Sunday December 10th, 2023 Worship

I don’t know about you, but in my English classes growing up, we were reminded constantly that our stories had to begin with a good “hook” to really grab readers attention. I remember one of my high school teachers telling us that if we didn’t have a good start to our paper they would stop reading and we would only be graded on how much was read. Even as a reader, I will keep reading, but I don’t always want to if the first few pages of a book don’t really spark my interest, or I have a hard time following the characters and plot. With all this in mind, I find myself frequently analyzing why the Gospel of Mark begins the way that it does: “Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: as it was written in Isaiah the prophet:…” (Mark 1: 1).
Now, the Gospel of Mark is notoriously succinct. Of all four Gospels, Mark is the shortest, and often has similar stories to Matthew and Luke, but with a lot less detail. While the other Gospels tell us more about Jesus’ birth, or in the case of John’s Gospel, more about his identity as the Son of God, Mark skips over all of Jesus’ birth and childhood and we begin with a reference back to Isaiah, the role of John the Baptist as the one who prepares the way for Jesus, and a note about specifically the baptismal aspect of Jesus’ calling. We get no back story to Jesus or even really John; it’s from the other Gospels that we learn John and Jesus are cousins, with John leaping in Elizabeth’s stomach the first time she meets the pregnant Mary. All we hear about these men is that Jesus is the Son of God and John baptizes with water, while living in the wilderness, dressing in camel’s hair, and eating locusts and honey. Sometimes as a reader, I wonder how we are to trust the narration of this when the Gospel’s author gives us so little information to go on.
This is partly the point of Mark. The Gospel writer didn’t feel a need to get into the other details, but instead builds trust with readers by recalling the words of the prophet Isaiah. In acting as a bridge between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, not only does this show that the writer is religiously educated, but it shows a clear understanding of the original audience who would have been familiar with the writings of the prophets. And, in doing so, uses the prophet as the one to substantiate the claims that are being made. “…as it was written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I send my messenger before you to prepare your way, a herald’s voice in the desert crying, ‘Make ready the way of our God. Clear a straight path.’ And so John the Baptizer appeared in the desert” (Mark 1: 2-4a). Mark didn’t spell it out for us because we are inclined to make the leap here that if one comes before to prepare the way, then John is clearly the one preparing the way for Jesus, as it was told in the prophets.
Before we even meet Jesus at all in the Gospel of Mark, we hear about what exactly John has been doing to prepare the way for him, namely preaching and baptizing, with a specific emphasis on repentance by those receiving baptism. John makes a clear distinction that while he is baptizing with water, the one who is more powerful that is coming after him will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Well, now this sounds interesting to me as we in the Lutheran church confess that we believe in only one baptism for the forgiveness of sin. But, I also think that had John not done this, people would have been even less receptive to what it was that Jesus was teaching. If John already began to prepare them for what a life following Jesus would mean, then they perhaps would feel more ready to commit when Jesus did come later baptizing with the Holy Spirit. It isn’t about the theology of one baptism versus two here, but more so about how John was going about preparing the way and why that was important.
Yet, the other thing I want to mention is just how important this water is to us even in baptism today. Confirmation kids, I hope you’re listening because this is what we are going to be talking about in our lesson today, but in baptism we use the ordinary means of water met with the promises of God, to symbolize how we are claimed and named as the children of God. Now, people will have different views on what this means and when it can happen, even in the Lutheran church, but for me, I see it as an outward expression of an already inward reality, that we are all created as the Beloved of God. And, in baptism, what John is doing too, we are reminded that we are not baptized into faith alone, but that we are baptized into a community of faith. One in which we walk through life together, figuring out what it means to live faithfully.
And, importantly, we are a community in which grace and the forgiveness of sins are given. Because, if you’re anything like me, I have a tendency to be a lot more forgiving and understanding of other people than I am of myself. So when John baptizes with water and Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, I see it as this continuity of grace and the recognition that we are daily in need of grace and forgiveness. That we aren’t baptized and then become perfect, but that we are claimed as God’s beloved children in all of our imperfections. That this in fact is what makes us God’s created and not God.
So, while Mark doesn’t have the best “hook” to catch readers attention as my English teachers would say, Mark centers the beginning of his Gospel on what he feels is most important: baptism. We don’t have to wait 20 chapters before it’s mentioned, but instead this is the piece that Mark wants us to know from the beginning. This one, the one whose story you are going to hear more about as you read through the book is the one who comes forgiving sins and baptizing with the Holy Spirit. The other stories and details matter too, but at the heart of it all is the reality of what happens in baptism as it explains why Jesus was even here in the first place. Mark doesn’t need to talk about the baby Jesus or his life as a child in the temple because for Mark, once you’ve experienced the transformative power of faith in Christ, you’ll know what was claimed in the beginning: ““Here begins the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: as it was written in Isaiah the prophet:…” (Mark 1: 1).