Mark 1:4-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)
so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
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"[H]ere we are back to St Mark's Gospel, that incredibly parsimonious word by word detailed account of what's going on, with the hints given to us so we can understand something much much bigger than what appears on the page. Remember we saw the first half of this [passage] in Advent, when we looked at John the Baptist and what he was preaching and announcing. So here he is, he proclaims, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
"Now here's the interesting thing: John sees some sort of continuity between what he himself is announcing and the one who is to fulfil that, so he uses this term, “the one who is more powerful than I.” There's a slight ironic use here by Mark because in fact, the one who is coming is not more powerful than he; it is the Powerful One, the Mighty One. That is the irony that's at work here. John seems to be thinking that it's something that is in some way in continuity with what he's doing, and it is, but so much out of the league, if you like, of what he was about, it's something so much vaster than what he could imagine that is going to happen.
"So he says, “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Again, it's not at all clear what he meant but what we then get in the baptism of Jesus is the stunning arrival, completely beyond expectation, of the Holy One of God, the Mighty One, the One whom John was pointing to even if stuttering towards a reality that was vastly greater than he could imagine.
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"[I]t was in the Jordan, so that was the first water symbol that we hear, ... “And just as he was coming up out of the water.” This verb, 'coming up', ... it's a technical term: the priests, in order to be ordained, 'came up' out of the water. That was part of their ordination rite before they were anointed. They're coming up, then the anointing for the ordination. Right here we have the great High Priest, the Holy One of God coming up out of the water. In other words, the real thing is enacting the meaning of priesthood. All priests were understood thereafter to have been resurrected, in fact our word resurrection comes from the Greek 'anastasis' which was the sharing in the opening up of heaven that comes after you have 'come up' out of the water. That was what being a priest was, which is why all Christians by baptism are priests: we share in the open heaven that is possible, ... because we share in the identity of the great High Priest. So that's what's going on just coming up out of the water...
"And he says, and “he saw the heavens torn apart,” ripped open. And this word is very important, it's a 'schizo' in Greek - it's where we get schizophrenic or schizoid - ripped apart, torn, split. And it's a very very key word because it appears in Mark here and at the moment Jesus dies on the cross, when he breathes out his breath and the veil of the temple which was the symbolization of the beginning of materiality was ripped open. In other words, we are starting here outside creation, and what Jesus is doing is coming into creation, fulfilling it, so that finally creation will be definitively fulfilled in his death on the cross when he breathes out his spirit, in other words when he gives the Holy Spirit. There is being set up here, if you like, the entire pattern of what he's about to do. ...
"The word torn apart comes in two absolutely key passages in the Hebrew scriptures one which will have been called mind instantly by us here was when the Israelites were escaping from Egypt, Moses had held out his hand over the sea, a wind from God blew over it and God split the sea, he 'schizo'ed the sea, [and] the spitting of the waters was what enabled the people to pass over. And it was perfectly clear that the mixture, the relationship of the wind to the water, the wind or breath, the spirit, to the water, and the splitting hearken back to Genesis where if you remember the Spirit floated over, hovered over in a 'windy-like' way, the waters. So this is creation language, and the fulfillment of creation language.
"So he saw the Spirit descending like a dove on him, but what's the spirit descending like a dove doing? Well, it brings to mind the hovering, it also brings to mind the waters of Noah. The hovering of the Spirit before creation also brings to mind Noah, where the waters were finally pacified, the terrors of the deep were pacified, after the flood, and the dove was able to settle. So here is the sign in fact that the fulfillment of creation is about to be inaugurated, that it will be safe, that the waters will have no more power, waters of death and destruction (because that's what they signified), the waters of chaos, they will have no more power.
"The one that was hovering over in the beginning is now coming in to creation as the Holy One of God. Jesus will be born, if you like, of the Holy Spirit, which is one of the ways that people refer to him in some of the Patristic texts, but the point is that who he is as the Incarnate Son, as we'll see in just a second, who he is is the Holy One of God who is going to make available the Holy Spirit for all of us. He is going to turn that which was hovering over creation, it's now come into creation, so that the whole principle of creation is going to be able to lived out in human form, and be able to be given to us so that we are no longer run by death, despair, sin, violence, and those things. This is the beginning of that. Here is the Spirit coming in, it's coming in like a dove that was fluttering, that has now found peace. And the fullness and the peacefulness of creation is about to be opened up.
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"And then [God] says, “with you I am well pleased.” ... [in other words] “my pleasure rests on you, I look at you and, mmm.” This is creation language, this is God who created everything, ... and when he created humans he looked at it and he was very pleased, he saw it was very good. So this is a hint that here we have finally, at last, the definitive Adam, not the confused Adam which we know and are, but the firstborn of all creation, of the Son come into our midst. What we're seeing in Mark's Gospel, in this tiny incredibly compact passage, is the Holy One of God come into our midst in order to live out and make possible the giving to us of the Holy Spirit so that we can be opened out into becoming the new creation."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmiEYDzXDq0)
[For analysis and discussion of this week's lectionary texts, see: http://girardianlectionary.net/reflect.../year-b/epiphany1b/]
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