning it was a rich experience. Elbert was given a bottle of Christmas spiced tea which he inadvertently left in the sun in his office. It exploded. We could say, “Elbert’s office was baptized,” meaning it was covered with the liquid. This is the application of the word baptism we usually associate with church speak. We might say there are also different applications of “baptism” in our Bible passage today.
First, it appears that John the baptizer is making a political-spiritual statement against the Temple religious tradition. One could say the religious authorities had a water-tight lock on determining how sin could be forgiven. Baptism had to be done in the Temple in a certain way, by a certain group, for a certain lucrative fee. John, by the direction of the Holy Spirit, goes outside the Temple and the town, and pours out forgiveness like free flowing river water, and from the very river that according to Joshua (3:10-17) symbolized deliverance and freedom for the people. According to Mark this was a very popular move as “people from the whole Judean country-side and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him.” John’s action was a direct attack on the Temple system.
The fact that Jesus goes to John to be baptized is a statement that he identifies with our human brokenness. When Jesus says in Matthew’s gospel (3:15) he is being baptized “to fulfill all righteousness” he is demonstrating his humble relationship with God and also all humanity. Jesus going out to John to be baptized is also a statement against human attempts to control the grace of God. Both John and Jesus are challenging the Temple system.
There is a second and more important application in the baptism story. Mark tells of Jesus’ baptism right after beginning his gospel with the words, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This introduction recalls Genesis 1:1-5, “In the beginning” where God’s Spirit hovered over the waters, while God spoke and called heaven and earth into being. So also here, at Jesus’ baptism God’s Spirit comes over the waters and his voice declares Jesus to be his son. Jesus baptism is the beginning of a whole new creation. (2 Corinthians 5:17, Revelation 21:5) In baptism we believe we too have a new beginning, for baptism is the symbol of God’s love washing over us, nourishing us and cleansing us of sin.
Sam Houston was the first president of the Republic of Texas. It is said he was a rather nasty fellow with a checkered past. Later in life Houston made a commitment to Christ and was baptized in a river. The preacher said to him, “Sam, your sins are washed away.” Houston replied, “God help the fish.”
In Mark’s description of Jesus’ baptism we are told that as Jesus comes up out of the water he sees the heavens torn apart, not “opened” as in Matthew or Luke, but torn apart. The Greek word here is a form of the verb schitzo, as in schism, people torn apart from each other, or schizophrenia, a person torn apart within. It is a much stronger word that “opened.” If you open a door, it usually can be closed again. However, if you tear apart a door, it is not easily closed again. Perhaps Mark is recalling Isaiah’s words centuries before when the prophet cried out to God, “Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down to make your name known…” (64:1) Mark is claiming the love of God for Jesus is a love so powerful it cannot be taken back or shut off.
After the heavens are torn open, Jesus hears a voice from heaven saying, “You are my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is a bit of irony that the current church season is Epiphany, when we recall the manifestation of Jesus to the world. Yet, here, like in the rest of Mark’s gospel, there is a bit of secrecy. In Matthew, God states, “This is my son,” as in a public announcement to the crowds gathered at the Jordan. In contrast, Mark portrays it as a much more personal statement from God to Jesus. This difference most likely is part of Mark’s literary style of keeping Jesus’ identity as Messiah muted until a fuller understanding of it is revealed.
In Princeton, New Jersey, there is a legendary tale about the eminent scientist Albert Einstein walking in front of a local inn and being mistaken for a bell boy by a dowager who had just arrived in a luxury sedan. She orders him to carry her luggage into the hotel, and, according to the story, Einstein does so, receives a small tip, and then continues on to his office to ponder the mysteries of the universe. True or not, the story is delightful, precisely because we savor from the beginning a secret the dowager does not know: the strange-looking, ruffled little man is the most celebrated intellect of our time. Some stories gain their power from our knowing the story’s secret from the start. The Gospel of Mark is just such a story. The secret of Mark is the identity of Jesus. In the very first sentence of the Gospel story Mark writes, “The gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus is the Son of God, that’s the secret, and lest we miss it, this hidden truth is confirmed when Jesus, coming out of the water of baptism, sees the Holy Spirit descending upon him and hears the voice of God telling the secret, “You are my beloved son.” Only Jesus sees the Spirit; only Jesus hears the voice.
What might it have meant to Jesus to hear these words from God? With both humor and humility we can say, heaven only knows! It clearly did not mean that God would keep Jesus out of trouble. We know that for certain. Perhaps it meant that when Jesus found himself in trouble, and in all the other times as well, that he was not alone, that God in the Holy Spirit would be with him always. This is our understanding of our baptism. We claim three things in baptism: First, that the element of water reminds us that God’s love always nourishes us and cleanses us. Second, we place our hands on the baptized person, child or adult, and pray God’s Spirit to be with them, remembering that in Jesus’ baptism the Spirit came upon him. This means that for you and me, just as for Jesus, no matter what wilderness we might find ourselves in, we will not be alone. God’s love does not depend on us, but is God’s gift to us without strings attached. The third thing we proclaim is that the individual being baptized is now officially a part of the family of God represented by the church.
Thinking again just for a moment about the concept of being torn apart. At the end of Jesus’ life when he hung on the cross and breathed his last, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, just as the heavens had been torn apart at his baptism. The imagery here is that the holy of holies in the Temple, the dwelling place of God, was no longer separated from the people. When Jesus died and the curtain was torn there was another voice. This one was not from above and not from far off. It was from the pagan Roman centurion who stood at the foot of the cross keeping order, marking time, and waiting to officially pronounce death. When he saw Jesus die faithful to God and faithful to humanity, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son.”
As Mark relates Jesus’ baptism, Jesus is who God says he is, God’s beloved son. Connecting Mark’s testimony with Paul’s in Galatians (4:4-7) we see that through Christ we too are sons and daughters of God by adoption, and fellow heirs with Christ. What that means for us is that as God loves Jesus with a love that will always stand with him, so God loves us, no less real, no less relational.
Imagine for a moment you are a part of the presidential honor guard. Every day the President walks into his office, and you snap to attention, click your heels and salute. The President nods. Every day this same sequence occurs. The relationship is stiff, formal, and technical. But…in this story…one day, the President stops in front of you and says, “Please come into my office.” You do so and the door is closed. The President invites you to be seated and then looks you in the eye and says, “I want you to become one of my children. I want you to become part of our family, to come to our family outings, picnics, birthday parties, our everyday life.” What a moment. What a miracle. And in that moment, the relationship between the President and you is totally transformed. The relationship is no longer formal, stiff, distant and legal but is now close and loving.
That is precisely what happens to us in our baptism. It is God who takes the initiative. The relationship is totally transformed. Baptism is the fantastic invitation from God to know us intimately and closely, so closely that we are called son or daughter, that we become family.
Who is it that shapes our future? It is Jesus who is loved by God with a love that will not let him go, even in death. Jesus includes us in that love, so that we too are beloved sons and daughters of God. Jesus is our brother and our savior.
Thanks be to God!
