Advent 2025: Fri 5 Dec
Mark 1.9-11 Jesus steps onto the Scene
9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’
Jesus had come from Nazareth to where John was. Other Gospel-writers fill in the details of how Jesus came to be living in Nazareth. This does not matter that much to Mark. In Mark’s account we see only the necessary. What’s important is that this brief passage marks the start of Jesus’ ministry. For thirty years he’d stayed largely under cover. There was that incident in the Temple when he was 12 but the following eighteen years are completely undocumented.
Other Gospel-writers tell us of the awkward conversation between Jesus and John where John at first refuses to baptise Jesus, but he insists that John baptise him. Mark skips over all that – Jesus is baptised.
Jesus had no sins to confess, but for him baptism was a public display, his debut. He went under the water, he came up and the heavens opened. Father God spoke to announce Jesus to the world, or did he simply affirm in private words of love that this man, who’d spent many years as a human, is his Son, loved and treasured? Would it have been right for the crowds to have seen the spectacle of rending sky and to have heard these words at this point? But if no-one heard, who would have recorded it?
Was John’s work complete now that he’d baptised Jesus?
Mark tells us that Jesus saw heaven being torn open. Was it only Jesus who saw this and heard the voice of Father God? What do the other Gospel-writers say? How might this change your understanding of the event?
Father God, in John’s Gospel we read that we who receive Christ Jesus into our lives have from you the right to become your children by adoption, children born of you. This is so amazing that my head struggles to take it in, so please warm and convince my heart, I pray. Amen.
Another take on the theme of O Come.
Lauren Daigle – Light Of The World
Paul