Ripped Open
Mark 1:4-11
January 10, 2021
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/dqaaaGcjeVA
I don’t know where it is any more, but at one time, I had a button that said “Ordain women or stop baptizing them.” If we take seriously the concept of the priesthood of all believers, then baptism is ordination to ministry.
It is hard to talk about Jesus’ baptism without talking about our baptisms. It is also important, I think, for us to understand a distinction between what his baptism meant and what ours does. Christians practice baptism because Jesus told us to and because the early church did. But at least some folks in the earliest churches practiced John’s baptism, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. One Christian community Ephesus was still using John’s baptism when Paul arrived. We know this because the book of Acts informs us that he had to instruct them on baptizing people in the name of Jesus. John’s baptism was an act of renewal, part of his work to prepare people for the coming Messiah. Christian baptism is a ritual that signifies our desire to follow that Messiah, whom we believe to be Jesus of Nazareth. But Jesus was not baptized in preparation for his own arrival, and Jesus was not baptized as a Christian. Jesus’ baptism was a singular event. We follow him in baptism, but before we can begin to understand what that means for us, let us reflect on what it meant for him.
So, as I was saying, baptism is ordination to ministry. That is true for us, but also first true for Jesus. Baptism becomes a pivotal point in his life and identity. All four gospels tell us that Jesus was baptized by John. And in each gospel, it is the launching point for his adult ministry.
We hear Mark’s version of the story today. If your pastor preaches from the lectionary this year, then most of the gospel readings will be from the book of Mark. But not even I can tell you what your pastor is likely to do this year. However, since we’re starting off with Mark, I might remind us that Mark does not have a birth story. Mark doesn’t tell us anything about Mary and Joseph being betrothed or going to Bethlehem or fleeing to Egypt. He doesn’t mention angelic announcements to shepherds or visits by wise men.
We are just a few verses into his book when Jesus of Nazareth walks onto the scene and without saying a word, gets dunked in the Jordan. Mark’s gospel is the shortest, probably because he leaves out some details we would like to know. Like whether Jesus and John had already met or why Jesus came to be baptized or what they said to each other before, during and after.
Mark doesn’t tell us those things. He relies heavily on context and symbols to convey meaning. This happens out in the wilderness, symbolic of the wanderings of the people of Israel after the Exodus. It happens in the River Jordan, which for Israelites, is like Plymouth Rock for us. It is a place of origins that shapes identity. Walter Brueggemann suggests that “Jesus takes upon himself the whole story of Israel. He relives the memory of Israel. As Israel begins by going into the waters of Exodus, being at risk and trusting only God, as Israel wades through the waters of the Jordan to enter a whole new life in the land of Canaan, so Jesus relives the Exodus of Israel and relives Israel’s entry into the land of promise. In this way, he begins again the story of Israel as the faithful people of God. This is indeed a new beginning, and Jesus takes his place as the initiator of a whole new history of faithfulness to God in the world.”[1]
Mark doesn’t offer a lot of details, which makes us attend carefully to the ones he does. When Matthew and Luke describe Jesus’ baptism, they say that the heavens opened. Opened – it’s the same word for opening a gift or opening a door or opening your mouth. A fairly simple word. But Mark says that the heavens were Schizomai, which means ripped open. Schizomai means to rip, to rend, to tear apart in a way that cannot be put back together again. It is violent and dramatic.
It would also remind Mark’s Jewish audience of Isaiah 64 where the prophet pleaded for God’s intervention, saying, O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, to make your name known to your adversaries, and make the nations might tremble at your presence, working unexpected miracles such as no one has ever seen before.
When things get really bad, some of us might look to the heavens and ask God to rip them open, to make a dramatic entrance and set things right, like Isaiah did. Mark is offering another clue that Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of Israel’s ancient longing.
Schizomai – to rip apart so that it cannot be put back together again. Mark only uses this word one other time. That is when the curtain is the temple is torn from top to bottom when Jesus dies on the cross, When Jesus bursts on the scene and when he leaves it – the world is changed in ways that cannot be undone.
Jesus’ baptism by John is awkward for the gospel writers. If Jesus is baptized by John, it implies that he is subordinate to John, but John proclaimed that he wasn’t worthy to undo Jesus’ sandals. If Jesus participates in a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, it implies that he needs to be forgiven for sin. Theologians have spent many hours and much ink on these questions. I am not going to spend much time on them today.
But there is a thought that appeals to those of us who understand sin as corporate as well as individual, those of us who are concerned about systemic evil. One scholar suggests that Jesus’ baptism was a genuine act of repentance. “As such it ends his participation in the structures and values of society. It concludes his involvement in the moral order into which he was born.”[2] In this way of thinking, Jesus’ baptism is a new creation which repudiates the old order of things.
That might just be a different way of saying that Jesus was sinless. But it is not an option available to the rest of us. Our baptism does not confer sinlessness. We are not able to entirely repudiate our cultural systems. It is another way in which Jesus’ baptism is a singular one-time event.
When Jesus comes up out of the water, Mark says that he sees the heavens ripped open. There is an implication that only Jesus sees it, that only Jesus understands what is happening at the time. That is a theme of Mark, of Jesus’ identity being secret and only being revealed to those with eyes to see, those willing to believe. That is part of our role. Following Jesus in baptism means choosing to believe that Jesus is who he said he was, to see in his life and teachings what is not always readily apparent.
Much later, when James and John asked for seats of honor in Jesus’ kingdom, Jesus asked them if they could be baptized with the baptism he was baptized with. He was referring to his death on the cross. This is also potentially our role, to say with our baptism that we will be loyal to Jesus even if it means death.
Sara Miles preached at a FOCUS service a few years ago. Many of you heard her and have read her books. In her book Take This Bread, she talks about the events that led to her baptism. You might remember that she was instrumental in establishing a food pantry within the sanctuary of her church in San Francisco. One day, a young girl at the food pantry wandered off and ended up near the baptismal font. When Sara met her there, the girl asked “Is this the water God puts on you to make you safe?”[3]
That is such a wonderfully age-appropriate understanding. Having that foundation of trust in God will serve her well. But as adults we must understand that the waters of baptism are anything but safe.
Baptist preacher Brett Younger says, “Jesus does not die of old age. He dies because he takes his baptism seriously. When Jesus cried on the cross, ‘it is finished’ it was his baptism that was complete.”[4]
In a sermon from 2003, the incomparable Walter Brueggemann offered some words that resonate with me especially in light of the events of this week. He said,
“You do know, do you not, that these are dangerous times in in the world, when hate and war and greed and ambition are about to destroy us all with our commitments to consumerism and militarism, when the world is being reshaped according to the sweep of violence. And you do know, do you not, that this is a dangerous time in the church because the church is so settled in its conventions of being liberal or in its conventions of being conservative, so sure of itself and so shut down without energy that it tends to become irrelevant in our society.” [5]
That describes our time. It describes Jesus’ time. It probably describes most times and cultures. But Brueggemann also said something else. He said, “But do you know that there is in the world church a vibrant new recovery of baptism, a fresh awareness that God’s own presence does come among us to invite us to new vulnerability and new power for new obedience in the world.”
This, I think, is the calling of Jesus and the need of our time, a new vulnerability, a new kind of power, for a new obedience.
May the Spirit of God be poured out on us, immersing us, baptizing us in power and love and vulnerability. Come O Holy Spirit come. Amen.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, “A Baptism About Which They Never Told Us” in The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, Vol 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), p. 32.
[2] H. Waetjen as quoted by Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988, 2008), p. 129
[3] Sara Miles, Take This Bread, (New York: Ballentine Books, 2007), p. 236
[4] Brett Younger, “Being Baptized” in Lectionary Homiletics, January 11, 2015
[5] Walter Brueggemann, p. 35