Sermon Notes — September 8, 2024
September 8, 2024
Mark 1:4-12
“What Mark Didn’t Leave Out”
Dr. Craig Goff
As we all know Mark’s gospel is kind of an abbreviated Gospel compared to Matthew, Luke and John.
It’s a lot shorter and it leaves a lot of things out the other Gospels include.
So if all we had was Mark’s Gospel, our early Christmas Eve service would not be the same. We wouldn’t have much of a Christmas pageant.
There would be no, shepherds, no angels, no magi, no star. And no inn (which we might not have anyway, depending on your translation of the word found in Luke 2:7, sometimes translated ‘inn’, but probably more accurately translated “house.”
If all we had was Mark’s Gospel we wouldn’t have a lot of what we find in the nativity story or even have much information about Joseph and Mary.
Mark’s story begins at the river….at Jesus’s baptism. It begins just before Jesus launches his earthly ministry. It’s like Mark can’t wait to tell us about it.
Here is how it all begins for Mark. This is chapter 1:9
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”
It is pretty “down to earth.”
There is no list of ancestors like in Matthew and Luke
There is no cosmic description of his coming into the world like in the prologue to John’s Gospel where he says, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.”
In Mark, Jesus stands in line with all those sinners and enters the river to be washed in a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Matthew, in his Gospel, seems to be uncomfortable with Jesus being baptized. Matthew has John the Baptist argue with Jesus when he comes to be baptized and says: “I should be baptized by you and you come to me to be baptized?”
Down through the centuries a lot of people have wondered about that. There have been a lot of great theologians who have wondered why Jesus wanted to be baptized if he had never sinned. We can’t know for sure, but maybe it was the same reason he came into the world to begin with, which was to share in our life and to identify with us, maybe there is another reason we will find out about in the by and by. There are a lot of things we just don’t know, and that is just okay.
We do know, of course, that Jesus’ baptism was pretty much like everybody else’s except for this one kind of big thing – when he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens tear apart and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.
Here is v.10
“And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.”
We don’t know if anyone else saw that, but Jesus did.
He saw the heavens torn apart. The Greek word that is used there is really specific.
It is a form of the verb schitzo, as in schism or schizophrenia. It means to be ripped or torn violently.
It doesn’t just mean “opened.” There are other Greek words that would be translated with the English word “open.”
Like in the Book of Revelation where Jesus says, “behold I stand at the door and knock, if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in and sup with you.”
That is another verb, that is not “schitzo.”
He could have used the word, but he didn’t. Because being torn is not the same as just being opened. Things that are torn are not easily closed again. The ragged edges never go back together as they were.
Maybe Mark used that particular word because he meant to recall the words of the prophet Isaiah from Isaiah 64:1-2
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
Now as Jesus stood there dripping wet in the Jordan, there is no clue that the nations were doing any trembling
But that doesn’t mean nothing had happened that day or that nothing had changed. It didn’t mean that something had not been torn open.
It is easy for us to think of God speaking in a big, booming voice, but that is actually more Hollywood than Bible.
Just think of all the times in Scripture when God’s voice is more of a whisper, or a still small voice; like that time God spoke to Elijah hiding in his cave.
In Mark’s Gospel the voice of God that came from heaven spoke to Jesus alone. We’ve heard it read, many of us know it by heart, but it bears repeating: “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
In other words – In you my Spirit will be present on the earth in a new way.
I love the way Dr. Barbara Lunblad describes it, she says: “The heavens were torn apart and would never close again.”
What was it that was torn apart as Jesus came out of that water?
The belief that there are some people that God doesn’t love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
God’s love is for everyone. God’s mercy is for everyone and the power of sin and death is broken.
Those kinds of beliefs were ripped apart at Jesus’ baptism.
In Mark 15, as Jesus hung on the cross the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom which is among the most powerful images in the whole Bible.
The curtain was not ripped starting at the bottom (where we could get to it), but from the top (where only God could get to it).
It is another way of saying that nothing can separate us from God’s love.
Heaven has been torn open and will never be closed again.
I was baptized when I was about 19 years old. The students at the Bible college who worked with me had a friend who was serving a little Baptist church and I asked him if he would baptize me. We went out to Percy Priest Lake. I wish I could remember exactly where it was but I don’t. I can tell you I didn’t see the heavens torn open or anything descending on me, other than maybe a mosquito, but I do remember being surrounded by people who believe that something changed when Jesus came into the world, that heaven has been opened up and will never close again, even for a sinner like me.
The author of Mark’s Gospel believed that too. Mark believed when Jesus was baptized, the heavens were torn open and God’s Spirit has descended. Something happened that changes everything.
Mark, believed we have all been incorporated into the family of God through the gift and grace of Jesus Christ. He might have left somethings out of his Gospel, but not that.
Mark’s Gospel may not contain some of the things you see in other Gospels, but you definitely see that through Jesus’ coming into the world we are all included as those God loves and has sent Jesus to save.