Baptisms and Biographies

 

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon is entitled Baptisms and Biographies. My focus is our Gospel (Mark 1:9-11). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

Baptisms and biographies may seem to be incongruent, but when we read about Jesus’ Baptism within Mark, we understand that the Evangelist was writing a biography for his time. Hence, baptisms and biographies are analogous because for many of us, the former marks a significant milestone in one’s life as it did in our Lord’s. This morning, I address Our Lord’s Baptism, Christian Baptism and Your Biography.

First, Our Lord’s Baptism.[1] In three verses, Mark does not explain why Jesus walked 28 miles over nine hours from his hometown of Nazareth of Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. Given that He will baptize with the Holy Spirit, it seems surprising that he assumed the role of a lowly penitent and went into the water. We can surmise that he did so because he recognized John’s ministry as the prelude to his own.

Jesus submitted to a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins not because he was a sinner, but because of his solidarity with sinful humanity, a solidarity that would eventually lead to the cross. Like Moses, Jesus acted as the ideal intercessor, not standing apart from sinners but in solidarity with them (Ex 32:31-32). His baptism anticipated his passion. His immersion into water symbolized his death. He spoke of his death as a baptism (10:38); and while he acknowledged God’s just judgment on sin, he offered to God the response of perfect repentance on behalf of all people.

Jesus’ emergence from the water was met with the descent of the Holy Spirit from above. The heavens were abruptly and violently torn asunder overcoming humanity’s sin, which created an insurmountable barrier distancing man from God. We read in Isaiah, “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (59:1-2). God would only come down only after his people had been cleansed of impurity. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people’” (Ex 19:10-11). So, the Spirit’s descent upon Jesus foreshadowed its descent upon the Church at Pentecost, after sin had been removed by the grace and blood of the Cross.

Note that the Spirit did not simply descend upon Jesus, and perch on his shoulder, but descended into him. According to one scholar, the descent “is an actual going into Jesus, … a possession of him.”[2] This possession of Jesus by the Holy Spirit is so obvious to Mark. Given that both Jews and Greeks believed that the descent of gods into human affairs appeared in the form of doves, Mark encompassed both cultures which populated the Church.[3] In verse 11, Mark wrote that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Mark also wrote that Jesus’ family, who did not quite understand him, thought that Jesus was out of his mind (3:21). To a greater degree the scribes falsely accused Jesus as possessed not by the Holy Spirit but by fan Beelzebul (3:22). There are several other episodes (1:41-43; 6:48; 11:13-14).

With the anointing of the Spirit, Jesus’ baptism became a turning point in his life for here he formally inaugurated his mission as Messiah. By sharing in Israel’s baptism of repentance by John, he committed himself fully to the Father’s call: to be the obedient servant who would be innocent yet “counted among the wicked” because he bore the sins of many (Isa 41:1; 53:11-12).

There is no doubt that the voice Jesus heard was his Father’s, and here we see the Trinity at work. His Father’s words of affirmation – “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” – are full of scriptural echoes. The Psalmist wrote, “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’” (2:7). Isaiah spoke of such a servant when he prophesied, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations” (42:1).

As readers of Mark, we are privileged to know about this secret exchange among the Three Divine Persons of the Trinity. And with that, I now turn from Our Lord’s Baptism to Christian Baptism.

How does the Baptism of Our Lord differ from Christian Baptism? Nowhere in the New Testament does any writer invoke Jesus’ Baptism as a precedent for or as an explanation for Christian Baptism.[4]

The Baptism of Jesus and his first coming to us brought with it the rule and reign of God, but only as a foretaste of the feast to come. We await the full end-time feast in a way that Simeon and Anna waited – as believers of the old covenant. All things that the Old Testament believers experienced took place as examples for us. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Cor 10:11).

As we await the fullness of the heavenly feast, we still live in this old age, and so, we prepare for it by confessing our sins and repenting of them. Baptism with water is necessary for this preparation. This is why Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

The Church refused to separate this baptism from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Even after the Holy Spirit was poured out onto Gentiles in Cornelius’ house, Peter asked, “‘Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” (10:47-48). In short, baptism with water and the Holy Spirit are marks of the final age.

Christian Baptism is a means of identification for us as it was for Jesus. As he identified with his people in their sinfulness, in our Baptism, we identify with Jesus in all that he has brought for the benefit of humanity. He is the personification of Israel, humanity and God himself. May I remind you that you who “were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:27).

Just as Christ received the Spirit in his Baptism, we too receive that same Spirit in ours. As Christ was declared to be the Son of God, we too are united to him through Christian Baptism as sons and daughters of God. Paul is quite explicit about this in Romans 8. Perhaps for your devotional reading today, you can choose those first 15 verses.

Those of us who are in Christ are heirs according to St. Paul. To the Romans, he wrote “If children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (8:17). To the Galatians, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (3:29) And as we heard last Sunday, we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:13-14).

And so, heirs of God, let’s move from Baptism to Biography. We understand that a biography is the written history of someone’s life. If you are asked to submit a biography for the company or community newsletter, you will be asked to keep it short. If you are writing a paper on Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan, your research will take you to Illinois or California, and will be substantially longer with a perspective others have not yet taken.

Now, allow me to ask and answer a fundamental question: Was Mark a biography? Yes and no. Mark told the story of Jesus, but in a different style from other biographies of his time. His style and content of the story aroused a feeling, and so, Mark’s is not a biography like other biographies, but a development of the actions, sayings, and suffering of a human being on his way through this anxious world of human beings and demons.^[5]

Mark has the capacity to shock and subvert comfortable literary expectations. While there is no doubt that Jesus is the hero of this story, Mark portrays him as an unrecognized, rejected, humiliated, disappointed individual, who was deserted by his closest allies and eventually victimized by a hostile environment. This is not the stuff of an ancient biography.

We must view Mark as a biography based on other ancient biographies, and must examine its Jewish content, though written in Greek, which reflected the rhetorical and biographical conventions of his time.^[6] In other words, ancient biographies, like modern ones, center on a particular person and seek to present an adequate and accurate characterization of that person, including information about other persons and groups of people. In the case of Lincoln or Reagan, it may include their wives and children, cabinet members, mentors and political allies or opponents. Biographies also reveal the subject’s character and personality. The message of ancient biographies was not simply to provide the reader with information, but offered a message: “go and do likewise” or “go and do otherwise.”

In evaluating Mark as a biography, we must have a firm handle on its chronological and social setting. Whatever its date, Mark was written after the beginning of the Roman Empire and during the rise of Roman biographical tradition, following in the footsteps of the Greek biographical tradition. Unlike Greek biographers, Roman ones added a greater concern for the family traditions, the need for the demonstration of public honor, and, sometimes in the latter two-thirds of the first century, a focus on the hero’s patient suffering and death under a tyrant.^[7]

Although Mark was a biographer, he was more of an editor than a writer, bringing together what was already known about Jesus. He had a working relationship with Peter and Paul.^[8] In Acts, we read, “When he (Peter) realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.” And later, “Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark.^[9] In chapter 15, Mark is mentioned once again as a companion of Barnabas on his journey to Cyprus.^[10]

This shows that Mark’s account was not a distant evaluation by a scholarly admirer of Jesus, but the personal experience of one who shared closely in the stirring and profoundly disturbing events of Jesus’ public ministry and his confrontation with the Jerusalem establishment. It reflected those experiences as they were passed on in the day-to-day teaching ministry of a living community of His followers.^[11]

Why all this talk about the biography of Jesus? How does it relate to his Baptism? How does it relate to us? Well, ten years ago, when I began to prepare for pastoral ministry in the Lutheran Church, I was required to write an extensive autobiography detailing my life experiences in the secular and sacred worlds, as a professional fundraiser and a pastoral minister. This first-person biography included relationships with family members and faith communities. I mentioned not only my highlights, but also my setbacks. And throughout, I could see the Holy Spirit weaving together all the moments of my life into an artistic tapestry.

By now, you know that I am always encouraging people to pray more deeply and extensively. One method of prayer that some find helpful is to journal or write an account of what has occurred when praying over a particular Scripture passage. This can result in a biography.

Perhaps this year, you can take time to journal and write your own biography. How is your life interwoven not only with family and friends, but also with Christ and his adopted brothers and sisters? What are the obvious and obscure moments the Holy Spirit has been active in your life?

As we began this year, maybe you made a resolution to pray daily? Maybe you struggle with that resolution. Maybe prayerfully writing your biography in the form of a daily spiritual journal is a way to see how God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is active in your life. Start from a point in your life – today or your childhood – and reflect on the activity of the Holy Spirit entering you as it did Jesus on the day of His Baptism and the day of yours. What are the highlights of your spiritual journey? Where have you experienced setbacks? My friends, today, prayerfully consider the path God sets before you, and when you do may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

 

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[1] Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic (2008), 34-37.

[2] James W. Voelz, Mark 1:1-8:26. St, Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House (2013), 126.

[3] Voelz, 126-131.

[4] Voelz, 138ff.

[5] R.T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids, MI, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (2002), 6. See fn 14.

[6] Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Social-Rhetorical Commentary. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (2001), 4.

[7] Witherington, 5

[8] Witherington, 25.

[9] Acts 12:12, 25. See also 13:5, 13

[10] Acts 15:36-41

[11] France, 9.