Mark does not take long
to launch Jesus on his ministry. Matthew and Luke have accounts of the
nativity. John has his wonderful and thoughtful prologue. Mark, by contrast,
fairly briefly describes the preparatory work of John the Baptist before we
reach the significant moment when John baptises Jesus.
Interestingly, Mark is
the most specific in identifying the place from which Jesus came – Nazareth of
Galilee. This underlines an important Gospel theme around God’s acceptance of the
marginalised and the outcast. We expect important people to come from significant
places, but that is not what we have here. As Ched Myers (“Binding the
Strong Man”) expresses it – “One would expect the hero to be
credentialed through miraculous origins or a solid genealogy (something Matthew
and Luke cannot resist). Mark, however, stresses Jesus’ obscure origins, “from
Nazareth,” tantamount to introducing him as “Jesus from Nowheresville.”
But the important thing
is not where he has come from, but that he is there, and that he is there to do
God’s work.
The moment of baptism
becomes a moment of affirmation. Mark here deals in the essentials. Matthew
tells us that John was reluctant to baptise this particular candidate, claiming
that it should be the other way round, but Jesus sees this as the first step of
walking the way that he has come to walk. Let it be so now (Matthew
3:15).
Jesus goes the way of
baptism, and then there is a special vision and special words. The heavens are
torn apart and the Spirit descends on him like a dove. That is what he sees. You
are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. That is what he hears.
This is a remarkable moment, what Myers calls a point of “discourse between
earth and “heaven”.” It is not entirely clear whether others who were present
were fully aware of this remarkable experience but, if that was not so, clearly
something of it got out, as it is recorded.
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