Genesis 1:1–5
Psalm 29
Acts 19:1–7
Mark 1:4–11
The baptism of Jesus is a moment in the life of God’s Spirit with the world.
Genesis 1:1–5.
The first Sunday after Epiphany is traditionally the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.
Baptism involves water and the Spirit. The Genesis reading sets as vast a context for the baptism of Jesus as possible, the beginning of all created things and the first rustling of the Spirit in the affairs of the universe. There are two material phenomena present to the formless and dark chaos at the beginning: water and wind. Water is the Deep (tehom), and the Wind of God (ruah elohim; some translators prefer “mighty wind” = divine wind) is “hovering” over this Deep, as an eagle hovers over its nest (Deut. 32:11, the only other Biblical occurrence of this Hebrew verb form).
In Biblical discourse, the work of the spirit looks like the effects of wind or air activity. When warriors are seized by the spirit they are inflated; and “spirited” (proud) persons are puffed up. When persons are abandoned or defeated, they are deflated and there is no spirit (wind) in them. On a larger scale, strong winds move clouds and generate intense storms, and quiet winds are soothing breezes. All are understood as the work of God’s Spirit. In Genesis 1:2, the Wind of God is the only active force before creation.
The passage presents the creative act of the first day: “Let there be light.” Darkness is the state of chaos, and the construction of a cosmos begins with the most elemental phenomenon of the physical world, light. The Prologue to the Gospel according to John builds on this feature of creation to identify the Logos as the elemental feature of God’s salvation for the cosmos (John 1:1–5).
In so far as the baptism of Jesus is the beginning of salvation, it is like the movement of the Spirit of God to bring light to all people.
Psalm 29.
While Genesis 1 gives us the Spirit of God, Psalm 29 gives us the awe-inspiring Voice of God (also heard at Jesus’ baptism).
This hymn has a framework of worship in the heavenly palace of God (verses 1–2, 10–11). (Ancient Near Eastern temples and their liturgies were earthly imitations of heavenly realities.) God is here celebrated and worshipped as the Lord of the Storm. It is a great electrical storm that arises over the Mediterranean Sea (verses 3–4) and moves east until it strikes land in the Lebanon mountains and crosses the valley to the Anti-Lebanon range at Mount Hermon (Sirion), a great peak on the northern border of Galilee (verses 5–6), and then flashes and roars past Damascus into the wilderness to the east beyond. (The wilderness of Kadesh in verse 8 is named for a Canaanite city at the north end of the Lebanon range. The name means holy place.)
At each stage of this stormy passage, the worship speaker bursts out, “Voice of the Lord” (qol YHWH !) and continues with a clause elaborating its place or activity. Seven times in seven verses this phrase opens a declaration of praise. The storm is given as a revelation of God’s awesome power and vastness. The physical manifestation that corresponds most directly to the Voice of the Lord is thunder.
To someone who has lived through many electrical storms on the shore of Lake Michigan, this psalm evokes sky-splitting and blinding lightning strokes from clouds to black water surface, utterly deafening explosions that reverberate over houses and high-rises, and sheets of water moving horizontally over violently swaying park trees and streets.
In the psalm, all this upheaval in nature is climaxed by the cry of worshippers in the temple, “Glory!” (verse 9). Perhaps expressed in more currently colloquial terms, this should be: “Awesome!”
Acts 19:1–7.
The Epistle reading provides a curious glimpse into the aftermath of John the Baptist’s work. Paul is described as meeting twelve “disciples” who knew only the baptism of John and had no knowledge of the Holy Spirit. After Paul re-baptizes them “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” the Spirit comes on them and they speak in tongues and prophesy.
There is a particular view in the book of Acts about the way the Holy Spirit works, which is seen clearest in the Pentecost event (Acts 2:1–13). That understanding of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, as associated with baptism in Jesus’ name, is applied to John’s disciples here.
What this passage says about the baptism of Jesus is that the coming of the Holy Spirit was not a regular part of John’s baptism, but was a unique endowment for Jesus at his baptism.
Mark 1:4–11.
The Gospel reading includes a description of John the Baptist’s work but climaxes in Jesus’ baptism. John has just said, “One more powerful than I is coming after me,” when Jesus comes and is baptized. From that moment we are given (just as in the Psalm) a glimpse into the heavenly realities behind the earthly scene. As he emerges from the water of baptism, Jesus sees “the heavens torn open,” like an answer to the Advent prayer, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64:1).
What descends is the Holy Spirit, looking like a dove (because it is hovering or fluttering over Jesus?). A Voice comes from heaven and says to Jesus, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11, NRSV). The coming of the Voice at this point should be compared to the voice from the burning bush to Moses (Exodus 3:1–6) and the voice to Elijah at Mount Horeb (I Kings 19:11–13).
The declaration by the Voice is a combination of phrases from Psalm 2:7 and perhaps Genesis 22:2 and Isaiah 42:1. The first is God’s explicit declaration to “his Anointed (his Christ)” that he is God’s Son with discretionary power over the nations. The phrase “my son, the beloved,” is used of Isaac, son of Abraham, in Genesis 22:2. The phrase “in whom I am well pleased” echoes God’s declaration about his “servant,” his “chosen, in whom my soul delights.” Of this servant God says, “I have put my spirit upon him,” thus arming him, the servant, to bring justice to the nations (Isaiah 42:1).
It is important to recognize that this revelation of Jesus’ true identity, known to the powers of heaven and hell, has been made known to the hearer of Mark’s gospel, even though much of the following Gospel narrative has people puzzling over who and what Jesus is. The encompassing framework of the proclaimed gospel is that the Holy Spirit has entered the human world, which is wracked by demons, sin, and oppressive authorities. Going forward, the Spirit will be working through Jesus’ actions and words.
The mission of the baptized Jesus is to bear the power of the Spirit against the powers that be.
