Stepping into the Jordan
AM Psalm 1, 2, 3 • PM Psalm 4, 7
Isa. 40:12-23 • Eph. 1:1-14 • Mark 1:1-13
In the order we read them, Matthew is the first of the four gospels, but Mark is generally accepted as the earliest that was written. That makes today’s reading the first words we have of the good news. The words are not about Jesus’s birth. The first gospel begins with John the Baptist (“I’ll have the locusts, please, with a side of wild honey”) preaching to crowds in the desert. Then he baptizes Jesus.
Which is puzzling on the face of it. John was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” but sins are exactly what Jesus did not have. So why baptize? Suzanne tells me that there has been much discussion and debate and various answers out of this, and although theology is not my gig, I would love to explore the question sometime. My untutored thought is that perhaps Mark begins with this moment because it speaks to the core of the Christian message and how that message plays out.
I think maybe Jesus is saying “Now I am one of you.” As he wades into the Jordan he is entering botched, suffering, lost humanity. He is leaving kairos and entering chronos—leaving God time and joining our time. He paradoxically enters the cleansing waters in recognition and acceptance of the sins of those standing that day on the banks and of every one who has lived since then. As he does God says that God is well pleased. Perhaps God is affirming that this, and pretty much all that follows over the next few years, must happen if we are to get to that parallel moment on the cross when Jesus bears all humanity’s broken nature to the end and redeems it.
From that perspective today’s start of the story of the good news points us toward the story’s end when we will gather, in person or virtually, to celebrate the coming of the light of Christ. It’s something I’ll think about between now and Easter.
Written by Elliott West
Elliott teaches history at the University of Arkansas. He has been a member of St. Paul’s for more than twenty-five years.