He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit

 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  As it is written in the Prophets: 

"Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,

Who will prepare Your way before You."

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

'Prepare the way of the LORD;

Make His paths straight.'"

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And he preached, saying, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.  Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."  

Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.  And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.

- Mark 1:1-13

Today we begin reading from the Gospel of Mark.  In yesterday's reading, we finished the Gospel of Luke:  Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you."  But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.  And He said to them, "Why are you troubled?  And why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."  When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.  But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?"  So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb.  And He took it and ate in their presence.  Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.  Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high." And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.  Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.  Amen.

 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  My study bible says, "Gospel refers not to Mark per se, but to the sacred story of the life, death and Resurrection of Christ, the Good News of salvation in the Kingdom of God.  Beginning refers to the opening events of the ministry of Jesus, namely, the preparatory activity of John the Baptist and the baptism and temptation of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God." 

As it is written in the Prophets:  "Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You."  "The voice of one crying in the wilderness:  'Prepare the way of the LORD; make His paths straight.'"  The quotations here are from the Prophets Malachi and Isaiah.  My study bible tells us that "John the Baptist, the last prophet of the Old Testament period, fulfills prophecy and prepares the people of God for the Messiah's coming.  Hearts are softened to receive the Light."

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.  A note tells that remission here is literally "to let go" of sins.  This Greek word άφεσιν/afesin is rooted in the word translated as "forgive" in the Lord's Prayer, when we pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."    My study bible notes that baptism of repentance for the remission of sins is a major part of John's preparation of the people for Jesus' coming.    Later, in Christian baptism, God not only forgives our sins, letting them go, but He also brings us into union with Christ.  (See Rom. 6:5)."

Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.  A note points out that "all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him indicates the sweeping impact of the ministry of John the Baptist.  He is perhaps the leading religious figure outside of official and rabbinic Judaism."  It's important to take note that people were preparing for what they believed was coming, in their expectation of Messiah.  The Prophet John the Baptist appears as a herald of Christ in His role in the Gospels, but there is also more to a prophet's warning and admonition of repentance.  The failure to accept grace also carries with it a powerful consequence.  In the long view of the Gospels, the life of Christ is tied in with the whole history of Jerusalem and Israel.  Taken together with the picture the Gospels give us of the future of the Church (see yesterday's reading), these verses of John the Baptist give us, in a kind of veiled way, an eschatological vision of the world.  In that larger context, John's words of prophecy and preparation take on even more powerful significance.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  We note John's clothing is similar to that of Elijah.  Jesus Himself will say that John fulfills the return of Elijah, prophesied to happen before the Christ would appear.  In this "icon" in Mark's Gospel, John fulfills the "type" of Elijah.

And he preached, saying, "There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.  I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."  My study bible says that "baptism with the Holy Spirit means that only Christ, the Son of God, fully possesses and gives the Spirit.  So to receive the Spirit we must be baptized in Christ and adopted as children of God.  In adoption, Christians become anointed ones; it was of these God said, 'Do not touch My anointed ones' (Ps. 105:15)."  And already John's prophesy about the Christ predicts His completed mission, when what Jesus called "the Promise of My Father" (see yesterday's reading) is fulfilled.

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.  Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."    There are several notes here in my study bible which are worth quoting from.  First of all it points out that Jesus and John were related through their mothers, and so speculates that perhaps they were already acquainted.  It adds, "By saying that He came up from the water, Mark suggests Jesus was immersed in water.  Christ's rising from the water is symbolic of His Ascension, since the same Greek verb (anebaino) is also used to refer to that event."  Thereby we are also tied to yesterday's reading, in which Luke gives an account of the Ascension, the only Gospel to do so.  It continues, "The Church Fathers taught that in coming up, He lifts the whole world with Him.  The Spirit descending upon Him foreshadows the Spirit's descent upon the first Christians at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4)" --  also an account written by Luke.  "Like a dove," it notes, "does not mean the Holy Spirit is incarnated as a dove.  Rather this is a special sign indicating the presence of the Spirit.  A dove symbolizes purity, peace and wisdom."  Finally, "the voice of God the Father from heaven makes Jesus' baptism a manifestation or epiphany of the Holy Trinity.  The Father is not adopting Jesus as His Son, but proclaiming that He is and always has been His Son.  This divine proclamation, combining a messianic psalm (Ps. 2:7) with the first song of the Suffering Servant of the Lord (Is. 42:1), reveals who Jesus is.  Thus Jesus' baptism anticipates His Transfiguration and Resurrection, the dawning of the new creation."

Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.  And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to Him.  Again, there is another note that is worthwhile quoting:  "As Jesus' baptism is the first revelation of His divinity, so His temptation inaugurates His role as the 'Lamb of God,' the suffering and obedient Son of God whose destiny is the Cross by God's will.  Forty days echoes the forty years of Israel's temptations in the Old Testament and becomes the basis for the forty-day period of Great Lent in later Christian tradition.  Being with the beasts and served by the angels suggests a relationship between Christ and Adam, Christ being the New Adam.  Even if we are subjected to evil, (the demons, the beasts), God will never desert us as we struggle toward Him.  The Church Fathers believed meditative seclusion is (1) conducive to freer communion with God and (2) effective preparation for great tasks ahead."

The extensive notes in my study bible (which I quote because I feel they are helpful) indicate how, in these short and brief verses in Mark, so much of a great story is told to us.  It's always interesting to make the transition in this commentary between the end of one Gospel and the beginning of another, because Scripture works in such a way that they are always relevant to one another.  In this case, we not only have the relevance we can notice in making this change in the lectionary cycle, but the notes in my study bible themselves indicate the ties between the beginning of Mark's Gospel, and both the ending and beginning of Luke's Gospel and his Book of Acts of the Apostles.  The whole of the story of Scripture, the history of Israel and the history of the Church which is to be given to "all the nations" are just that, a whole.  And, as we pointed out in yesterday's commentary, Jesus' final greeting to the apostles of "Peace to you" ties everything together in this central figure.  He is the reconciliation of all things, and in Him all things are united into a much greater and astounding whole than merely the sum of many disparate parts.  Included in that whole is the cry of John the Baptist, that he is calling everyone to repentance and remission of sins; thereby even the things we think are poor and imperfect are transformed into the something new, the whole of a new creation.  Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit, John tells us, thus tying in the new creation, the gift of grace which is like a river of living water, that ceaselessly continues to baptize all of us and offers us the choice of this new creation or its rejection.  John poses a question, not just to the people of Judea and Jerusalem, but to all of us now living in this time initiated at the coming of the Christ, which is (as some have put it) the time of the end.  What will it be?  The Holy Spirit immediately drives Christ out into the wilderness, facing the demons and the beasts, tempted by Satan and yet ministered to by the angels.  He went there first -- for all time, for all of us; and we, too, are offered that choice.  As my study bible put it, no matter what we may suffer, God never leaves us alone.  St. John the Evangelist has written that  "of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace."  In the baptism of the Spirit is a never-ending flow of this living water; let us not forget the choice we're offered, even in the most difficult circumstances.