Down and Dirty
Scripture Reading: Mark 1:4-11
The holidays and the holy days come fast and furious at this time of year. Two weeks ago we marked the fourth Sunday of Advent and Christmas Eve simultaneously. Then of course came Christmas Day, which was just the start of the Christmas season, in the middle of which we squeezed New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Yesterday, January 6th, was the Epiphany, which brings the Christmas season to a close and commemorates the wise men, gentiles who traveled from the East (Persia, modern Iran) to worship the newborn king of the Jews.
And now today we have one last special occasion before we return to plain old Ordinary Time next Sunday, and that is the Baptism of the Lord. Now, you may be thinking, “That gets its own day?” Yes, it does. True, Baptism of the Lord doesn’t exactly share top billing on the marquee next to Christmas. While no one will be sending Baptism of the Lord greeting cards to friends and neighbors, and no stores will have Baptism of the Lord sales, nevertheless on the church calendar the baptism of Jesus is a day of note and also an essential part of the gospel.
But don’t believe me; believe the Gospels themselves! All four Gospel writers found the baptism of Jesus important enough to include in their story of his life. The same cannot be said for some of the other famous events in Jesus’s life and ministry, such as his birth, or the Sermon on the Mount, or the Transfiguration, when Jesus was revealed in his glory. None of these events are found in all four gospels, while the baptism of Jesus is.
Yet Mark is alone among the Gospel writers in actually beginning his Gospel with the baptism of Jesus. There’s no birth narrative. No back story. No prologue. Matthew and Luke both tell of the events surrounding Jesus’s birth, and John begins with a poetic prologue that speaks of a cosmic Christ who exists beyond space and time.
But Mark doesn’t spend time on such things. Mark, as we will learn in the coming months, likes to cut straight to the action. And so Mark begins his Gospel with Jesus coming from the village of Nazareth in northern Israel to the wilderness beyond Jerusalem, to the bank of the Jordan River where John is preaching and baptizing.
John is an interesting figure. You might have noticed that the passage refers to him as “John the baptizer” and not the more familiar “John the Baptist.” I’m not sure of the reason for that change, although I’d speculate that it’s to avoid any confusion about John’s denominational loyalty. John, of course, was no more a Baptist than he was a Methodist, Lutheran, or Presbyterian. Like Jesus, he was a Jew. (Although I must say that John’s simplicity in dress and diet is rather Presbyterian.) Plus, referring to him as “the baptizer” emphasizes what John does. Among other things, it’s the fact that John baptizes that most distinguishes him from other charismatic religious figures in Israel.
Baptism was not something that had ever been done in Israel. The Old Testament contains no mention of baptism. Not a single word. In baptizing people, John was introducing something completely new to Judaism, even as he otherwise stood in the tradition of the prophets.
And like many of the prophets, John was an outsider. I mean that figuratively and also literally. John was not part of the religious establishment in Jerusalem. His ministry takes place in the wilderness, well beyond the borders of the holy city. Nevertheless, John draws disciples not only from Jerusalem but from the whole Judean region. People are coming out in droves to be baptized and confess their sins.
However, this isn’t baptism as Christians understand it. As John himself notes, he baptizes with water, and his is a baptism of repentance. In other words, John’s baptism is about what the sinner does; the sinner repents before God. John’s message of repentance is in keeping with the prophets who preceded him. That’s because John represents what all prophets do…the law. While John is the forerunner of the gospel, he is not the gospel. He merely points to the good news that is to come in Jesus Christ. John still operates under the rules, conditions, and categories of the law.
John himself is at least somewhat aware of this. He knows that the one who comes after him will be fundamentally different. He tells the crowds that come to see him, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.… I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
[B]aptism is fundamentally a work not of the sinner but of the Holy Spirit.
For Christians, at least those of the Presbyterian variety, baptism is fundamentally a work not of the sinner but of the Holy Spirit. Baptism isn’t about what we do for God, i.e., repent. It’s about what God does for us—forgives all of our wrongdoing. All of it, even the things for which we cannot forgive ourselves. Baptism is a visible sign for the believer of an invisible grace that is from God. It’s God’s doing, not ours.
This begs a question. If baptism is about the forgiveness of sins, why does Jesus want to get baptized? Is Jesus repenting for his sins? Does Jesus need God’s forgiveness?
Listen, I am all for asking tough theological questions. I am all for interrogating what and why we believe. As far as I’m concerned, there is no question that’s off limits. And, if we’re honest, we can acknowledge that some theological questions have no easy answer, especially those around suffering. But that being said, the answer to the question of Jesus’s needing God’s forgiveness is a resounding “no.” (And why would you ask such a thing, you godless blasphemer?)
While Mark doesn’t explicitly address why Jesus wants to be baptized, we can read between the lines. After Jesus is baptized he hears the voice of God saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” What pleases God about Jesus’s consenting to be baptized is precisely the fact that he doesn’t need to be baptized. He doesn’t need to repent. He doesn’t need to be forgiven. He hasn’t sinned. Nevertheless, he is willing to identify with those who have sinned and who do need to repent, which is everyone. Jesus doesn’t allow himself to be plunged into the waters of the Jordan for his sake but for your sake and for mine.
Let me ask, have you ever seen the Jordan River? I was fortunate to tour the Holy Land a few years ago with a group from the Korean church that I was serving. Among other sites, we visited the Jordan River. What I saw surprised me. I had pictured something like the Hudson River—wide and deep—but the spot that we were shown was about the width of a two-lane city street, and the water was a motionless muddy brown. I would not have wanted to be one of the church members that the senior pastor baptized in the river that day!
Pollution and agricultural use have deteriorated and diminished what was likely a much more impressive river in Jesus’s day. And yet as I watched one woman allow herself to be plunged backwards into the mud and muck of the river, I thought of the symbolism of Jesus allowing himself to be baptized in this kind of dirty water.
We think of baptism as a ritual in which something dirty becomes clean. In baptism we—sinners that we are—are cleansed of sin. But as far as Jesus is concerned, his baptism is about something utterly pure and pristine—Jesus himself—becoming soiled with the filth of our sin.
[Jesus] gets down and dirty with the worst and weakest parts of ourselves, the parts that we don’t want to acknowledge and that we try to keep hidden.
It’s difficult to overstate what a radical claim this is. God did not consider it beneath himself—not only to take on human flesh—but to immerse that flesh into the filth, the wastewater, the raw sewage of human sin and suffering! That is what Jesus does in allowing himself to be baptized. He gets down and dirty with the worst and weakest parts of ourselves, the parts that we don’t want to acknowledge and that we try to keep hidden.
Paul picks up on this, writing in 2 Corinthians, “For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin.” Paul is referring to the crucifixion, but Jesus’s journey to the cross begins right here with his baptism, for this is where he first confronts the problem of sin. Before there is blood, there is first water.
And just as he emerges from the waters of the Jordan, Jesus sees something remarkable. Mark writes, “[H]e saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him.” He saw the heavens “torn apart.” That’s quite the image! The seam of the sky is ripped open and through that chasm comes the Holy Spirit. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,” prayed Isaiah (Isa. 64:1). And so it came to pass.
The Holy Spirit, which had spoken through the prophets, alighted upon Jesus Christ and filled him with power…the power to heal the sick, the power to open blind eyes, the power to forgive sins, the power to love even those who desired his death. And through your own baptism the Holy Spirit is at work in your life, for in your baptism you were marked as God’s own. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is working in you with power, even and especially in those places where you feel most powerless.