Text: Mark 1: 1-11
Judy just read to us the very beginning of Mark’s Gospel. So you’ll notice there’s no baby in swaddling bands … no shepherds out in the hills, no Mary (not at this point), no Joseph, no Wise Ones following a star. For Mark, the beginning comes later in Jesus life … though by recalling the words of the prophet Isaiah, he infers this beginning was envisioned centuries earlier. In other words there’s this surround of anticipation, and then finally, the recognition that the time is now.
In Mark’s Gospel, we begin in the wilderness, outside Jerusalem, with a man named John who has captured the attention of a whole lot of people in the city and the surrounding region alike.
To some, to the Establishment at least, the guy is a lunatic.
To many though, John is onto something that resonates deeply, calling for a new way forward … a new mindset … a new perception … a conversion in thinking and way of being.
There is something seriously compelling about his own deep freedom to step away from business as usual, to make way for the dawn of a new future.
This is a man who clearly is acquainted with the power of symbol and ritual, the way he sets up alongside the Jordon River -- that threshold that, at an earlier time, marked a crossing into the Promised Land.
And the way he invites people to wade into this river … far from cautiously dipping a toe, this is a whole-hearted, full bodied gesture that allows people to experience a ‘going for it’, a surrendering, a letting go, a fresh start.
What’s got him fired up is not only the need to be done with the status quo, but there’s his sense of the promise of something new on the horizon … someone new. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me,” he announces. We get a sense of just how powerful this one is in John’s mind when we hear him say, “I’m not worthy to stoop down to untie the thong of his sandals.” You have to wonder what he’s envisioning --who this is and what kind of power-- that he would imagine himself unworthy to be his slave?
“I have baptized you with water,” he says. (Don’t think “baptism” as we know it. In this case, it’s a word that might just as well be translated “drenched”.) So we might hear John say: “I have drenched you with water, but he will drench you in the Holy Spirit.”
The next we hear is that Jesus is among the crowd who come out to the wilderness in response to John’s call. Jesus is among the people who resonate with this man of extremes. And then the next we hear is that John baptizes him. Do you notice?
For all that John thought he wasn’t worthy to be his slave, to untie his sandals, --to even get near him, it would seem-- John baptizes him. Just like he’s baptized all the others.
As though as Jesus wades into the water, along with all the others, John hasn’t a clue that the person he has in his arms is the one so powerful.
That’s what it seems.
And here may be the other thing.
Jesus himself may not have known he was that person either.
It is as he is coming up out of the water that something happens.
Mark puts it this way: “just as he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens torn apart.” The other time that phrase torn apart appears in Mark’s Gospel is on the day of crucifixion … when Jesus breathes his last and the temple curtain (that divider that separated people from the holy of holies) was torn apart. These both are moments of revelation ….where what was hidden is exposed. There’s a breakthrough … and the Spirit --something real, a powerful presence-- comes to rest on him. But what does it mean? So then comes a voice that carries a message of intimate love: “you are my beloved son, in you is my pleasure.”
Jesus is a receiver of divine love.
The baptism did not make him into something he wasn’t. What’s happening is an experience of revelation, telling him the truth of who he is, that knowing himself more fully he may live from that fullness …from loves power.
This is where it all begins, as Mark tells the story of Jesus.
It is when Jesus knows he is beloved, and when this knowing has been tested and so permeates him that the fullness of that love is free in him, it’s then that he starts. Jesus begins when he realizes he is loved. The realization energizes him … and orients him. His life, his identity and mission, is to ground himself in the love of God and to cooperate with God’s pleasure to bring this love to all people. And for this, he has the abiding presence of the Spirit.[1]
Jesus begins when he realizes he is loved.
And I wonder if that isn’t the way it is for us all … that every time we realize we are the beloved, filled with the pleasure of God, we begin ... anew!
We are the same person, yet new … the same person but with a different consciousness.
Some of us have a story to tell about a time, maybe even several, when there was a kind of breakthrough … an experience of revelation … an epiphany … when God dawned on us … drenched us … when we knew we were not alone but upheld, set free perhaps, forgiven, known through and through AND dearly loved, accepted, desired, given to be at peace.
Some of us might still be waiting, longing, for such an experience.
And because these don’t come from us but are given to us, there’s no forcing … there’s no revelation on demand.
Debbie Thomas, whose reflections I always look forward to reading, she speaks of Epiphany as something we practice. The challenge is always before us to “Look again. Look harder. See freshly,” she encourages. “Stand in the place that might possibly be thin, and regardless of how jaded you feel, cling to the possibility of surprise.” In other words, it is for us to do our part to be awake … to not decide ahead of time what it will be, where or how it will dawn.
And to “trust that Jesus is our thin place … he's the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for, [the God who longs for us]. He's the one who stands in line with us at the water's edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance, and pain — all so that we might hear the only Voice that can tell us who and whose we truly are. Listen. [All the healing stories, all the feeding, the raising to life, the welcoming, forgiving, the joining with … what is that if it isn’t Jesus saying:] We are God's own. God's beloved. God's pleasure.
Even in the deepest water, we are the Beloved.[2]
Beloved is where we begin
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
that is what
this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved. [3]
[1] John Shea, Gospel Light, New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2001, p100.
[2] Debbie Thomas, “Thin Place, Deep Water,” posted on Journey with Jesus, January 3, 2016
[3] Jan Richardson, “Beloved is Where We Begin,” in Circles of Grace, Orlando: Wanton Gosperller Press, 2015, p. 96-98
