On my drive to and from Campbell University, I enjoy watching the crops grow in roadside fields. Tobacco and cotton grow large. Soybeans are less showy, and sweet potato vines stay close to the ground. The potatoes themselves remain hidden until fall, when tractors go through the fields with deep plows designed to turn the vines under while pushing potatoes to the surface. 

 

Farmers often leave the ruddy tubers to dry for a few days before busloads of migrant workers go out to collect them. The pickers focus on marketable potatoes of sufficient size and reasonable shape that haven’t been cut by the plow. They don’t spend a lot of time digging around for potatoes still lurking just beneath the soil. 

 

Even after the workers have been through, the fields remain covered with potatoes that are perfectly edible but not pretty. A good rain brings even more out of hiding. 

 

Fortunately, the farmers often allow volunteers from charitable food agencies to come and glean a substantial second harvest. 

 

That is not unlike what we’re doing with today’s text. As we follow the gospel texts through Epiphany and Lent, the lectionary has already had us plow the ground of Mark 1:4-11 and 14-20, but today it brings us back for a second harvest in the partially overlapping text of 1:9-15. 

 

Why would the designers of the lectionary do this? Because this week we’ve left Epiphany and entered into Lent. Ash Wednesday has reminded us how often we fall short and how greatly we need repentance. Today’s text takes up that theme by revisiting Jesus’ baptism and his earliest preaching, along with a brief account of his temptation. 

 

 

 

Mark’s gospel, as we have noted, moves quickly. He includes no stories about Mary and Joseph, nothing about Jesus’ birth, no accounts of a 12-year-old prodigy astounding the scribes in Jerusalem. 

In Mark, Jesus steps onto the stage fully grown, fully aware, and soon to be fully prepared for his ministry. Our text appears to describe a three-step process of initiation, temptation, and proclamation. 

 

The first step was baptism. Why?

 

Jesus was born into Judaism and raised by good Jewish parents. His mission as messiah is presented as a fulfillment of all that Judaism promised and then some. It seems appropriate, then, that Jesus would venture beyond the customary rituals of Jewish life to mark the beginning of his active ministry. 

 

To do so, Jesus traveled far from his home in Nazareth, a four-day walk deep into the Jordan river, not far from Jericho. The Fourth Gospel identifies the place as “Bethany Beyond the Jordan,” indicating a place on the eastern side of the river.

 

Jesus was not alone: in his typically hyperbolic style, Mark reports that people “from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him” (v. 5). Most of them had a shorter walk: Jerusalem was about 27 miles to the west.

John’s audience would have consisted primarily of Jews, and he called for them to repent of their sins, apparently using baptism as a symbolic rite of cleansing and recommitment to following the Law. 

But John also pointed beyond the Law, proclaiming that another would come after him who would baptize not with water, but with fire (v. 8). [DD]

 

That one was Jesus, who apparently walked up and entered the water with no introduction or explanation (v. 9). Mark says nothing of John’s objection or of Jesus insisting that it must be so, as Matthew does (Matt. 3:14-15).  

 

Indeed, John says nothing to Jesus in Mark’s account: further testimony comes from above as “he saw the heavens ripped apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him,” followed by a heavenly voice ringing out “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (v. 10-11). [DD][DD]

 

Jesus had no need of repentance, but perhaps he felt a need to publicly identify with humankind. In doing so, however, he also received divine endorsement. Jesus was fully human, but more than human, even as he was fully Jewish, but pointing to something beyond Judaism.

 

 

 

Jesus’ baptism appears to have served a function similar to today’s concept of ordination as a mark of one’s calling to ministry, but that was not the end of his preparation. 

 

Some denominational groups require extensive education and ministry experience before ordination, while others ordain first and encourage preparation afterward. This was my experience: I was ordained while still in college, having never taken a course in Bible. Although I studied on my own and through correspondence courses, I served as a pastor for seven years before going to seminary. 

 

Jesus did not need a seminary education: he appears to have been well-trained in the Hebrew scriptures and assuredly led by the Spirit within. Apparently, however, he did need something else. All three gospels describe a “trial by fire” of sorts, as the same Spirit that had endorsed him now led him into the wilderness to face a 40-day ordeal. 

 

Indeed, though both Matthew and Luke say Jesus “was led” by the Spirit into the wilderness (Matt. 4:1, Luke 4:1), Mark says “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” (v. 12). The word translated as “drove” is from ’ekballō, which is formed from a prefix meaning “out” and a verb meaning “to throw:” it can also mean “cast out” or “sent out.” 

 

Does this suggest that Jesus didn’t want to go and needed prodding to make his way into a deserted area to fast for 40 days and be tempted by Satan? Mark may have thought so: the prospect certainly did seem appealing. 

 

Mark describes in two verses what Matthew relates in two verses what Matthew expands to eleven and Luke to thirteen verses. Matthew and Luke include specific stories in which a personified Satan tempts the hungry Jesus with prospects of food, glory, and power, but Jesus deflects each temptation with by reciting scripture.

 

Mark relates only that “he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (v. 13). [DD]

 

The presence of Satan in the stories does not require that we imagine a horned devil having conversations with Jesus. After the Persian period, Rabbinic Judaism morphed the Old Testament image of a heavenly sâtân (accuser), a member of God’s divine council (Job 1), into an evil being who opposed God and tempted humans to sin. 

 

The gospel writers were conversant with this belief and assumed that any temptation would have its roots in satanic influence, but we all know that we are quite capable of being tempted by selfish desires without the need of a devil whispering in our ears. 

 

The difference between Jesus and us is not so much the setting or the manner of temptation as it is the result: we often give in; Jesus did not. 

 

Perhaps the hard days of temptation were necessary for building the physical, emotional, and psychological strength Jesus would need to carry out an intense ministry that would involve long days, demanding crowds, stubborn disciples, painful rejection, and an inglorious crucifixion. 

 

God’s love for Jesus did not preclude doing what was necessary for Jesus’ continued growth and preparation for ministry, even to the point of sending him into the wilderness. 

 

 

 

Mark portrays Jesus’ lengthy temptation as concluding with divine comfort. After noting colorfully that Jesus was “with the wild beasts,” he adds “and the angels waited on him (v. 13). [DD] We are not to presume that angels were at Jesus’ beck and call throughout the forty days; if so, there would have been no real temptation. 

 

The implication is that Jesus received angelic provision to restore his health after the forty days had passed, and anyone who had fasted for forty days would need some restoration. As Mark relates it, Jesus waited until he had regained his strength and John the baptizer had been arrested before launching into his own preaching ministry. [DD]

 

In characteristic form, Mark doesn’t mince words. After John’s arrest, he says, “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe the good news.”

 

The familiar King James Version and even the New English Translation say Jesus was “preaching the gospel,” but most modern translations take the step of translating the word (euangelion), because that’s what it means. [DD]

 

The good news was that “the kingdom of God has come near.” God’s long-awaited intervention into world affairs had begun and humans could share in it. Joining God’s kingdom enterprise called for repentance from old sins and faith in a new relationship made possible through Christ’s redeeming work. 

 

Mark does not say how those first fortunate residents of Galilee responded when they heard Jesus preach his early sermons, and we don’t need to know. What matters is how we react. Here in this season of Lent, as we remember our failings and ponder our hopes, how will we respond to Jesus’ good news?