Reflections on Mark's Gospel - Mark 1:9

Jesus Came & Joined John

Following the impressive build up of the first eight verses, we come to the statement "In those days". John had been performing his ministry for a little while (some say around six months, but I have no evidence on which to base a judgment of that) when Jesus comes to him.

This is the only verse in Mark's gospel that mentions Nazareth as Jesus' hometown (although Mar_6:1 also mentions Jesus' home town).

There are two points to note about the last phrase in this verse: firstly, it is written in the passive voice; and secondly, the question: why did Jesus get baptised?

To the first point, by writing the passive voice, Mark is helping us see that baptism was something that happened to Jesus. John performed the baptism, but the passive voice helps us see that Jesus is really the focus of the attention, the subject of the sentence. Our attention has been dramatically shifted from the wild prophet in the desert to Jesus who arrives from a no-account town. It portrays Jesus, right from the beginning, as being submissive.

And Jesus' baptism was identified by the apostles as a crucial event in salvation history. In Act_1:21-22 Peter says that the replacement apostle has to be someone who has been with Jesus from the time of his baptism to the time of his ascension.

So, why did Jesus need to be baptised? Why was it significant?

In my notes to Mar_1:4 I talked about what John's baptism was for. It was a ministry of preparation, where people came who wanted to be included in a community that was committed to righteous living before God, in anticipation of the coming Messiah. Baptism by John was the rite of passage into that community or movement.

Remember, in order to be baptised, you had to confess your sin. Jesus was baptised by John, without any record that he had to confess sin. Jesus did not need to repent, but he was willing to undergo the baptism in order to be identified with this movement.

This is significant because, in Mar_1:14, when John is arrested, Jesus becomes the natural successor to John. Those who followed John, then followed Jesus. John really had prepared the way for Jesus.