Jesus, The Son of God
Mark 1:1-13
Just a few months ago, we celebrated the birth of Jesus but Mark doesn’t begin the story of Jesus there. Instead, he says the beginning of the Gospel is with Jesus’ baptism. He starts 30 years in the future from Jesus’ birth and so that’s where we begin in Mark’s Gospel. Our aim in this series is to answer two questions each week: “Who is this man Jesus?” and “What does his life mean for our lives today. We could have drawn upon any of the 70,000 books which have been written about Jesus, more than any other historical figure through history. We chose the very first book published about Jesus.
The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark and sometimes is just called John. In the NT, he’s named 9 times, 8 times in the Book of Acts and the Epistles of Paul and once by Peter in 1 Peter where he calls him, “My son.” He is the cousin of Barnabas and Paul, Barnabas and John Mark went on the very first missionary journey together. John Mark was probably just a teenage boy and was probably going as a helper to the two. After the first stop on the missionary journey, he got cold feet and left Paul and Barnabas and returned to Jerusalem. That caused Paul to doubt John’s faithful so much so that Paul refused to take him opn any other missionary journey. That upset Barnabas and caused a split between Paul and Barnabas. From that time forward each went their separate way and Barnabas took John Mark on his missionary journeys with him. Paul would take Silas, Timothy and others. That division was apparently healed because we have Paul mentioning John Mark in his letters and always affectionately. Paul called for John Mark to come to Rome to be with him before his death. John Mark goes on to be a great apostle of the faith.
Now John Mark never says he wrote the Gospel. The title of this Gospel was added later by the church. Church writers in the first century attributed this Gospel to John Mark and so this has been accepted. Now John Mark was said to have spent the majority of his ministry in Rome where he traveled with Peter, just before Peter’s death. It is said that John Mark went as Peter’s interpreter. So what you find many scholars saying is that ths should be called the Gospel of Peter because it is a collection of Peter’s recollections of Jesus ministry and his time with him. So Peter was a strong influence on the Gospel of Mark but they also believe Paul was a strong influence as well. It was Paul who proclaimed that he was not shamed of the Gospel and in verse 1 John Mark says this is the beginning of the Gospel.
The Gospel of Mark was probably written right after Peter and Paul were put to death in the city of Rome. Emperor Nero was wicked and hated the Christians. So he set fire to the city of Rome with the intent of extinguishing it and blaming the fire on the Christians saying the Roman gods were angry because the Christians would not worship them. This would allow him to raise taxes on the people to rebuild the city of Rome as he wanted to build it. So Paul and Peter and other Christians leaders were rounded up, Peter crucified upside down and Paul beheaded while other Christians were burned at the stake as entertainment for his dinner guests. All this happened around 64-65 AD. And so many scholars believed Mark writes this Gospel to encourage other believers to not give up on their faith. Already at time of the first century, there were questions of whether Jesus was the son of God or a man who was pretending to be so. And so Mark may have been writing this Gospel to provide a balanced approach to the question, “Who is Jesus?” His answer is that Jesus is both fully the son of God and fully human, the son of Man. Throughout the Gospel these terms are used and you find the humanity of Jesus portrayed and then next the divinity of Jesus. So from the earliest time in the church, the church knew that Jesus was both divine and human.
So who is this man? Jesus was a man who was baptized at Bethany beyond Jordan. On this map, we see the location of Jesus’ baptism. First you will see the Sea of Galilee which was really a lake. It is an area that received a lot of rain and is the most fertile land in all of the Middle East. This is the area Jesus grew up in. Now John the Baptist preached and ministered in the area Bethany beyond the Jordan and Jesus made his way down there. The path Jesus took would have been right next to the Jordan River which ends at the Dead Sea which is the lowest body of water on earth, 1000 feet below sea level. The water evaporates very quickly leaving high concentrates of minerals and thus very few things can live in the water and thus its name, the Dead Sea. So Jesus is going to meet John at the Jordan river where John is already baptizing a large number of people.
This is what the Jordan River looks like when you get down to the Dead Sea. It is very murky, like the Mississippi river and is surrounded by desert. There John preached and called people to repent of their sins, be baptized and have your sins washed away. There people could be cleansed and see the waters drift off to the Dead Sea knowing they could never live again. The people came to be baptized because they were sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes along with some Pharisees, who came and watched with doubt and disdain. The Pharisees didn’t need to be baptized in their mind because they followed the law and thus were righteous in the eyes of God. Yet they needed to be baptized all the more. Now the sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes knew they needed to baptized and so they plunged themselves in the water to be baptized. They came because they desperately wanted to be clean and to have a new beginning.
That raised a very interesting question for us: why was Jesus baptized? He didn’t need that. He was perfect and sinless for he was tempted in every way we are and was without sin. Why did he go into the water to be baptized when John was offering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins? The church wrestled with this question yet Mark just reports the events. Matthew tries to put an explanation to it by having Jesus says he was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. The problem is we don’t know what exactly that means. So why was Jesus baptized in the Jordan? Many scholars believe he was baptized not because he needed it but instead to fully identify with our humanity. He’s identifying with the sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes wading in the water. In this act he is saying this is why I came that you might be forgiven. And throughout the Gospels we find that Jesus eats, teaches and hangs with sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. He’s not ashamed of them. Not like the Pharisees who stand at a judgmental distance, Jesus jumps in the water with the sinners. How awesome is that!
Imagine a friend who has an embarrassing addiction and they ask you to go with them to their first support group. You arrive and see the others there. When you sit down, you see everyone there and they see you. And when the meeting starts, the first thing you want to say is, “I’m just here supporting my friend. I’m not here for myself.” You see, here’s the thing: Jesus is not afraid to be associated or even mistaken for sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. So Jesus stands in the murky waters by all of you who need to be cleansed. How awesome is that!
Jesus also has a profound religious experience that sets the course of the rest of his life. All of the Gospels agree that Jesus’ public ministry began with his baptism. When you are baptized by emersion, you have to lean back into the water and the person baptizing you gently lets you down in the water. It’s an unnatural act and to do it, you have to completely relax and trust the person. And as you are lowered in the water, it’s an act of complete and utter surrender. I think that’s what Jesus was doing : he was saying, “Father, all I am and have, I give to you.”
Now when he came out of the water, he heard the voice of God say three things. You are my beloved. You are my Son and with you I am well pleased. In these words, God is saying he loves his son deeply and this Jesus you come to worship and follow is beloved by the Creator of the universe. That says something about how you should look at him and worship him, he is the beloved of the Father. The second thing this voice tells us is that Jesus is the son of God. Now we are all sons and daughters of God. But Jesus is the unique son of God unlike you or I. Even the demons in the Gospel will recognize Jesus as the son of God. Finally, it says that God is proud of Jesus. I am pleased of you and who you are. These things tell us that Jesus is the son of God whom he loves more than anything and is proud of.
Then the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends on Jesus. Here in the earliest book of Jesus was have the Holy Trinity: Father, son and Holy Spirit. The Father is speaking to the son and sending the Holy Spirit into the son. Christians believe there is one God but that one God is found in three distinct persons who each have a particular function. Think of it like H20 which comes in three forms: water, ice and steam. Each has a different form and function but the chemical makeup never changes. No matter the form, it’s still H20.
From this time forward, life will be different from Jesus. There are three things that have happened to him. First, his identity is established in case there was any question within himself. Remember, Jesus emptied himself of his Godhead so that when he came upon this earth, there were things he didn’t know. He admits that. He didn’t even know when he was going to return. And so God says to him, This is who you are, you are my Son. And in that he is also saying, not only are you my son but I love you and I am proud of you. Second, he receives the Holy Spirit which will empower him for all the challenges which lie ahead in his ministry. This is the function of the Holy Spirit, to give us power, guidance, comfort and help in our time of need. Third, Jesus is anointed and ordained for his ministry and mission which is to heal the sick, proclaim the Good News, and ultimately to die for the sins of the world.
Jesus would ever forget these three things because things would only get harder for him as he traveled on this path. In fact right after this, he would be tempted in the wilderness. Why didn’t he succumb? Because he knew who he was, he had the power of the Holy Spirit and he knew his calling. When the Pharisees attacked him, when the demons hissed at him, when people turned their back on him including those closest to him and when the Romans crucified him, in all of this his baptism carried him through. Because he knew who he was, he had the power of the Holy Spirit and he knew his mission.
The earliest Christians believed that what happened in Jesus baptism is what happens in our baptisms. When we are baptized, we not only are forgiven of our sins but we acknowledge who we are, a child of God, we are infused with the power of the Holy Spirit and we are called as God’s people to do His will and accomplish his mission of the salvation of the world. So today I want to ask you: do you know that you belong to Jesus, and realize that absolutely nothing can separate you from the love of God. You have the gift of the Holy Spirit in your baptism but are you experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life on a regular basis as you seek to live for him? Do you understand that God has a mission for you? Have you claimed Jesus purpose and mission as your very own?
Adam Hamilton tells the story of leading a team down to Bay St. Louis to help gut houses after Katrina. They were assigned to a woman who brick house was completely inundated and they were asked to gut a two-story garage. In the room above the garage were literally hundreds and hundreds of dolls this woman had collected. They carefully removed them all and the mold covered interior of the room. When they finished, he talked with the owner who said they had stayed for the storm because in all of their years the water had never reached them. But the storm came and flood waters rose. They like so many receded inot the attic and there they waited the storm out. They could hear a tornado which spun off from the storm and traveled across the street from their house. This grandmother said it was absolutely terrifying. Meanwhile, the house next door which belonged to her daughter had washed away. And then she said, We’re were terrified but this one thing I knew: I belong to God. I did not know how this was going to work out but I knew my life was in His hands.” She knew that she was a child of God, that she was loved by God and that gave her peace in the midst of the storm.
Those who came down after the storm in the name of Jesus did so to let us know God still loves us, that God had not forgotten us, that God still has a plan for our lives and they were a visible reminder of this. In this the literal hundreds of thousands of volunteers were fulfilling the mission of Jesus Christ. In our baptism, we are commissioned to take the light of Christ into the world and let the love of Christ not only be seen but experience by those in need.
In Jesus’ baptism he get in the muck and mire with you in your life. He’s not ashamed to be with us as sinners. Second, it points to the fact that you are a child of God whom God loves and is proud of. Let that shape everything in your life. Third, you have the gift of the Holy Spirit, if only you will take advantage of it to empower and guide you in the work of the kingdom. Third, everyone of you has been commissioned to serve Him in the world in His mission. How will you do this in the coming week. The apostle Paul writes, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Eph. 3:17-20
