The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord Why was Jesus baptized? Lets see what the Gospels say... In Mark’s Gospel, John the Baptist simply does it—sans explanation. Jesus “came from Nazareth of Galilee” and, upon his baptism, Jesus saw the heavens “torn apart” and the Holy Spirit descending upon him “like a dove.” (The Greek is hōs peristeran, not a dove per se, but “as a dove” or “like a dove.”) The importance here lays not so much with the appearance of a bird, as portrayed in most classical paintings, as with the presence of the Holy Spirit. The tearing open of the heavens may have served for Mark’s audience as a sign of the opening of a new kind of divine-human communication. A voice from heavens then proclaims, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” After this, Jesus is driven into the desert immediately (euthus: a word we will see a great deal in Mark) to begin his period of testing, or temptation. Interestingly, Mark’s account of the baptism is told from Jesus’s perspective: Jesus sees and hears these things, but we’re not told explicitly if anyone else does. Mark’s account (unlike the other Gospels) intimates that Jesus had a private experience of God’s revelation. Luke’s description is in parts more specific but in others more confusing. His Gospel presents Jesus as already baptized. He is praying with people in a crowd, who have also been baptized, when the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus in a slightly different way: “in bodily form (somatikō) like a dove.” That is, the Holy Spirit appeared, physically, as a dove. Again, the voice comes from the heavens, presumably heard by the crowd. “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” But there’s an oddity in Luke’s version: John the Baptist doesn’t seem to be on the scene. For in the previous passage, Luke says that John has been imprisoned by Herod. Who did the baptizing? We are not told. The Gospel of John’s version features more storytelling. As in the Synoptics, the Baptist assumes a subordinate role to the man who may once have been his disciple. The day before the baptism, John says, in response to those who asked whether he was the Messiah: “I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal,” a menial task done for a master by a slave. The next day, presumably at the Jordan River performing baptisms, John sees Jesus approaching, and proclaims him as the “Lamb of God.” It is a phrase rich with meaning—most likely referring to the use of the lamb as a sacrifice, as a means to re-affirm Israel’s relationship with God, particularly during Passover. The term also prefigures Jesus’s sacrifice during his crucifixion, which occurs during the Passover. Despite John’s earlier protestations of his subordination, he performs the baptism. Or seems to. We’re not told anything about the baptism itself, nor is there any mention of Jesus stepping into the Jordan River. John the Baptist describes the descent of the Spirit after the fact: “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove (hōs peristeran), and it remained on him.” Then John explains, “I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’” In other words, God has somehow revealed to the Baptist that Jesus is the one he has been anticipating. The voice that in the Synoptics came from the heavens speaks to the Baptist directly. What John has awaited, God provides. Overall, the Gospel of John’s version subordinates the Baptist, and also clearly identifies—early on and publicly, rather unlike the Synoptics, where Jesus’s identity will be something of a secret—Jesus’s divine identity. Only in Matthew is the big question raised. John the Baptist tries to prevent (in some translations “forbid”) the baptism, and he says bluntly to Jesus: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” And only in Matthew does Jesus provide an answer of sorts: “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” What does Jesus mean by “fulfilling all righteousness”? Does this answer John’s question—or ours? The Greek phrase is plērōsai pasan dikaiosunēn, which can be translated as fulfilling, bringing about or completing “all righteousness,” a kind of accord with God’s will. It is an obscure answer that may have confused both John the Baptist and the early readers of Matthew’s Gospel. While some argue that Jesus’s words refer to the later tradition of Christian baptism or to a fulfillment of the Old Testament, Jesus may simply be referring to the kind of life to which John’s disciples have pledged themselves, one “producing good fruit,” as John says earlier in Matthew. Notice that John the Baptist says nothing about Jesus’s sinlessness. Nor does Jesus. Jesus freely presents himself to be baptized by John, though he is sinless; and John freely baptizes him, though he feels unworthy to do so. Jesus somehow came to realize that baptism was what God the Father desired for him—to fulfill “all righteousness.” Perhaps this meant publicly aligning himself with John’s ministry. Perhaps before he began his own ministry, he wanted, in a sense, to pay tribute to that of his cousin, as a way of underlining his solidarity with the Baptist’s message. Jesus may also have wanted to perform a public ritual to inaugurate his own ministry. But there is another possibility, which is that Jesus decided to enter even more deeply into the human condition. Though sinless, Jesus participates in the ritual that others are performing as well. He participates in this movement of repentance and conversion not because he needs it, but because it aligns him with those around him, with those anticipating the reign of God, with the community of believers. It’s an act of solidarity, a human act from the Son of God who casts his lot with the people of the time. It has less to do with his original sin, which he does not carry, than identifying with those who carry that sin, as George and I experienced at the Jordan. The divine is fully immersing himself, literally in this case, in our humanity. It reminds me of a line from a biography of another radical, St. Francis of Assisi, the thirteenth-century saint whose own decisive act came when he walked away from the wealth of his father, a cloth merchant, and did so in a public way: by stripping naked in the public square in Assisi. The biographer Julien Green wrote that his dramatic gesture was a “juridical act,” according to medieval mentality. “From now on, Francis, with nothing to his name, was taking sides with the outcast and the disinherited.” At the Baptism, Jesus was taking sides with us. God stood in line.
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 20:47:41 +0000
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