A Baptismal Testimony
Mark 1: 1-11
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The New
Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
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John Calvin well notes that Mark finds his place to begin the Gospel story in the last book of the Old Covenant - in Malachi 3: 1.
"'Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, who you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight, Behold He is coming.' Says the Lord of hosts."
This thought is reinforced in the witness of Peter and Mark even as they quote from Isaiah 40: 3 as well. What should we immediately learn from Mark's introduction to the Gospel of the New Covenant? Precisely this - that the Biblical record is one story from beginning to end. The whole of the Old Covenant prophetic evidence would point us to this announcement of the ever glorious news. Jesus Christ has come unto His own. Yet of all the Old Covenant prophets, John is the first to actually see the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
John practices a ritual of baptism that was already applied to gentile converts. But, he goes a step further to require a baptism of Jews already within the Old Covenant Community. This should not be seen as unusual, most of the work of Billy Graham is with people already within Christ's Church who are challenged to rededicate themselves at a deeper level and so become better workers and witnesses within the Kingdom. However, John's baptism here is for repentance, specifically in preparation to hear the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ever and always, this is a necessary step in coming to Christ. How tragic it is in our day - when people who should know better - listen to emotional New Age symbolism that makes them feel good.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull is probably the most pagan book in liberal use within churches that formerly belonged to Christ. The theme there as well as in a tawdry little humanistic piece called I'm Okay, You're Okay is that we too can become little gods like the man Jesus who was the first to realize the potential of the human spirit. Then there is a certain Starfish theme about people who earn merit by throwing Starfish from the beach back into the sea. You would not realize how much this and other myths undergird the thoughts of our professional people these days. If it feels good, it must be beneficial so the common understanding goes. In another New Age primer Chicken Soup for the Soul, which has gone on to multiple volumes, the emotional fix is lifted to the heights of spiritual insight.
By themselves, the individual parables and proverbs contained in these nonsensical books would not appear as dangerous as Ben Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac - from which you still hear pithy sayings quoted as being from the Bible itself! Ben Franklin was way ahead of his times in more ways than we ought to imagine!
Well, John the Baptist comes to the people of Judea who are comfortable in their Jewish rituals based more on the wisdom of the Rabbi's than upon Scripture itself. And John challenges the people to repent from their sins and to be baptized as a sign that their repentance is real. Try and sell that to a generation raised on Self-Esteem and feel good platitudes.
Once I was asked "how many boys a girl had to sleep with to be called a slut?" My answer was "Only once out of wedlock", believe me if there had been hot tar and cold feathers around, I would have had a brand new outfit! Sin is not something that people want to hear any details about these days! And yet, if we are to realize the importance of the Good News we must be willing like the Jews of John's time to hear the bad news about sin!
This is a necessary ministry in every age and place - to hold up the Scriptural mirror to the habits and morality of society and show people what sin really truly is! The church has failed in this regard for fifty years or more. I fully believe that if the Church had been more forceful in defining fornication and adultery for the last generation, there would be little need to have to defend against polygamy, sodomy and worse in our time. Time was when local school boards were able to ask some very hard questions about the character of the teachers they hired. Even divorce, smoking and drinking were habits that could prevent a person from getting a job. Twenty-three years ago, when I was downtown in the Department of Education getting certified to teach, there was a job-seeker who had come in to complain about a rural district that thought they could still ask such questions!
Now I do know for a fact that there were a teachers in my youth, who had sinned and been forgiven for indiscretions, went on to declare themselves for Christ and who then gave a solid witness to those of us who nothing about life outside of the Church. I can remember one of the teacher's who was addicted to nicotine who constantly encouraged his health students not to make the same mistake that he had made. We always knew when he was trying to quit! It was so obvious that I'm sure the Principle encouraged him to quit trying to quit since that process was so hard upon all the rest of us! Of course there are some sins that must be left behind if the person is to benefit from the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and to those who truly belong to Him, the New Birth involves an outpouring of the Holy Spirit even as John predicts here in the passage before us.
Another issue that we must consider in regards to this passage is the Baptism of Jesus Christ. Matthew records the fact that John protested, but Jesus insists that all righteousness must be fulfilled. By this additional testimony we may understand that the Baptism of Christ was not for sin, but instead to demonstrate that God would stoop down to our level in the body of Jesus and undergo all that we have had to endure and to obey the entirety of the Law. Calvin notes that:
"it was necessary for Christ, from His free submission to the Law, to keep it in every part. ... The reason for Christ's undergoing baptism was to offer His father full obedience, while the particular reason, was to consecrate baptism in His own body, that it might be common between Him and us."
And so we have shared in a ritual to which even Christ subscribed. And so John completes the task that everything might be accomplished decently and in order. In the midst of this obedience, we have a last reason to consider this passage. It is here in the context of the baptism that we have demonstrated for all time, the Triune nature of our God and King. Because - here in this scene, we have not only the Son, but also the voice of the Father and the appearance of the Holy Spirit. So even though the word Trinity is never found in the pages of Scripture, it is a doctrine that the true Church of Christ must always preach.
Now it is well to note as the Geneva Bible does that the visible sign of the Spirit does not mean this was when the Spirit came upon Jesus for the first time. No indeed, there is heresy in that thought. And for that reason, there is a spiritual song that we sometimes sing where we have written into the poetry that Christ was revealed as having the Spirit rather than His becoming the Son of God as the author mistakenly wrote. There is an eternity here in the Triune relationship that we would do well to acknowledge because the Creator God is unchangeable from the beginning of time to the very end. The Greek rendering of the Father's word "beloved Son" may also be understood to mean "only Son" as well.
Finally, we may take one last thought at least from this passage. The presence of the Spirit was made public so that we might know what to expect when Christ would return to heaven and send this Other to be with us day by day until He returns at the end of the age. This summer I heard from someone who I had known ten or more years ago. It seemed to me at that time that they had the Spirit, but did not know what they had. It was good to learn that they finally knew the gift that had been with them even without their knowledge. I have also known from past experience that some of the world's crassest pagans flee from those who have the Spirit.
Now, we have to be careful. The evidence of the Spirit in our lives is not always so obvious as it would have been in Jesus Christ. Remember, the Spirit is part and parcel of His personality while, as adopted sons and daughters, the Spirit is only a gift whose activities are beyond our complete understanding and completely beyond our control. Now before we close, let us restate the obvious lessons we may take from the opening introduction in the Gospel of Mark.
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May these teachings be laid quietly in our hearts where we may draw appropriate strength from them now and always. Amen.
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Resources Used | |
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Cole, Alan.. |
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: Mark. |
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Morrison, A.W. |
Calvin's New Testament
Commentaries: |
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The New
Geneva Study Bible (NKJV) | |
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Mrk01c |
03 October 99 |