Weekly Readings: Christmas Season Ends, Ordinary Time Begins
The Christmas season is officially with the Baptism of Jesus and therefore the Gospel readings move into Year B of the three year cycle, which will be the Gospel of Mark.
Mark has traditionally meant “John Mark,” in whose mother’s house (in Jerusalem) Christians assembled in Acts 12:12 (when the angel got Peter out of jail). Mark was also a cousin of Barnabas (as close to an apostle as you can get) and he accompanied Barnabas, Paul, and Peter on numerous journeys. He appears in Paul’s letters (2 Tm 4:11; Phlm 24) and with Peter (1 Pt 5:13), but for the most part the Fathers of the Church over the first few centuries have considered Mark as speaking primarily for Peter.
Mark is known for his brevity. He goes from one action scene to next at a breathtaking pace. Either Jesus doesn’t waste any time or Mark doesn’t waste any words. Mark’s favorite word is “eutheos,” which is Greek for “immediately.” Mark is also the shortest of the four Gospels, coming in at 16 chapters. (Matthew 28, Luke 24, John 21)
The Baptism of Jesus
Context of today’s Gospel reading…
Since John the Baptist is preaching and baptizing before Jesus’ ministry begins, it suggests that the Jews were baptizing. So people often ask, did the Jews baptize?
Yes, they did. The Hebrew word for it was “mikveh,” which meant immersion (actually it referred to where the cleansing took place, whether a cistern, fountain, ritual baths, or natural lakes and rivers, which were considered the most ideal because of their cleanliness). For the Jews, baptizing was a ritual cleansing that expressed hope and preparation for the coming of the Messiah.
I’ve mentioned the Essenes who lived in Qumran. They also were big into baptism and had a series of bathing pools throughout their community with extensive aqueducts engineered to bring in fresh water.
Finally, I’ve mentioned other candidates for the Epiphany story, and Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist is one of them, the epiphany being God revealing who Jesus is for the first time. It is also one of the few times we see the entire Trinity being present at one time.
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; but 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.”
Q: “One mightier than I is coming after me.” Who is John talking about? Why didn’t he just say “the Messiah”?
A: Let’s refer to a few verses earlier in Mark:
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you… Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight his paths.” (Mk 1:2) (Is 40:3)
Q: I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” What does this mean?
A: I mentioned earlier the Hebrew word for baptize was immersion. John is saying “he” will immerse us in the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, John’s baptism in water (and the call for repentance) was preparation for the baptism of the Holy Spirit: “make straight his paths.”
Fyi – references to the Holy Spirit in Jewish Scripture was typically interpreted to mean the coming New Age/End Times. Some even thought the Messiah, New Age, and End Times were all the same time.
The Baptism Itself
Q: “On coming up out of the water he saw the heavens being torn open…” The Greek word for “torn open” is schizomenous. It suggests that God is breaking through the wall separating heaven and earth…. to tell us what?
A: That Jesus is his son. The intention here is to dispel any doubt about what is going on.
Q: What other time is this word used in the Scriptures?
A: When Jesus dies on the cross, what happens to the veil separating the Holy of Holies in the Temple from the people? It is torn asunder. Same word. The separation from God is ended.
Jesus is completing the what God initiated – his Baptism is the beginning of his journey to save us and his death is the completion of it. And Jesus knows it.
Q: Why did Jesus have to get baptized?
A: For the same reason he was crucified. Mankind could not pay for their offenses against each other in a billion years. Even as we are aware of our misdeeds and selfishness, we don’t stop. This is what is meant by slavery to sin, which blocks us from heaven. It’s actually self-condemnation, not God’s judgment against us. He’s tryng to save us from ourselves. How, then, can humans hope to right the scales of justice against their sins? Only one way: what if God became a human being. As a man and God, could he possibly pay off our sins, past, present, and future?
Stunningly, incredibly, mind-bogglingly, this is what Jesus came to do. By becoming man, he would walk in our shoes and truly be a human in every way, show us how to live a life of love and forgiveness, and then lay down his life when the world crucified him while he forgave his enemies to his dying breath. This undid the Fall of Man and opened up the Trinity to man, sending the HS to us forthwith.
Thus, Baptism was the beginning of Jesus stepping into our shoes and the cross was the finish line.
“Looking at the events in light of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian people realized what happened: Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind’s guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross.
This explains why, in Jesus’ own discourses, he sometimes uses the word baptism to refer to his death (Mk10:38, Lk12:50)”
Pope Benedict, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol 1
For those having difficulty with God sending his Son down to suffer this terrible deed on our behalf (or making sense of it), remember that God isn’t sending someone else. God is deciding to come here Himself. God the Father, Son, and HS are as much One God as your own mind, heart, and soul are part of you. Secondly, God didn’t kill Jesus, we did. But He decided to come anyway and use the crucifixion of himself as an acceptable payment for mankind’s sins. Who would do such a thing?
A: A parent for their child. It is the ultimate love, which is the point.
Baptism Theophany: Trinity vs Modalism
Theophany means the appearance of God to humans. Greek: Theo (God) + phaneia (appear). The Baptism was a theophany of the Trinity.
The early church rejected the teaching of a few individuals who claimed God played the role of the Father sometimes, the Son on other occasions, and the Holy Spirit still at other times. This teaching was called “Modalism” (as in different modes). Although Modalism is logical on the face of it, it was clear from a number of examples in scripture that this teaching was off the mark.
The baptism of Jesus Christ is one of those examples. Which shows the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different (i.e., during the baptism we find that God the Father was speaking from heaven as the Holy Spirit was descending upon Jesus while Jesus was being immersed into the Jordan river (repeated in Matt. 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:21-22).
After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” Matt. 3:16-17
Here we see all three at the same time. The Father is different from the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son and Holy Spirit are different from each other and the Father. Yet, scripture teaches us that they are one God.
Bible Intro
The coming of God's Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over the centuries. He makes everything – all the rituals, sacrifices, and figures and symbols of the First Covenant – converge on Christ. He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. He even awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming.
The word “Son” first comes to life with God’s arrival/incarnation on earth. Prior to that, the Son would be better known (at least to the angels) as the ‘Word of God,’ the ‘Logos,’ or even the ‘Mind of God.’ The Gospel writer, John, expounds on who Jesus really is in the beginning of his fourth Gospel:
John 1:1-5,14
In the beginning was “the Word,”
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came to be through him,
and without him nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life,
and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness does not overcome it.
And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.
We have beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
Creation Story and Genesis: first a word about science and religion
Science and Religion
1. In general, Christianity gets a bad rap from the media and academia because many of them are non-believers; but also because fundamentalist Christians, who are known to read the bible literally even from a scientific and historical standpoint, are easy targets for them to caricaturize (i.e., world is 6000 years old; were dinosaurs on Noah’s ark, etc.). Such fundamentalist Christians are a late development in Christianity and only represent about 10% of all Christians. But, they get the press.
2. Catholicism was the primary supporter (especially financially) for science and universities during the Middle Ages. Many scientists are Catholic and the Vatican even has a science department and their own “Vatican Observatory.” Some famous Catholic scientists: Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Pascal, Newton, and Fr. Georges Lemaitre (developer of the Big Bang theory).
Although science is a wonderful tool of man, it is not an end in itself. From a character and integrity standpoint, scientists are no different than teachers, accountants, bankers, or store clerks. They make just as many mistakes and have just as many failures and successes in judgment and in life.
And although science is a wonderful tool, scientism is not. Scientism is the belief that only science has all the answers, period, end of story. However, science, by its own definition, only investigates, analyzes, measures, and theorizes about the physical universe, period. What about spiritual matters, such as our lives having any meaning, or the purpose of things, or God,, or free will, or justice, or just the dignity of humans? Answer: if it can’t be observed and measured, it does not exist except in our imagination. That is scientism and it’s also atheism. It is a belief system that can’t prove itself by its own criteria, and if it can’t prove itself or it’s tenets, then that means it requires belief, and if it requires belief, then it’s a religion, which of course will cause them to spit nails when they hear it.
4. We have discussed that the bible – especially prior to Abraham (2000 BC) – uses a lot of figurative language; however, no matter where you are in the bible, you must understand that it is not a science book or a history book, it’s a religious book.
Well, if it’s not a science or history book, then what could possibly be the point of the Creation Story?
One first (always) has to consider the time it was written and the audience it was written for. In those days, there were pagan gods everywhere – every tribe and region had their own – and the gods ruled over humans capriciously and often involved exploiting sex and human sacrifice. Humans were chattel and explanations were not needed … or else. The goal of the Creation Story isn’t to provide botany information or describe how amphibians grew legs. It’s more poetry than textbook and its goal was to communicate to earlier man that there was only One God, and that this God wasn’t arbitrary and capricious but was actually a God of reason and love – how bizarre that must have been. And that this God wasn’t part of nature or over a part of nature (the sun god, the sea gods, the forest gods, the goddess of sex, etc.); this God was the Creator of nature, who stood outside time and space. The Creation Story was to convey that there was – very intentionally – order to creation, not chaos; and that it emerged from Reason, not madness. Neither does this God require humans to serve Him like the pagan gods but, rather, ends this first story with an invitation for humans to rest and commune with God one day a week. All of these are the point of the Creation Story.
Of course, there are many tortuous subplots, but that’s only because humans enter the picture!
Just to let you know, this Creation Story in Genesis One isn’t even the end of the “story.” The story continues to be expanded upon to over the centuries, creating a kind of mosaic of meaning. For starters, Chapter 2 already provides us with another version of Creation story. I remember as a nonbeliever saying that since the two stories didn’t match, it was yet further proof that religious people couldn’t get their stories straight. Now I know that the two stories were always there next to each other and should we think that the writers and keepers of scripture never noticed that one one followed the other?
Then you can read more creation stories in Psalms and the Wisdom books. And then we have the real culmination of the Creation Story in the New Testament, first chapter of John, which tells us who Jesus Christs is at the Creation.
5. Catholicism has no issue with science. Catholicism teaches that the Bible is not a history book nor a science book. It is a faith book. For Catholics, science means the exiting exploration of God’s creation – this universe – which means science is a natural extension of man’s gift of reason and his desire for knowledge. Pursuing knowledge and truth wherever that takes us is who we are!
So what of the Creation Story? As I have said, Genesis – and in particular the Creation Story and the Fall of Man – uses a lot of figuarative language. More than anything, the truths being communicated – and there are many – are in the story behind the story. When it talks about how the Fall of Man started with Eve eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, we are not talking about an apple or a tree! We are talking about the desire to take ownership of knowledge for our own glorification, separate from God who is the owner of knowledge. It’s a fool’s errand, to be sure; but it defines the nature of Man’s Fall so accurately I daresay it could stand up to scientific testing.
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