Text: Mark 1:4-11
Date: January 10, 2021
Event: The First Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
Mark 1:4-11 (EHV)
John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. 6John was clothed in camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. 7He preached, “One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! 8I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10Just as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.”
Who Is This Jesus?
First impressions are important, but they aren’t everything, right? You’ve probably met someone in your life for whom your initial impression was really, really wrong. Maybe it was wrong in a good way or wrong in a bad way, but once you started to get to know the person better, or other people shared experiences they had had with that person, your first impressions perhaps shifted rapidly.
We’ve begun the season of Epiphany where we see Jesus and others telling us more and more about our Savior. Because, first impressions about Jesus aren’t great, right? We celebrated his birth just a little over 2 weeks ago but we saw how lowly, humble, and unimpressive the whole thing is for someone who didn’t know what was going on. Epiphany itself was on Wednesday, the day we would celebrate the wise men coming to worship the young King. But they go to where it made sense to find such a child—to the capital, to Jerusalem. They would never have dreamed (unless they had Micah’s prophecy in front of them) that such an important person would be in a place like Bethlehem.
As Jesus grew he would have stood out somewhat as a kid who never seemed to get in trouble or do anything wrong. But there’s not much particularly surprising about that. You probably know several children or even adults whom you’ve never seen or heard them do or say anything sinful. Jesus would have come off as a polite child, but likely nothing more.
So, to get the ball rolling and understand who this Jesus really is, we need others to testify about him, those who have more than just observations one can make with our eyes and ears. We need people with information that goes beyond the skin-deep. And in our Gospel for this morning, we have two such people to testify about Jesus and who he is. The first is John the Baptist and the second is God the Father himself.
We saw John the Baptist doing his preaching and baptizing work in some more detail during the season of Advent. Here, Mark gives us a brief reminder of John’s unique appearance, work, and location for that work. But the results were impressive. Many people from the southern region of Judea, and especially those in Jerusalem itself, were going out to see John in the wilderness to check him out and hear what he had to say. But while John was calling the people to repentance, to turn from their sins and to a life that would better please and thank God, he also told them something of the one who was to come: “One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! 8I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
So, who is this Jesus? He’s someone who would be more impressive and powerful than John. For as popular as John was, John is clear that he is nothing compared to the One who was coming. Likewise, John’s baptism was only a ceremonial washing. Jesus would bring the Holy Spirit to the people.
And so it is in this context that Jesus comes to John to be baptized. In parallel accounts of this event, we hear John arguing a bit with Jesus. Recognizing how much more superior Jesus is to himself, John says that he should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around! But Jesus assures him that this baptism is part of the plan. As our substitute, Jesus is baptized with John’s baptism of repentance not for his sins, but as part of his taking our place in all things.
And that’s why Jesus is so much greater than John. John led people to see and recognize their sins, to hopefully instill in them a desire to turn away from their sins. But John couldn’t get rid of those sins. But Jesus could. And that was his whole mission, to be the sinners’ substitute.
But to look at Jesus, you never would have known. John will later point back to this event as the sign even to him that Jesus was the promised Savior, because with our human perspective it sure didn’t look like this man was the eternal God, or the one who would rescue all humanity from our sins, death, and hell.
You know Jesus because this message of who he is has been revealed to you by people who played the role of John the Baptist in your life. Those parents, teachers, pastors, friends, even perfect strangers who pointed you to Jesus and said, “There! Him! He’s the one who is the Savior! He’s the one who is the eternal King!” Jesus is not who he looks like, nor is he who we want to mold him to be. He doesn’t fit our expectations or meet our demands. But, to follow John’s guidance, Jesus is exactly who we need him to be, the one who brings the Holy Spirit, the one who brings the faith we need to trust in him.
Jesus is not meant to be a mystery. He’s meant to be known, as John made him known. And that is made incredibly clear when, as Jesus walks out of the Jordan, a voice from heaven, the voice of God the Father himself, speaks to Jesus but also tells us what we need to know about this Jesus as well: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.” Once again, as with John, the Father tells us who Jesus is and what he’s come to do. First and foremost, Jesus is God’s Son.
This would not have been clear. We know the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. We know how unique they were among all births of all times. But we also know what the presumption would have been. The first impressions of this Jesus would have been that he was Joseph’s son. Who, without being told, would have assumed anything else? But God here sets the record straight. This is not just some guy who was born in Bethlehem and grew up in Nazareth. This was not a carpenter’s son. This is the Son of God.
And what did he come to do? He came to do everything that pleases the Father—to be perfect. And not only to be perfect, but to accomplish the work laid out for him from the beginning of time. What is that work? We heard the Father to his Son in the words of Isaiah in our First Lesson this morning: But now the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to turn Jacob back to him, so that Israel might be gathered to him, so that I will be honored in the eyes of the Lord, because my God has been my strength—the Lord said: It is too small a thing that you should just be my servant to raise up only the tribes of Jacob and to restore the ones I have preserved in Israel, so I will appoint you to be a light for the nations, so that my salvation will be known to the end of the earth (Isaiah 49:5-6). Jesus would be the one to bring God’s salvation to the ends of the earth, to every nation, to every person. John’s role was limited; he largely spoke and preached to the people of Judaea. But not Jesus. Jesus’ role was to bring about God’s global forgiveness.
The “well pleased” nature of Jesus work means accomplishing the salvation of mankind by living and dying in our place. God does not want our sins to condemn us to hell—though they do. And so he sent Jesus to solve that problem, to be our eternal solution. Jesus pleases the Father chiefly because he accomplished that which was most important to the Father—laying down his life for the sins of the world, for your sins and my sins.
So, who is this Jesus? What we learn from the testimony of both John and the Father here at Jesus’ baptism is well summarized by the “Jesus fish.” You’ve seen this fish on the backs of cars and in artwork. It’s a simple one-line drawing of a fish. But it was used by the early Christians as a sort of covert symbol and confession. The Greek word for fish, ichthys, was used as an acronym. It stood for the phrase, “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” That is who John said Jesus was; that’s who the Father Said Jesus was; that’s who Jesus is.
This morning amid unrest and strife and a nation that seems continually at the brink of falling off the precarious edge that we’ve taken ourselves to, let this be your comfort. You know who this Jesus is because he’s made sure you know. He is God’s eternal Son. He is the long-promised Christ. He is your Savior. May the rest of our lives be spent learning more of him and rejoicing in who he is, what he’s done, and how he continues to love us until he calls us home to himself. Thanks be to God! Amen.
