The Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1): Humility and Glory

Introduction

This Sunday, January 11, 2026, Arthur LAISIS opens the preaching at the Reformed Evangelical Church of South Marseille on the first fifteen verses of the Gospel of Mark. It's the Sunday of the baptism of Christ, one of the few feasts the Calvinist reformers chose to keep, which, the preacher notes, testifies to its particular importance and to the central place Christ occupies in it.

This whole Christmas cycle, opened more than two weeks earlier, is framed by the figure of John the Baptist. The one who comes before Jesus, the forerunner, but also the one we find again at the very start of Christ's public ministry. John the Baptist announced the coming of Jesus, and now Jesus comes to him to be baptized. Mark chooses to begin his gospel with this episode.

Arthur LAISIS doesn't claim to explain everything in the text. He offers three points to take away: the continuity between the Old and New Testaments, which testifies to God's faithfulness across the centuries; the signs of glory that accompany, from beginning to end, the marks of humiliation in Christ's ministry; and finally the meaning of this surprising decision, Jesus, receiving baptism rather than giving it.

Outline of the Message

1. Continuity: God Speaks Again After Centuries of Silence

Reading Mark, you might think something radically new is beginning. Mark opens with these words: "The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And indeed, Mark is the first evangelist; he inaugurates a new literary genre, this biographical genre about Jesus that will become a common noun: a gospel, the four gospels, and later the apocryphal gospels.

But from the second verse, Mark places the beginning of the good news not at Christ's baptism, nor even at his birth. He doesn't recount the circumstances of the nativity. He places this beginning much further back: in the Old Testament, in the prophet Isaiah. The Gospel is an already ancient promise. A promise not everyone had forgotten, even though for centuries the inspired word had stopped flowing. There was no longer a prophet in Israel.

And to make this connection between the old and what would become the New Testament, Mark quotes Isaiah, but he actually quotes several biblical texts, including chapter 3 of the prophet Malachi, the last chapter of the Old Testament. This voice crying in the wilderness, this messenger who would prepare a way, was the crowning point of the Old Testament: the return of Elijah that Malachi announced.

This mention of Elijah is immediately embodied in John the Baptist, this last prophet of the Old Testament era, a second Elijah, the direct forerunner of Jesus. This is the first good news of the text: God is speaking again. God has something new to reveal after these centuries of prophetic silence.

But watch out for the English idiom. For us, "preaching in the wilderness" means being heard by no one. That's not what the text says. This wilderness comes back to life, this wilderness stirs, this wilderness fills with people. And that's the second miracle of the passage. After the eruption of the prophetic word, there's a visible blessing, we could almost speak of a revival: "All the country of Judea and all those of Jerusalem went out to him."

There's obviously a hyperbole here, we shouldn't imagine that every single inhabitant filed past one by one, and we'll see a few years later that many in that land are still far from repentance. But a people is being formed in this wilderness, just as centuries earlier a people had been formed in the wilderness of Sinai at the time of the Exodus. The word of God, prophecy, forms a church, forms a new people even before Jesus arrives.

This people isn't driven only by the search for healing, nor by simple curiosity. The text specifies that these people "were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins." The Spirit produces here a visible, sincere, massive repentance. There's a kind of evangelical preparation in John's ministry, which already gathers people, which brings about an awareness of sin, a crushing sin that people tried to get rid of through all sorts of ritual washings repeated at the time.

Yet two peculiarities mark John's baptism, and they say a great deal about the Christ who is coming. First, this baptism happens only once. It's no longer a repeated washing but a lasting act, which foreshadows Christian baptism, the one we confessed just moments ago as "one baptism for the remission of sins." Second, it's John who baptizes others, whereas in the Judaism of the time baptisms were self-administered, people plunged themselves into the water to purify themselves. The Lord, through John, is already conveying a fundamental piece of news: it's not by our own merits that we can be washed of sin; we need an intermediary, a mediator.

2. Humility and Glory: Signs That Leave No Excuse

This John reactivates, centuries later, a prophetic lineage. You might think he occupies the summit of that lineage. And yet his whole message is a message of humility: "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen."

Announcing a greater prophet wasn't new: Moses himself had already announced a prophet greater than him. But this image of the sandal strap is particularly shocking. Removing someone's sandals was the chore left to slaves. And even a Jewish slave was spared this gesture: it was given only to a foreign slave. That's the distance John places between himself and this coming messenger. John grasps that the Messiah who is coming isn't merely a man like him; there isn't a difference of degree, but a true difference of nature. A difference that matches, in fact, the nature of what he gives: "I baptized you in water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit."

Who is this Messiah? Mark tells no genealogy, no detailed birth narrative, but he's just as concerned with the question of identity. Even before bringing Jesus onto the scene, he's already told us that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed of God set apart for a unique mission. And the Son of God, a title that expresses both his divinity and his messiahship, and that takes on particular meaning alongside the mystery of the incarnation we've just celebrated: the Son of God is no longer merely God or a messenger, he becomes someone human, incarnate, begotten. God pitches his tent among us.

This question of identity is central throughout the Gospel of Mark. From the very first chapter, the Father's voice comes down from heaven to declare Jesus's identity. In chapter 8, the turning point of the book, it will be Peter who confesses Jesus's messiahship and divinity. Then, almost at the end, in chapter 15, a Roman centurion (a pagan who had probably never seen John) will recognize that "truly this man was the Son of God."

When Jesus finally appears, he doesn't stand out immediately. He comes from Nazareth, an ordinary village. He stands among the crowd. He gets baptized like everyone else. And that's where the question sharpens: where is the glory in this figure?

At Christmas, we're glad to remember how ordinarily, how poorly, how unexpectedly Jesus came for a people who were waiting for a warrior Messiah. But Arthur LAISIS draws our attention to all the elements that point the other way. From beginning to end, every demonstration of Jesus's humility also lets us glimpse his power and his divinity. There's no ambiguity, no excuse for failing to recognize his divinity.

Take his birth: yes, the manger, yes, the lack of room at the inn. But also the star, but also the chorus of angels. Take the cross: is there a more humiliating moment than the death of a condemned criminal? And yet all these signs come at the same time: the elements breaking loose, those dead rising (told very discreetly in a single verse), all these miracles signaling the extraordinary, divine character of the event.

Here, at the baptism, what are the signs? First, this repentance across the whole people, already foreshadowing the tremendous growth of the Gospel that will follow Pentecost. Then, the word of God descending from heaven. Then this striking metaphor of the heavens torn open to describe God's descent to earth. And these torn-open heavens echo (it's the same word in the original text) the temple curtain that will be torn on Good Friday, the very event that will prompt the Roman centurion's confession of faith. The Father's word attesting Jesus's identity in the first chapter will be heard again, in echo, from the mouth of a Roman, at the end.

This baptism also echoes another glorious event in the midst of humiliation: the transfiguration in chapter 9. The parallels are numerous. Both events follow a declaration of Jesus as Messiah (John the Baptist here, Peter there). John the Baptist, who prepared, who leveled the paths for the Lord's coming, will die shortly before the transfiguration; and just before it, Jesus announces the building of the temple he will raise up. Both events are followed by a confrontation with evil spirits: the temptation in the wilderness here, a particularly stubborn demon there. In both cases, Jesus then goes into Galilee, Herod's territory, the very man who would kill John, dangerous territory where his forerunner had just been murdered. At the baptism, the Spirit descends in the form of a dove; at the transfiguration, a cloud covers Christ. In both cases, the Father's voice is heard. These are the only two moments in the Gospel of Mark where Father, Son, and Spirit are gathered together like this. And the Father's words are very similar: "This is my beloved Son."

Why this glorious brightness when Jesus isn't yet known, when the crowds are still following John? Perhaps precisely to encourage him before the trial of the wilderness, before these forty days of wandering and temptation before Satan. Jesus is about to succeed in these forty days where Israel had failed for forty years in the wilderness. Here Jesus identifies himself with Israel. He becomes that servant Isaiah sang of and called Israel. Jesus becomes our representative. And this voice that names him (without a crown, without a throne, but with the Father's love) is the voice that recognizes him as Son, as God's chosen king, and that allows us, in turn, through faith, to be called children of God.

3. The Meaning of Jesus's Baptism: Active Obedience for Our Salvation

It's normal to be surprised by Jesus's action. The first one surprised is John himself, when he sees coming the one he will call the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That this Lamb, wholly pure, without blemish, would come to ask him for baptism, a cleansing act. It's a reaction that can seem pious: instinctively refusing this gesture to show that Jesus is without sin, that he needs to be washed of nothing.

And yet this baptism of Jesus is eminently necessary. It had been instituted by John, but Jesus takes hold of it. Jesus becomes the substitute for his people and takes this cleansing upon himself. Jesus will make forgiveness possible, he will make our salvation possible by undergoing the judgment we deserved.

When we speak of a judgment Jesus underwent, we think of the cross. That's what's called his passive obedience: he offers no resistance, he doesn't call on the army of angels that could have come to serve him, he answers Pilate with silence, he gives up the sword because he has come for a kingdom that is not of this world. But Jesus also accomplishes a mission of salvation in his baptism. He fulfills in our name the mission given from Adam onward to humanity. He fulfills the covenant made with Adam. We're not only saved by Jesus's passive obedience all the way to the cross; we're also saved by his active obedience, because he came to fulfill the Law perfectly.

Baptism is therefore the beginning of Christ's ministry. He begins to accomplish, once for all, a perfect sacrifice for the sins of all his sheep. Through this royal anointing, the Holy Spirit descends on him. This doesn't mean Jesus wasn't God before his baptism, he was, from all eternity. But Jesus is incarnate. Jesus isn't merely a divine nature; he's a person who unites a divine nature and a human nature. And this human nature needed the anointing of the Spirit for his miracles and his ministry to be possible.

The baptism takes place at the Jordan, a crossing point, a point of entry into the Holy Land, the entry of the promise into reality. From the very start, Mark shows us that the Kingdom of God opens through the obedience of the Son. It isn't our obedience that founds our salvation, that grants us the washing. It's his. And it's in light of his perfect obedience, accomplished through his life and through his death, that we in turn are called to respond in faith.

The baptism of Christ, like our own, recalls the Exodus for us, that crossing through the Jordan. Because baptism speaks first of what God does before speaking of what we do. That's why, in John's baptism, it wasn't the Israelites themselves who administered the baptism. And it isn't in the Christian church either. Israel didn't start by walking freely before being set free. Israel was set free so that it could walk. In the same way, Jesus received baptism before he could carry sin. In the same way, baptism doesn't celebrate a spiritual achievement, nor the culmination of an exemplary journey: it marks a crossing, an entry, a passage from death to true life in Christ, from slavery to the beautiful, sometimes costly, freedom of God's children.

This freedom isn't the absence of wilderness, nor the end of all darkness. Jesus was led, was even driven, the text says, by the Spirit into the wilderness right after his baptism. It sometimes happens that young Christians, freshly baptized, are confronted (a bit too quickly for their liking) with great trials that can shake their faith. Our freedom as children of God isn't the absence of wilderness; it's the certainty of a presence, of a direction, even in the middle of the wilderness, even in the depths of the night. As faithfully as God stood by his people in the wilderness, as faithfully as the angels served Jesus after his forty days before Satan.

In most of our churches, baptism is done by sprinkling. A simple gesture, almost understated, sometimes thought too plain. Its symbolism, though, runs deep. It isn't a boundless anointing, like the Spirit's anointing on Jesus. It's first of all a warning. Like Moses, like Noah before him, we aren't swallowed up by the waters on the day of our baptism. We pass through dry. The water recalls both judgment (that of the flood, that of death) and grace. Because the water of that judgment is the water Christ passed through for us. He was plunged into death so that we wouldn't have to be. The water poured on the one baptized isn't a drowning: it's a sign of life. It says that we're saved through the waters because God opened the way.

It also evokes the gift of the Spirit: poured out, given, received, not seized by effort, but welcomed in faith. Not something violent, but something that has dwelt in us since Pentecost, lastingly. And this water is also a visible sign of encouragement, one that even Christ, it seems, needed to draw on before being led into the wilderness. A visible sign of encouragement we'll remember our whole lives, meant to lead us to holiness through the Spirit, for obedience and for the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

We aren't the only Son of God. We aren't on the same level as Jesus, just as John felt himself terribly inferior. But God, in baptism, calls us by our name, and (even more important) he binds himself by his own trinitarian name: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. At every baptism, the Lord places his name on your name. He makes with you a covenant forever. He makes us children of the promise, called to address God as their Father. And as Peter will announce at Pentecost, "the promise is for you and for your children." It's a covenant we receive, that we confess, that binds us, but in which God binds himself first. He will remember his covenant with us, today and forever. Just as one day, on the bank of the Jordan, he anointed his Son abundantly and declared all his love for him.

Key Takeaways

1. The Gospel isn't a break, it's a fulfillment. Mark opens his gospel by quoting Isaiah and Malachi: the good news has deep roots in the Old Testament. After centuries of silence, God speaks again through John.
2. Every sign of humility in Jesus is matched by a sign of glory. Manger and star at Christmas, cross and torn curtain at Calvary, baptism among the crowd and heavens torn open at the Jordan: nothing allows us to ignore his divinity.
3. Jesus is baptized for you, not for himself. He had no sin to wash away. He takes on baptism just as he will take on the cross, standing in the place of his people, to make forgiveness and salvation possible.
4. Baptism speaks first of what God does, before what we do. Just as Israel was set free so that it could walk, you are baptized so that you can live as a child of God, not because you earned it.
5. Your freedom as a child of God isn't the absence of wilderness. Jesus was driven into the wilderness right after his baptism. Your freedom is the certainty of a presence, even in the depths of the night.
6. At every baptism, the Lord places his trinitarian name on your name. He makes a covenant forever, and he binds himself first.

Personal Application

Take a moment before God, and ask yourself honestly:

1. Do I still look at my salvation as an effort I must supply, or do I receive it as a finished work already accomplished by Christ in his baptism, in his life, in his death?
2. Is there, in my Christian life, a sign of humiliation whose matching sign of glory I haven't yet seen? What is God trying to show me there?
3. When I remember my own baptism, do I dwell first on what I confessed, or on what God promised by placing his name on mine?
4. Am I going through a "wilderness" right after a strong moment of faith? Do I know that this can be normal, and that God's presence hasn't left me there?
5. Who around me could I encourage by reminding them that the covenant of their baptism still holds, because it's God who bound himself first?

Scripture References

• Mark 1:1-15 · the text of the sermon: the voice crying in the wilderness, John the Baptist's ministry, the baptism of Jesus, and the start of his preaching in Galilee.
• Isaiah 42:1-9 · the servant in whom God puts his Spirit, read during the service.
• Malachi 3 · the messenger who comes to prepare the way, quoted by Mark at the opening of his gospel.
• Mark 8 · Peter's confession: "You are the Christ."
• Mark 9 · the transfiguration, in parallel with the baptism.
• Mark 15 · the death of Christ, the temple curtain torn, the confession of the Roman centurion.
• Titus 3:4-7 · "when the kindness of God our Savior... he saved us through the washing of regeneration."

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Mark cite "Isaiah" when the first verse he gives actually comes from Malachi?

Because Mark quotes several biblical texts at once (a common practice in first-century Judaism), and names the whole set after the most important prophet quoted, here Isaiah. This isn't a mistake on his part but a bridge: the voice crying in the wilderness (Isaiah) is also the messenger who prepares the way (Malachi). This way of quoting weaves together God's faithfulness across several centuries.

If Jesus had no sin, why did he need to be baptized?

He didn't need it for himself. He did it for us. By going down into the Jordan, Jesus begins to take on the place of his people. This is his active obedience: he perfectly fulfills the calling given to Adam and to Israel, in our name. We're saved both by his perfect life (active obedience) and by his death on the cross (passive obedience).

What does "the heavens were torn open" mean, and why does it matter?

It's a powerful image: God has broken through the separation between heaven and earth. The same verb appears at the end of the Gospel of Mark, when the temple curtain is torn at Jesus's death. Mark thus frames his book: at the baptism, God comes to us; at the cross, access to God is opened to everyone, all the way to the Roman centurion who confesses his faith. The torn-open heavens are the sign that the distance between God and humanity has been crossed in Christ.