Gleanings from the Text
Mark’s first picture of Jesus is baptism, when Jesus joins the ranks of the people the baptized. During this baptism, the heavens are schizo “torn apart.” (Worth doing a word study on!) According to Brian Blount, “In [Mark’s] rendering, this isn’t a comforting metaphorical moment that initiates diplomatic relations between God and humankind; it is a foreboding image of the eschatological schizophrenia human history has now become. … In what on the surface appears to be an historical delusion, in which future hope and present reality can exist together at the same moment, Mark’s baptism story narrates his gospel truth: in Jesus’ life and ministry God’s future is on the move in the human present” (Blount, 20).
Right on the heels of being baptized and named as God’s Son, Jesus is cast out into the wilderness. Immediately, the text says. “Do not pass go, do not collect $200.” Blount writes, “You want to know what happens when you get … touched by the power of God’s Spirit? You don’t sit still and enjoy the view, you don’t lay down and take a nap, you don’t bask in the glory of what great thing just happened to you. You go immediately to wild work. To work for God is to be thrown directly into the path of those who would oppose God” (Blount, 31). So it is for Jesus, for while in the wilderness, he is tempted by Satan.
The final verses of this pericope suggest that the good news that Jesus preaches is the Kingdom of God. The way we live into that kingdom? Repent and believe the good news.
“Repent” (metanoiete) means “to turn around,” to turn away from sin and toward God (McReynolds, 123; Hare, 22). The form of “repent” suggests recurring urgency, something always in the right time and in the pregnant moment (Charles, 37).
“Believe” (pistueo) implies trust and commitment. It is a relational term, not intellectual assent (McReynolds, 123; Hare, 22). In Jesus, the kingdom has come near; in his preaching we are confronted by the kingdom of God itself. The appropriate response is to repent and believe (Williamson, 43).
Each verse in this pericope could be a sermon in itself:
- v. 9: importance of Jesus joining the people in baptism,
- vv. 10-11: significance of baptism as the place where identity is known and claimed,
- v. 11: Jesus as God’s Son…and all the many implications of that statement
- vv. 12-13: being claimed by God results in a time of struggle and test in the seeming absence of God,
- vv. 14-15: proclamation of the good news that the kingdom of God is only a hair’s breadth away,
- vv. 14-15: the calling of us, as the hearers of this proclamation, to repent and believe.
Food for Thought
In the first week of Lent, I think you take a larger view than any of these individual themes. Our 40 days in the wilderness will be the 40 days we spend on the journey to Holy Week. They begin with the announcement that this man who has been baptized (just like the rest of us) is the Son of God. In him, God has literally torn down the barriers between God and us. In him, God comes near to us in the waters of baptism and in that act comes to know us completely. At the same time that we experience this closeness, we know what is to come before these 40 days are up.
We know that we will turn away from God and crucify Jesus, only then to recognize with the Roman centurion that this was God’s Son, in him the kingdom was so close we could touch it.
Despite our turning away, despite our refusal to accept God’s invitation to closeness, God still pursues us. On the day of the crucifixion the curtain in the Temple will schizo; God is again ripping down the barrier between us. Our 40 days in the wilderness is our “test” to accept God’s offer of closeness. It is our chance to say we want the barrier down too.
Sink Your Teeth Into This!
One of the first baptisms I performed was for an infant who wailed the entire time…as I recited the words of grace, as we made promises to her, as we prayed over the water, as the water touched her head… Finally, unable to let the crying continue any further without doing something, and out of my own sense of helplessness for her distress, I said to the child, “this is supposed to be good news!”
God’s action to become close to us, to claim us, to bring God’s kingdom into the present, to call us to participate in that kingdom—good news, to be sure, and yet we’re going to turn away, to be tested. We will hide, ignore, go the other way to the point of crucifixion. With all that in view, wailing may be a very appropriate response. And yet that day around the font, the child’s parents made promises, the congregation made promises, together we remembered God’s promises. Maybe that is our first step in again saying that despite all our failing and all our wailing, we want that barrier down too.
Works Referenced
Brian K. Blount and Gary W. Charles. Preaching Mark in Two Voices. Louisville: WKJP, 2002.
Paul R. McReynolds (ed.) Word Study: Greek-English New Testament. Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1999.
Douglas R. Hare. Mark. Louisville: WJK, 1996.
Lamar Williamson. Mark. Interpretation Bible Commentary. Louisville: WJK, 1983
Biographical Information
Jessica Tate is the Associate Pastor for Christian Formation at Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Northern Virginia.
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