Saturday in the Christmas Season, January 6, 2024

Mark 1, 7-11

This is what John the Baptist proclaimed: “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” 

Traditionally, the Feast of the Epiphany was celebrated on January 6.  A few years ago the U.S. bishops ordered that the Feast be celebrated on the first Sunday after January 6.

Immediately after beginning his book announcing “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1, 1), St. Mark tells about St. John the Baptist.  In fact, he quotes John as saying, “One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”  Mark is presupposing that his audience already believes John to have been “mighty”.  The other Evangelists write similarly, presenting John the Baptist as a powerful figure who speaks of one who will “come after” him and have still greater power.  This attests to the widespread impact John had not only on the Jews but on Gentiles as well.  Invoking him as they do, the Evangelists are saying, If John thought Jesus of Nazareth was more powerful than himself, imagine how powerful Jesus must have been! And this is the introduction Jesus receives in the Gospel of St. Mark.

That John is quoted as saying that the one “coming after” him is significant to Semitic thinking because the one who followed another, such as a child after his father, could never be as great.  Witness the Lord’s saying that “A disciple is not above his teacher” (Luke 6, 40).  That John says the one coming after him is greater than himself signifies supernatural greatness because the natural order would be overthrown in the occurrence.  John’s “might” consisted of the forcefulness of his witness and of his preaching.  The one coming after him would possess that and much more.  John tells us how much more: “I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”  This one would have exponentially great power.  We should note that the translation here says that John “proclaimed”, the Greek verb is in the imperfect, so that John as proclaiming: he did not say this once, but over a period of time, repeatedly.  And we can trust what Mark says because he received it directly from St. Peter, who was a sometime follower of John the Baptist.

“It happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John.”  Mark says “in those days”, that is, during the time John was baptizing and preaching.  This is a common Hebrew literary device.  Mark’s direct statement makes it clear that the reason the Lord left Nazareth was to be baptized by John in the Jordan.  He does this with purpose and goes straight there.  It is time for his Public Life to begin.  Mark presupposes that his audience knows where Galilee was and that Jesus had lived in Nazareth.  Knowing this informs us that his original audience is not new to the facts of the life of Jesus Christ.  None of the Gospels were written in order to convert people but rather to confirm them in the faith they already possessed, as both Luke and John tell us in so many words.

“And was baptized in the Jordan by John.”  St. Matthew tells us that John pleaded with Jesus that he needed to be baptized by him.  Mark omits this either because he was unaware of the fact or because he wanted to move rapidly from the Baptism to the Lord’s preaching and miracles.  Mark even reduces the story of the Temptation in the Desert to a single verse.  The preaching begins at verse fifteen in the first chapter whereas it begins chapters later in the other Gospels.  It is not that Mark is rushing but that he is fired by accounts of the Lord’s power, and he knows his audience is too.

“On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him. And a voice came from the heavens.”  The text is not clear whether John saw this or that Jesus alone saw this and heard the words, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  It is clear that the Father, whose voice it was, spoke to Jesus, but did John or anyone else hear it?  In John 1, 32, John the Baptist says, “I saw the Spirit coming down as a dove from heaven and he remained upon him.”  

He is not quoted as having heard the voice, and indeed John follows his statement up by saying, “And I knew him not: but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me: He upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, he it is that baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1, 33), implying that he did not hear the voice but only saw the Spirit as a dove.  From this it appears that only Jesus heard the voice.  For Mark, the main point of his account is that John recognized that one coming after him was mightier than himself and that God the Father confirms this and gives the reason why this is true: he is his beloved Son with whom he is well pleased.  

We become the adopted children of God through baptism in which we become members of his Son’s Body.  He is well pleased with us, though, by our doing his holy will and Jesus did.