Marginal Christianity

“In those days” Jesus arrives on the scene, the Lord to John’s Elijah. He is baptized by John (vv.9-11), tested in the wilderness by Satan (v.12), announcing the beginning of the New Exodus with the arrival of the kingdom, and recruits the first members of the New Israel. Jesus is Baptized (1:9-11) Jesus was from “Nazareth of Galilee,” a backwater village in northern Israel. He joined the throngs coming to John to be baptized in the Jordan. Mark gives no reason for or protest Jesus being baptized by him as occurs in Matthew 3. Mark simply relates his baptism and focuses on its aftermath. The experience he relates is Jesus’ alone (“he,” v.10), so Jesus must have shared what happened to him with his followers.   Arising from the waters of the Jordan Jesus has a vision of “the heavens torn apart” and “the Sprit descending like a dove on him.” The first phrase is from Isa.64:1 a prophetic cry for God to intervened come to his people’s rescue. A seminary student once exclaimed...

Jesus appears among the crowd at the river and undergoes his baptism (v.9). By this he signifies his solidarity with his people and participation in God’s New Exodus. Unlike all others baptized by John, Jesus has a visionary experience as he rises out of the water in both sight and sound. He sees heaven “torn apart.” The prophet Isaiah had cried out to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,      so that the mountains would quake at your presence—       as when fire kindles brushwood      and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries,      so that the nations might tremble at your presence!”     (64:1-2) Mark surely has this text in mind as he narrates Jesus’ experience. He fulfils this prophetic hope and signals the onset of the New Exodus by using this language for Jesus’ baptism. Jesus’ also sees the Spirit descending o...