The Enigma of Jesus' Baptism
Psalm 2; Isaiah 42.1-7; Mark 1.4-11
Was Jesus' baptism significant for him? A pivotal event? Or just play acting for the benefit of the crowd? Why did a sinless person (if he was sinless) need to be baptised?
Crowds come out to John to be baptised, they confess their sins asking for forgiveness. In the crowd is a visitor from Galilee. He too is baptised. Outwardly he is just one of the crowd. No one observes anything special about his baptism. But he does.
Private Vision
Jesus has a private vision. He sees heaven split open and the Spirit descending on him - in a gentle anointing - like a dove. And he hears a voice speaking to him.
Of what benefit was this vision? If he was the Son of God why did he need the Spirit to come on him, and why did he need God to tell him he was his Son? Of course as we read the story we remember promises made in the Old Testament (eg Ps 2, Is 42) about the coming servant or child who would be anointed with the Spirit of God and save his people.
Trinity Vision?
But this vision, while it affirms those promises, may be much more profound than that. Because this looks more like a private conversation between the persons of the Triune God. It is as though the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are working together in the ministry Jesus is beginning.
One of the frustrating things for us is the lack of explanation for this vision. How do we know it happened? Presumably because Jesus reported it to his disciples later. But why did he not explain what it meant? Why did they not ask him more questions about it? The report of the vision, at this stage of the Mark's gospel, is an enigma.
An Enigma?
But although it is a puzzle, it does tell us quite a lot. It reveals to us things we had no way of knowing otherwise. It shows that something was being coordinated within the Trinity. More than that it shows us the relationships between Father and Son and between Spirit and Son. There is no possibility of us knowing such relationships exist unless the Son tells us. We are given a glimpse into not just the fact of the relationships but to the nature of them.
And as we listen to the report of this vision we get a glimpse of an extraordinary cooperative work in which the Father and Spirit are involved in the work of the Son. Later theologians tried to put into words the nature of this relationship. One of their attempts is the Nicene Creed which we use in church. As they discussed this in the next few centuries some, helped by John's gospel, came to the awareness that the unity of God was such that whatever the Son did was what the Father was doing. That what the Spirit did was done in and through the Son, that the works of the Father were the deeds of the Son.
This vision gives us a glimpse into that united working. It is appropriate at the beginning of Jesus' ministry that the Father, the Spirit and the Son are all seen to be cooperatively involved in what the Son is about to do.
A Sinner?
But what is he doing? And did he confess his sins like all the others who were baptised by John? Mark is silent on the question. But a big clue to the answer lies in the very next event. The Spirit sends Jesus out into the wilderness for forty days to be tested by Satan. That is a good test. And although Mark does not tell us the outcome, we know Jesus resisted the temptations.
So perhaps we can assume Jesus had no sins to confess. But if so why be baptised? I suppose we can see Jesus wishing to join into John's movement. To align himself with John's preaching, to associate himself with the repentant sinners who were looking for forgiveness.
It is possible to read this story and say that there is not explanation of it, no answer to our questions about what it meant and why it happened. But it is also possible that the explanation is quite lengthy, that it requires certain other things to happen, and other information to be provided before it is possible to explain it. Perhaps the rest of Mark's gospel is the explanation. And the questions which are left hanging enigmatically in the air at the beginning are answered by the end.
The Heart
Because this baptism is not only pivotal for Jesus, it represents the heart of his mission. Later (10.38) he will ask two of his ambitious disciples whether they can be baptised with the baptism he is to be baptised with. He is referring not to this baptism but to his death. And yet there is a connection. As he has followed the crowds down into the Jordan, so later he will take them and their sins down into waters of death. And trust the Father to raise them up again with him.
By the end of the gospel it will be much clearer that John's baptism was able to offer forgiveness to sinners because Jesus offered his life as a ransom for them. At the beginning he is connecting himself with both the message and the symbol of his mission.
And at the beginning the Father, the Spirit, and the Son are all seen to be involved in the mission, because this is a mission of the Triune God. It is not a solo effort by Jesus. What Jesus does is the work of the Father. The deeds of God are done by the Spirit in and through Jesus.
There was no play acting here. Rather we are given a profound glimpse into the cooperative work of the Almighty God in making it possible for repentant sinners to be forgiven.
Worth being thankful for!
Dale Appleby