Have you ever run across someone whose very presence made you uncomfortable? If any of us were approached by someone resembling John “the baptizer” we’d probably call the police.  [DD] 

 

My favorite image of John is found in a tiny Episcopal church known as St. Mary’s, just outside the North Carolina mountain town of West Jefferson. During the mid 1970s, the otherwise nondescript church was on the verge of dissolving before a new rector, Faulton Hodge, collaborated with noted fresco artist Benjamin R. Long IV to install three exceptional frescoes in the small sanctuary. 

 

Behind the modest altar, the back wall is covered by a large central fresco that depicts Christ on the cross as his spirit departs. To the left, a smaller image on a plaster panel portrays Mary great with child. The fresco to the right is a portrait of John the Baptist. John is dressed in a short camel’s hair garment. His hair is unkempt. He has a wild look in his eyes and a big stick in his hand. There is nothing gentle about the picture, because there was nothing gentle about John. When the baptizer came preaching, he meant business. [DD]

 

Today’s lesson focuses on the theme of repentance, which was at the heart of both John’s and Jesus’ preaching. They both knew that it is God’s desire to forgive all persons of their sins. They also knew that the gateway to divine forgiveness is human repentance. [DD]

 

 

 

Though the lectionary text begins at v. 4, it is important to set the context, as Mark begins his work with “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (v. 1, NRSV). Most other translations (e.g., KJV, NIV, NASB, NET) use the word “gospel” to translate euangelion, which literally means “good news,” and is the root of our word “evangelism.” [DD] [DD]

 

Mark’s gospel does not include any sort of birth narrative for Jesus, as Matthew and Luke do. Mark begins Jesus’ story with the onset of his active ministry as an adult. The first chapter describes, in rapid-fire order, Jesus’ baptism, his temptation, and his initial preaching ministry. Still, Jesus did not just show up one day and start drawing attention to himself: Mark insists that John introduced him. Mark preferred to call John “the Baptizer” rather than “the Baptist” (using a participle rather than the noun form preferred by Matthew and Luke). 

 

Mark likewise tells us nothing of John’s birth, as does Luke, who portrays him as a miracle child born to aged Zechariah and Elizabeth, relatives of Jesus’ mother Mary (Luke 1:1-25). 

 

In Mark, John appears fully formed as a raw and rustic desert preacher declaring that the kingdom of God was at hand and God’s promised deliverance was about to come true. 

 

John’s appearance and his diet certainly attracted attention, even though he preached in largely unpopulated areas. [DD] His primitive clothing, ascetic habits, and fiery sermons reminded people of stories they had heard about Elijah the prophet. Such stories were kept alive because there was a common belief that Elijah would reappear to presage the Messiah’s coming. [DD]

 

Mark loosely quotes two texts to support his belief that John was fulfilling past prophesies. Verses 2-3 are drawn from both Malachi 3:1a (“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me”) and Isaiah 40:3 (“A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’”). 

 

Mark mistakenly attributed both texts to Isaiah. He may have had little access to the prophetic texts, but may have been familiar with a collection of Messianic prophesies identified mainly with Isaiah that could have been preserved separately. 

 

The prophet Malachi, whose preaching closes out the Hebrew scriptures, had pointedly predicted Elijah’s return: “Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse” (Mal. 4:5-6).

 

The oracle’s insistence that Elijah would “turn the hearts” of parents and children implies a coming call for repentance, precisely what John was doing when he took to his desert stage and started preaching. 

 

 

 

According to Mark, John’s message was two-fold. First, he challenged his hearers to repent of their sins and to symbolize their penitence through “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (v. 4). John’s preaching was so effective and eschatological expectations so high that Mark spoke in hyperbole: “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” came out to hear John preach. When the altar (or river) call was given, they came forward in droves “and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (v. 5).

 

John’s baptism was both old and new. It was common for Gentile proselytes to Judaism to undergo immersion as a ritual purification marking entry to the community, and observant Jews practiced frequent lustrations to keep themselves ritually pure. John’s baptism differed, however, in that it was a once-for-all testimony rather than a repeated practice of purification, and it came at the hands of John, not by self-immersion. [DD]

 

For John, the only prerequisite for baptism was the confession of one’s sins, for confession is the beginning of repentance. John preached in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, who commonly called for repentance with the word (shub), which means literally “to turn around” or “return.” To confess one’s sins is to admit that one’s life has been going in the wrong direction. Only then can a person turn around in true repentance. [DD]

 

The second purpose of John’s teaching was to focus his new followers’ attention on Jesus, and he hinted at this even before Jesus physically appeared on the scene. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me,” John predicted, “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (vv. 7-8). [DD] 

 

As John’s baptism differed from Jewish baptisms, so Jesus’ baptism would differ from John’s. John baptized with water as a symbol of repentance and forgiveness, a metaphor of cleansing. Jesus’ baptism would be no symbol alone, but an exercise of power, involving the Holy Spirit. Together, John’s and Jesus’ baptisms would become a metaphor of death and resurrection (cf. Rom. 6:1-4), of new and eternal life, of the presence of God in the heart of the believer. [DD]

 

 

 

We don’t know how long John’s work continued, but it was long enough for him to develop quite a reputation and to collect a band of disciples. At some point, Jesus appeared and presented himself for baptism. Mark does not say, as Matthew does, that John initially objected, though he had earlier insisted that he was unworthy to untie the coming one’s sandals. 

 

John submitted to Jesus’ wish, even as Jesus submitted to the baptismal waters. Later believers believed that Jesus was sinless and had no need of repentance. Still, Jesus chose to be baptized, likely as a means of signaling his solidarity with humankind

 

Even as Christ proclaimed his humanity, God the Father declared Jesus’ divinity. Mark recounts the event from Jesus’ perspective, telling us what Jesus saw and heard. In contrast, Matthew and Luke describe the divine annunciation from the standpoint of an observer.

 

As Mark tells the story, just as Jesus came up from the water, he saw the heavens opened and God’s spirit descending in the form of a dove. Modern Baptists sometimes use this text to support the mode of baptism by immersion, since Jesus “came up out of the water.” The phrase could also mean that Jesus was walking from the water to the shore, but the most natural sense is that of immersion.

 

Why did the Spirit appear as a dove? Doves were used in the Old Testament as sacrificial offerings, and a dove assisted Noah in finding dry land, but neither seems to relate here. A rabbinic tradition held that when God “brooded over the waters” (Gen. 1:2), it was in the form of a dove, and another likened the voice of God to the cooing of a dove (T. Berachot 3a).

 

For whatever reason, the gospels insist that God chose the dove as a means of self-revelation. The most important thing, however, is not what was seen, but what was heard. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (v. 11). Matthew and Luke relate the story from an observer’s perspective, suggesting that others who were present also saw and heard these things. Thus, in one brief act, God validated both the teaching of John the messenger and the identity of Jesus the Messiah.

 

Jesus’ experience reminds us that baptism is an important step in the life of faith. When we remember our own baptism, we are reminded of John’s challenge to repent, and of Jesus’ challenge to follow – not just on baptism day, but every day.