The Divine Fulcrum (Mark 1:4 - 11)

This year, in Ordinary Time, that time that’s not Lent or Easter or Pentecost or Advent or Christmas, the Gospel our Lectionary follows is Mark.  Believe it or not, the weeks that aren't Lent or Easter or Pentecost or Advent or Christmas are the majority, at some 34 weeks, depending on exactly what you call ordinary time, of course.  And I say this to remind you that in this year we will immerse ourselves in Mark, and his view, how he sees the Christ, which is a bit different from the others.  We think that Mark was the first Gospel written, perhaps at or just before the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and we also think that Matthew and Luke copied large swathes of Mark, edited it to suit their viewpoints, and added a bunch of stuff of their own.

Nowhere are the differences between Mark and the other gospels seen more clearly than in their first chapters.  Although Matthew and Luke tell about the birth of Jesus and at least something about his growing up, Mark and John tell us nothing of all that.  John starts with that beautiful, cosmic poem—in the beginning was the Word—and doesn’t even mention his baptism, but starts with the baptism, which means he starts with Jesus’  public ministry.  It's as if the details of his birth—the star, the wise men, the virgin birth—don’t matter.

This first scene, and the baptism it portrays, sets the stage for everything Mark has to say about the Christ.  And since we’re going to spend so much time with Mark this year, we probably ought to look at this scene carefully.  We may even refer back to it from time to time.

So.  John the Baptizer appears in the wilderness, or he came to be there, and Mark doesn’t say how, or from whence he comes—some think he comes from the Qumran community on the Dead Sea cliffs—but Mark doesn’t care, because what’s important to him is that he is a fulfillment of prophecy—which he’s just told us about, in the first four verses—and that he’s a symbol. So he just appears in the wilderness, as and what else do you know happened there?  It’s where of Moses wandered with the Israelites for forty years after being brought up out of the land of the Pharaoh.  And John is associated with this seminal act in Israelite history, the act that Jews solemnly recite to this day every year at Passover.

More than that, this associates John with Moses, considered by many to be the first and greatest of Hebrew prophets, and even more, he’s baptizing in the Jordan River, that borderline between the wilderness and the promised land, and did Moses see the promised land after he led his people up to it? No, he didn’t, on account of that embarrassing incident at the waters of Meribah.

And so, by associating John with the Israelites’ most illustrious prophet, he is identified with what has come before, with that old-time religion, the traditional Hebrew faith.  It’s only intensified when we’re told that, like the Hebrews’ second-greatest prophet Elijah, he’s wearing camel-hair, leather and eating locusts and wild honey.  But because this is on the banks of the Jordan, which Moses was not allowed to cross, it suggests that John—and by extension, the old ways—do not cross into the new promised land, the land inaugurated by the one whose sandals John is not good enough to untie.

But wait!  There's more!  What is John’s baptism for?  In other words, what does it do?  Well, Mark says that it’s a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And it seems to be akin to the ritual purification baths that make the person being bathed . . . ritually pure.  And remember the technical meaning of the word “sin” to the Israelites:  something that makes one ritually unclean, unable to participate in the temple rites.  So John’s baptism is a baptism for making the people ritually clean.

Ok.  You may be saying, that’s all well and good and all, but I thought we left all this behind at Advent, all this preparing the way stuff.  How come we’re talking about John again?  Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Jesus now?  And I’m glad you asked that, because the answer is yes.  But the way Mark describes Jesus—at least in this foundational first look—is by comparing him to John.  And the first comparison he makes is the nature of their baptism, which I grew up thinking was kind of the same.  But John makes it clear that they are in fact quite different.  “I,” he says, “have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  A very different proposition indeed.

So.  Here’s the initial picture of Jesus: first of all, he is not John.  John is not fit to untie Jesus’ sandals.  John represents the old time religion, the religion of the Israelite people.  John is a prophet, like Moses, but like Moses he is not of the new.  John’s baptism is understandable to those of the old order, it is one of repentance, for being made pure.  Jesus’ baptism, on the other hand, is something new, something called a “baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

And now, in his brief description—only three verses long—Mark shows us what John means.  Jesus comes and is baptized by John, and just as he is coming up out of the water, he sees the heavens torn open and the spirit descending upon him.  And our translation obscures the symmetry of that statement.  Forgive my quoting Greek, but the verb for coming up—anabaino—is the “opposite” of katabaino, the verb for descending.  In other words, as Jesus “comes up” the Spirit “comes down.”  And that’s kind of a preview or a foreshadowing of what happens at the end, as Jesus goes up to heaven and sends the spirit down to us.

 And what about the heavens being torn open?  It’s a violent image, like the heaven is ripped open, and that action is what allows the spirit to come down.  And we usually picture it as a gentle descent, as if the only way a dove can come down is to flutter lightly, gently, peacefully.  But doves can dive bomb, you know, they can fold up their wings and drop, I’ve seen them do it.  And the picture of a dive-bombing dove is more in keeping with the heavens being ripped open, isn't it?  And it’s certainly more in line with what it does next, it drives him into the wilderness, out of the promised land, to be tempted by the devil.

And so, it’s not necessarily a gentle spirit that comes upon Jesus there on the edge of the promised land, it’s a spirit of power and might, a spirit that can power a ministry, and will power Jesus’, and if it’s not clear who Jesus is up to that point, a voice comes out of that rift in heaven, saying “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  And though we aren’t told just to whom the voice belongs, we have a pretty good idea, don’t we?

And Mark is careful to indicate that the voice is speaking to Jesus, and that Jesus is the one to see all of this, the one to see the heavens being ripped open, so this disclosure is to him.  Does anybody else see it?  Does John?  Does anyone who might be standing around, waiting to be be baptized themselves, or followers of John?  I have no idea, but I suspect that Mark wants us to understand that nobody but Jesus saw all these things.  He’s setting up a theme that runs throughout his gospel, the so-called messianic secret, where time and again, Jesus warns folks not to tell anyone who he is.

Now.  We’ve seen the very beginning of Jesus ministry, let’s look forward to its very end, to the moment he breathes his last.  I know, I know . . . you’re not supposed to look ahead, but we already know what happens, don’t we?  So listen to Mark’s description of the very last moment, in the fifteenth chapter of this gospel: “Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”  And the same verb is used here—torn—for the temple curtain as for the heavens.  But Mark goes on: “Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’”  For Mark, Jesus’ end mirrors its beginning: at the beginning, the heavens are ripped open, and a voice tells Jesus, and only Jesus, that he is God’s son.  At the end, the Temple’s curtain is ripped open, presumably for all to see, and everyone, even a Roman centurion, symbol of the copying army, knows who he is, knows that he is God’s Son.

For Mark, Jesus is a hinge figure, a divine fulcrum, upon which teeters the kingdom of God. He embodies a new thing that God is doing:  the old is passing away, and the new is here.  And his baptism is where it all begins:  the heavens rip open, revealing the Spirit to Jesus—and, as readers of Mark’s gospel, to us.  And the Spirit comes down, whether light and fluttering or swift and sure, it comes down, and Jesus’ ministry is begun.

And that’s how it is for us, at our baptism.  The old is ended, the new begun, and we are declared children of God.  And just as with Jesus, the heavens are ripped open open and we are enveloped, wrapped and powered by the spirit of God.  And just like Jesus, there our ministry begins.

We are declared children of God, part of the new family defined by the life and ministry of Jesus.  We are God’s children, part and parcel of the new creation, brothers and sisters of Jesus the Christ.  As we reaffirm our baptisms in just a few minutes, remember that.  Remember that the heavens have been ripped open, the spirit has come down, and we have been declared daughters and sons of God, in whom God is well pleased.  Amen.