Mark 1:1-8 relates the story of the preaching of John the Baptizer.
I begin with a theological consideration of the text.
This beginning is the way Mark chooses to be clear about the identity of Jesus. We know the identity of Jesus, we know his relationship with John, and we know the purpose of his mission is to baptize with the Holy Spirit. There is only one non-New Testament reference to John the Baptist. [1] He identifies this book as good news or gospel (εὐαγγελίου), a word that suggests the joy and goodness of this news, adding that this joyful good news is regarding Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God. Verses 2-3 provided a scripture setting for the ministry of John in Ex 23:20, Mal 3:1, and Isa 40:3, even though the text identifies only Isaiah as the source. These passages share an interest in a messenger, in the location of the wilderness and in a similar message of preparation. In a comparable way, John will precede Jesus in his preaching and in his death. Verses 4-8 specifies the significance of John. The appearance of John in the wilderness has a scriptural setting. The desert had been the place where the Lord called Israel after Egyptian slavery in the exodus. The wilderness was where Israel lost its way in the 40-year wandering. John invites Israel back into the wilderness to repent. One would have to break normal traveling patterns to hear him. Yet, many people in his day went through all of that to hear what John had to say to them. People felt drawn to him, not only because of who he was and what he said, but also because of what he offered them - a chance to come clean. Judaism had an internal debate regarding how to respond to the challenges of its historical setting. That setting included Gentile rule. Some aligned themselves comfortably with Roman rules, represented in the New Testament by those around Herod and tax collectors. Some had a pious devotion to Torah and as long as they could practice circumcision, observe the Sabbath, follow dietary restrictions, and offer sacrifices in the Temple, they would wait for God to act at the end of this age to defeat the enemies of Israel. The Pharisees and the Essenes represented different versions of this thinking. Still others accepted the pattern established by Judas Maccabeus (I and II Maccabees) of violent confrontation with Rome and thereby achieving a measure of political independence. Sometimes, but not always, this view had messianic interpretations that included a descendant of King David leading the way. Such views were held by zealots. John and Jesus would overlap with the views of the Pharisees and Essenes. The message John proclaimed, a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, contains an important connection that will hold true in the rest of the New Testament. [2] Such a theme is consistent with the prophetic tradition. It also is a difference between John and Jesus, for the latter did not baptize.[3] Baptism among Jewish sects like that of the Essene community, which practiced it daily, was a form of ritual purification, water symbolizing the purification of life. Yet, baptism by John was different. Something new is happening, and therefore, we must change. Repentance involves a turning around, a radical change of direction, involving the heart and will. Repentance involved the whole being of the repentant one. Repentance is the hopeful word of John, pointing out our self-deceiving beliefs that we are good, worthy, deserving of our salvation and reminding us that our lives need turning around. We need to experience the washing in the cleansing waters of baptism as we anticipate the coming of the one mightier than John is. One does not experience enlightenment by simply imagining the light. One must also become conscious of the darkness.[4]Every day is judgment day. Through our deeds and words, our silence and speech, we are writing in the Book of Life.[5] People left the comfort of the villages and cities to draw near to hear this message. Such persons joyfully participated in preparations for the coming of the Lord. Such preparation can only mean the rule of God is near. Submitting to baptism was a concrete expression of the act of repentance. Such confession took place before or during baptism. The good news as found in the preaching of John is that forgiveness of sin is already available. Thus, the first step is simple honesty. Repentance is the admission that in our sin we need to receive forgiveness. Yet, the first step has a close relation to the second step, in which we acknowledge that God forgives. The good news begins in Mark as John invites people to receive forgiveness. We can receive the gift of washing, cleansing, and new birth. We can start over, fresh, like a newborn infant. God forgives. Such is the beginning and end of the good news. For all sin, God forgives. Since John baptize Jesus of Nazareth, his baptism will always be significant for Christians. God forgives sin, brings deliverance, and gives the gift of salvation. It means acceptance of daily repentance so that a new self will arise to live with God.[6] Repentance is the journey of discipleship and the only way to continue in the path. Anything else is foolishness and self-delusion. Repentance suggests a form of both brute honesty and joyfulness that we will need for the spiritual journey. Mark then describes the ascetic life of John shown in his clothing and in what he ate. Mark the describes the prophetic message of John as that of the proclamation of one who is coming who is more powerful than him, to whom he is unworthy to act as a servant. He also expresses the difference between his ministry of baptism with water and the ministry of the coming one as baptism with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5, 11:16, but with the addition of fire in Matthew and Luke). The difference between baptism by John and Christian baptism is Jesus, whose ministry will be anointed by the Spirit and through whom will come the outpouring of the Spirit. Christian baptism knew only one baptism, which was administered with water and the gift of the Spirit normally linked to it. [7] Mark has set the stage with a tantalizing presentation of a new Elijah and a transforming new experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to come. The good news, already present in John, will come forth in a dramatic way with the coming of Jesus. Further, the church in its word and deed a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord, and baptizing with water. The church is not worthy to unloose the shoes of its Lord. The church has the duty of summoning people to knowledge of Christ and readiness for baptism with the Spirit.[8]
I now share expanded exegetical and homiletical study.
John is that weird prophetic herald of change. Recent interpreters of the gospel of Mark suggest that it emphasizes the struggle among the disciples to understand the identity of Jesus. Much of the gospel seems devoted to demonstrating just how dense those who knew Jesus could be. Yet, this prologue does not leave the reader guessing. We know the identity of Jesus, we know his relationship with John, and we know the purpose of his mission is to baptize with the Holy Spirit.
Historical information about John the Baptist is sparse, both within and outside of the Bible. The only non-New Testament reference is in Josephus, where he ascribes the defeat of the army of Herod to the judgment of God upon Herod for killing John. It was a mark of divine displeasure with Herod. This historical note leads Josephus to describe his understanding of the ministry of John among the Jewish people. Josephus describes John as a good man who called upon the Jews to exercise virtue, which he defines as righteousness toward others and piety toward God. He called them to baptism, which he understood as a remission of sin and purification of the body. He supposed that righteousness purified the soul. He notes that many people came to him and found his words pleasing. Herod feared the influence of John over the thinking of the people and that he might persuade them to rebel. His influence was great enough that the people who baptized him would do anything he advised. He thought it best to have John killed to prevent any mischief he might cause. Herod also seemed concerned that John might persuade him to repent! Herod was a suspicious man. He had John killed at a castle called Macherus.[9]
The Gospel of Mark begins with what scholars identify either as the superscription of the book or as an introduction of the opening segment. Literary analysis would suggest the book begins in medias res, or “in the middle of the action.” It may be a literary style. It may also be an indication that the early transmission process lost an opening prologue. The book begins by launching us into the wilderness with John. Such an opening is also typical of the gospel and its fond use of “immediately.” 1The beginning of the good news (εὐαγγελίου or gospel), will focus on those who prepare themselves for the arrival of the good news. To reflect for a moment on news, we have more interest in bogus, pseudo and phony news than we are in hard news. We have so much news presented to us today. Yet, little of the news we hear causes us to alter our plans for the day, take some action we would not otherwise have taken, or provide an insight to some problem we needed to solve. News gives us something interesting to talk about but rarely leads to any meaningful action. An exception to this notion would be weather and traffic, of course.[10] Given the current cultural climate, the real question is about how one gets people to engage the news. We have so much of good and bad news about what is happening in the world. The response on the part of many is to laugh it off or ignore it. The church has the same challenge today. How does the church break through the news clamoring for attention so that people hear the good news? In any case, the broader use of good news in the first century referred to any good news people might share with each other, such as family celebrations or the blessings attributed to the gods. The first readers would have heard the joy and goodness suggested in the word. With the addition of Jesus Christ, the word gains specificity within the life of the church. The word “gospel” came to mean books about the life and ministry of Jesus, an extension of the basic use of the word to indicate the broader message about Jesus as the promised Jewish Messiah. As used here, the word is the starting point of a literary genre, a comprehensive presentation of the Jesus tradition.[11] The phrase the Son of God is not one we find in some early manuscripts.
Verses 2-3 provide a scripture setting for understanding the ministry of John the Baptist.
2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, but deriving from three passages. Exodus 23:20, “I am going to send an angel (or messenger) in front of you”; Malachi 3:1, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me”; Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; 3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” These passages share an interest in a messenger, in the location of the wilderness and in a similar message of preparation. In a comparable way, John will precede Jesus in his preaching and in his death.
In Mark 1:4-8, Mark specifies the significance of John the Baptist. In verses 2-3, he has already understood scripturally the appearance of 4John the baptizer in the wilderness. The harsh Judean wilderness was like a desert. It might seem like an unlikely spot for the flowering of new faithfulness. The wilderness way is treacherous and only the essentials will find a place. The wilderness way is about survival, life and death, sin and grace. Preparing for wilderness travel is challenging work. It involves anticipating what might happen out there in the wilds and then preparing for it. Anticipation and preparation are the keys to wilderness survival. The desert had been the place where the Lord called Israel after Egyptian slavery in the exodus. The wilderness was where Israel lost its way in the 40-year wandering. John invites Israel back into the wilderness to repent.
So much of what I know about John makes me think I would have gone out of my way not to see him. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd,"[12] would apply to John. He sounds too much like those street evangelists who wave their Bibles and tell you that you are going to straight to Hell unless you follow his directions. He would know whether you have successfully repented. Of course, such persons tend to plant themselves in your way. You have to cross the street to avoid them. They get in your face and dare you to ignore them. John planted himself in the middle of nowhere. He planted himself in the wilderness. If you wanted to hear him, you had to go out of your way and go through some trouble to hear him. Yet, many people in his day went through all of that to hear what John had to say to them. People felt drawn to him, not only because of who he was and what he said, but also because of what he offered them - a chance to come clean, to stop pretending they were someone else and start over.
Therefore, we read that John came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark views John as already connecting baptism and the forgiveness of sin, an important connection in the rest of the New Testament.[13] Such a theme is consistent with the prophetic tradition. It also is a difference between John and Jesus, for the latter did not baptize.[14] Repentance involves a turning around, a radical change of direction, involving the heart and will. Repentance involved the whole being of the repentant one. Repentance is the hopeful word of John, pointing out our self-deceiving beliefs that we are good, worthy, deserving of our salvation and reminding us that our lives need turning around. We need to experience the washing in the cleansing waters of baptism as we anticipate the coming of the one mightier than John is. One does not experience enlightenment by simply imagining the light. One must also become conscious of the darkness.[15] Every day is judgment day. Through our deeds and words, our silence and speech, we are writing in the Book of Life.[16] 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem turned from their settled and comfortable lives and were going out to him, turning toward the wilderness and the message of John, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan. The symbolic use of water has a connection with Jewish sects of the time. It was a form of ritual purification. The Essene community practiced it daily. Some groups practiced it to mark significant transitions in life. Jewish proselytes self-immersed in water. Josephus connected the baptism of John with ritual purification.[17] However, John invited the Jewish people to submit to his baptism.[18] Water symbolizes purifying of life. In this way, people came to John confessing their sins. Such persons joyfully participated in preparations for the coming of the Lord. Such preparation can only mean the rule of God is near. Submitting to baptism was a concrete expression of the act of repentance. Such confession took place before or during baptism. The good news as found in the preaching of John is that forgiveness of sin is already available. Thus, the first step is simple honesty. We sin, we wander, we lie, and we do not know how to save ourselves through our efforts. Repentance is the admission that in our sin we need to receive forgiveness. Yet, the first step has a close relation to the second step, in which we acknowledge that God forgives. The good news begins in Mark as John invites people to receive forgiveness. We can receive the gift of washing, cleansing, and new birth. We can start over, fresh, like a newborn infant. God forgives. Such is the beginning and end of the good news. For all sin, God forgives. Outside the ascetic life of John is despair, the proud attitude that denies the need for or the possibility of forgiveness.[19] Sinners have all the advantages in this good news. God is willing to stay with us in our meanness, weakness, and stubborn self-righteousness. We are better off spiritually if we confess our sins rather than keep a list of the sins of others against us.[20]
Further, when John preached and issued a call for baptism, it would neither have shocked first-century Jews nor disturbed the ruling class. Ritual washings in mikva'ot (immersion baths or pools) were commonplace, and people believed that this practice cleansed the body of its chronic profanity and sanctified it for worship of God. This proclamation is undoubtedly what leads Luke to specifically identify John the Baptist's message as the beginning of the "good news" (see Luke 3:18) God intends for the people of Israel. Such baptism was a ritual lustration with roots already established within Jewish practice. Ritual purification with water was an important feature of Israelite religion, particularly regarding the impurity associated with various aspects of sexuality (e.g., intercourse and childbirth; see, e.g., Leviticus 15:18; Numbers 19:13). Ritual practices were widespread in Greco-Roman religion also, especially in cults associated with healing deities. While it is clear, therefore, that the practice of ritual purification with water did not originate with John the Baptist (and common sense would suggest that there was no one “inventor” of the practice), the New Testament first identifies baptism with John’s ministry and preaching, and only later and more significantly associated with Jesus (e.g., Matthew 29:19). In any case, for all its associations with the Greek and Jewish world, the baptism of John was unique.
Repentance is John’s hopeful word, pointing out our self-deceiving beliefs that we are good, worthy, deserving of our salvation and reminding us that our lives need turning around, to experiencing the washing in the cleansing waters of baptism as we anticipate the coming of the one mightier than John is. One does not experience enlightenment by simply imagining the light. One must also become conscious of the darkness.[21]Every day is judgment day. Through our deeds and words, our silence and speech, we are writing in the Book of Life.[22]
C.S. Lewis describes the unrepentant condition as being in a "hole" where we need the help of a friend (i.e., a savior) to get us out. Into what sort of hole is it that we have gotten ourselves? It is behaving as if we belonged to ourselves. We are not simply imperfect creatures who need improvement; we are rebels who must lay down our arms. "Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor -- that is the only way out of a 'hole,'" says Lewis. This process of surrender is what we call repentance (the underlying Greek word means "changing the mind" or "turning around"), and it is what John was calling for in his prophetic preaching. Lewis adds this important note: "... this repentance ... is not something God demands of you before he will take you back and which he could let you off if he chose: it is simply a description of what going back to him is like." We cannot be right with God without repentance; it is like asking God to take us back without actually going back.[23]
The writer Kathleen Norris gives us another way to understand repentance. She tells of working as an artist-in-residence at a parochial school and telling children something about the psalms. The kids are often astonished to discover that the psalmists expressed the more unacceptable emotions like sadness and anger, even anger at God. She says that because the children know what it is like to be small in a world designed for big people. They identify quite readily with the psalmists, and often do quite well when she invites them to write their own psalms.
She tells of one boy who wrote a poem/psalm called "The Monster Who Was Sorry." He began by admitting that he hated it when his father yelled at him, and in the poem, he pictures himself responding by throwing his sister down the stairs, wrecking his room and then wrecking the whole town. The poem ends with, "Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, 'I shouldn't have done that.'" Norris concludes her account of this boy's poem by referring to the fourth-century monks who guided beginners in the faith and suggesting that those monks would have told this boy "that he was well on the way toward repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human. If the house is messy, they might have said, why not clean it up, why not make it into a place where God might wish to dwell?"[24]
Stephen Vincent Benét once wrote a Christmas play in which the wife of the innkeeper -- truly a bit part, if ever there was one -- has a memorable line. Looking on in wonder at the strange events of that holy night, the innkeeper's wife realizes that something of tremendous import has happened there in her husband's barn. And so she declares:
Rise up! The loves we had were not enough.
Something is loosed to change the shaken world,
And with it we must change!
That is the message of John the Baptist. Something has happened, and we must change.
The baptism of John continues to have significance for Christians. The fact that Jesus will submit himself to his baptism should be enough reason. God forgives sin, brings deliverance, and gives the gift of salvation. It means acceptance of daily repentance so that a new self will arise to live with God.[25] Some Christian traditions have learned to have some embarrassment over the stereotype of old-fashioned preachers hammering their people on sin and making people feel guilty. To them, talk of repentance makes them nervous. This feeling has some truth contained in it. A French proverb says that years of repentance are necessary in order to blot out a sin in the eyes of human beings, but one tear of repentance suffices with God. Approached from another perspective, however, repentance is the doorway to the spiritual life and is, in fact, the only way to begin. Repentance is the journey of discipleship and the only way to continue in the path. Anything else is foolishness and self-delusion. Repentance suggests a form of both brute honesty and joyfulness that we will need for the spiritual journey. Of what in my past do we need to repent to allow God to do a new thing in us? Of what do we need forgiveness? Whom do we need to forgive to begin moving toward a different future? We might ask the question differently. From what do we need healing? The cleansing of the Baptist talked was not just a matter of what happened in the past. Such fresh and new people will receive the Holy Spirit that prepares them for ministry and mission.
Mark makes it clear that John is an historic figure of his time. Mark does this again with his description of his clothing. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. Zechariah 13:4 suggests prophets had “a hairy mantle,” while II Kings 1:8 describes Elijah the Tishbite as a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist. Malachi 4:5-6 looks forward to the expectation that Elijah would return at the end of the age. Mark also describes his diet: and he ate locusts and wild honey. Bedouins eat such food. John represents a wilderness ascetic movement of this time prior to 30 AD. The apocalyptic fervor of the day fueled his preaching. He may have had some connection with the Jewish set that authored and housed the Dead Sea Scrolls, texts that combined apocalyptic thought and an ascetic way of way of life. He may have some affinity with Essenes.
The content of the message of John is direct. John looks forward, in the form of a prophecy, 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. Such a prophecy will require fulfillment if the prophecy is true. Mark is going to say that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy. Of this person, John assures us: I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. John is clear in this disclaimer as to his role in the coming of the rule of God. John is almost demure in these matters. John also notes that the ministry of the one to come is quite different from his ministry. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. The risen Lord uses the phrase in Acts 1:5 and 11:16. The material Matthew and Luke share in common uses a similar phrase but adds that the baptism to come will be with the Holy Spirit and fire. The distinction between John and Christian baptism, of course, is the coming of Jesus. We can see here an understanding of the announcement by John in terms of Christian baptism with the Spirit.[26] The distinction holds in Acts 19:1-7 with Apollos and his baptism. Baptism with the Spirit and water baptism held no distinction in the early church. It knew of one baptism, administered with water and normally linked to the gift of the Spirit. Christian baptism outdates this distinguishing feature between it and John.[27]
The Holy Spirit gains a great deal of attention in some circles. We might say that it seems as if Jerusalem, with its pretend piety, temple taxes, and priestly focus, had covered up the Holy Spirit. They had snuffed out the Holy Spirit. God moved a prophet, John, to escape it all and move to the wilderness. John was socially unacceptable. Yet, he fanned the flame of the Holy Spirit for the people of Israel.
Yet, I have some misgivings. Some people use the Holy Spirit as a code word for a very intense sort of religion. I have nothing against such an experience. Yet, I do not think such an experience is a requirement for faithfulness. William James, in The Varieties of Religious Experience, in referring to a conversion experience, used the analogy of snow on a barn roof. It builds up and builds up, and at some point, one more snowflake makes the difference, and the roof collapses. Thus, we may go through life for many years having a wide variety of experiences that still leave us unconvinced of the Christian faith. Then some event, some encounter, not major by itself, may precipitate a conversion experience. When the right situation occurs, God will do the work. My point is only that too much of the talk about the Holy Spirit can become manipulative of emotion rather than open the door for God to work.[28]
Mark has set the stage with a tantalizing presentation of a new Elijah and a transforming new experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to come. The good news, already present in John, will come forth in a dramatic way with the coming of Jesus.
[1] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, Chapter 5, Section 2.
[2] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 240.
[3] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 240.
[4] Carl Jung
[5] Martin Luther King Jr.
[6] Martin Luther, Small Catechism.
[7] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 259-60
[8] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.4] 854.
[9] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, Chapter 5, Section 2.
[10] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.
[11] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 2, 455.
[12] Flannery O'Connor
[13] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 240.
[14] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 240.
[15] Carl Jung
[16] Martin Luther King Jr.
[17] Josephus (Antiquities 18.117 [cf.18.5.2])
[18] (see further, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:584).
[19] Kathleen Morris, The Cloister Walk, New York: Riverhead Books, 1996, p. 128, quoting Bededicta Ward.
[20] Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine, Boston: Crowley Publications,1995
[21] Carl Jung
[22] Martin Luther King Jr.
[23] Lewis, C.S. "The perfect penitent." Mere Christianity. New York: Macmillian Paperbacks, 1960, 56-61.
[24] Norris, Kathleen. "Repentance." Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998, 69-70.
[25] Martin Luther, Small Catechism.
[26] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 623.
[27] Pannenberg Systematic Theology Volume 3, 259-60
[28] Dr. Carver McGriff inspired these comments.
[29] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.4] 854.
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