When my younger son was baptized, his older brother, then a few months shy of 3, kept saying that Micah was being “sanitized.” It was quite adorable. Reflecting on our practice of Baptism these days, “sanitized” and “adorable” might be pretty accurate. Family members dress in their Sunday best, and the one being baptized is often decked out in special baptismal garments. Don’t forget the sacred tradition of the “baby parade” — walking the newly baptized babe in arms up and down the aisles for the whole church family to see. There is nothing sanitized or adorable in Jesus' baptism described in Mark 1. John was an outlier, even in his context, and he was out in the wilderness, preaching and telling people to repent. Though a dove descends, there’s not much peace in the tearing apart of the heavens. If we look at the three sentences following today’s pericope, we see Jesus driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted and John arrested. Mark’s Gospel doesn’t include a nativity or genealogy. Like John’s Gospel, it starts in the beginning: the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s son. Unlike John, Mark is sparse, lacking theological exposition or historical or exegetical orientation. What remains is the baptism, an ordinary and entirely extraordinary moment where the heavens are torn apart. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth — human categories meant to distinguish between God’s realm and the human one. As an aside, the beginning of Mark’s Gospel is full of allusions to the Hebrew scriptures, and while the RCL committee may be forgiven for the omission, the first three verses ought not to be separated from the assigned lesson. Like the beginning of creation itself, this is a new beginning. ... Read the rest of the commentary on the website.
Thanks to this week's writer Stephanie Sorge. | 
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