Saturday, April 25, 2015 (St. Mark)

Saturday, April 25, 2015 (St. Mark the Evangelist)

Mark 1:1-15

Today’s reading comprises the opening passages of the Gospel of Mark, which is the shortest of the four canonical Gospels. Here we encounter John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John is reported to have baptised Jesus in the Jordan River. Now, Jesus’ openness to being baptized with water to symbolically cleanse himself of an internalized sin has troubled many over time. For example, why is it that if Jesus was God incarnate and sin free, as many Christian traditions have taught, would he then engage in a ritual that would place himself under John’s authority and be baptized? Some have argued that we can make sense of this by realizing that Jesus started out on his path to ministry as a disciple of John the Baptist. Others have maintained that it was in fact Jesus who needed to sanctify John’s baptismal ministry at that time, not the other way around. Perhaps what we can be most certain of was that John the Baptist was a highly influential figure who inspired many Jews in Jesus’ lifetime by courageously challenging the unjust religious and political authority figures of his time. John the Baptist, like Jesus, shared a critique of the dominant political and religious cultural leadership at that time and both would ultimately offend powerful figures and ultimately lose their lives in part for being willing to challenge the status quo of their day. 

- Terry Rothwell