Baptism with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1)

“I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” From the Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel for today, chapter 1, verse 8.

     In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

     How appropriate it is, that we enter the Advent season with this clear statement from the evangelist Mark, that something, and someone good, is coming into the world. Mark gets right to the point: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” No birth narratives, as in Luke’s Gospel, no genealogy, as in Matthew’s Gospel, no long theological statement, as in John’s Gospel. In other words, no credentials. Just a short, clear, unadorned statement of his theme, the good news of the coming of Jesus.

     It is worth noting that Mark says, “The beginning of the good news,” not just, “the good news,” which he could easily have done.  This is the beginning of a journey which leads to eternity, a journey which has no end. And that beginning has its roots in the words of the prophets, from long before the time of Jesus, who prepared the way for him. It is possible to think of the Gospel as a new beginning, a restatement, as it were, of the words of the prophets, to complete their prophecies, to show their full, true meaning, in the revelation of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. And, of course, the beginning of the Gospel recalls other beginnings, like Creation, like the Exodus, like the building of the Temple, and so on. These are beginnings which really have no end; every moment, really, is a beginning, and so share in the great beginnings of the history of our salvation, and all beginnings are steps on the path to our eternal destiny.

     Mark begins by quoting, or rather misquoting, the prophet Isaiah. The source of the first part of the quote is actually the prophet Malachi, and the rest of it is from Isaiah. But the two quotes make one message: God is sending a messenger ahead of him, to prepare his way. We’ve heard this so many times that perhaps we don’t really hear the message: that the Lord himself will be entering the world, the world that we know and that he made. He will not be speaking indirectly, as it were, through prophets, or from clouds on mountaintops, or in dreams and visions to a few chosen individuals. He will be coming into his world, and he wants his messenger to make this known. In other words, the Lord is going to walk the earth himself. This foreshadows the Incarnation, the presence of God in Jesus.

     John is the messenger, and the coming of Jesus is the message. But what is “the way of the Lord?” How do we prepare it? What are the “paths?” How do we make them “straight?”

     John the Baptist prepares the way of the Lord by proclaiming the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. His is the “voice of one crying in the wilderness.” And the people who respond to his call are making the Lord’s paths straight by confessing their sins and accepting John’s baptism. This foreshadows the grace of Christian baptism, which includes the forgiveness of sins, and begins a new life in God.

     But John doesn’t stop with his baptism. There’s more. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” In other words, the baptism of repentance is not the end of the story. It is not the goal, the end of the spiritual life of the people in the story, and it’s not the end of ours either. “One who is more powerful” is coming after John the Baptist; and the One is bringing something more powerful than John’s baptism.

     John says, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John’s  baptism is only preparation for the baptism which Jesus brings. “Spirit,” as we know, means “breath,” “life,” the life of God. It is that life in God which Jesus is revealing to us, and which John calls “baptism with the Holy Spirit.” To make the meaning of this more clear, I would prefer that the Gospel reading continue with the verses which describe the baptism of Jesus by John, and the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus. This doesn’t mean that the Spirit was absent from Jesus and was being added to him in John’s baptism, but rather means that Mark is making clear Jesus’s relationship with the Father and the Spirit. It is in that relationship, the life of the Trinity, as the Church came to name it, that we are called to participate.

     We are included in that life. Our catechism says that Christian baptism unites us with Christ in his death and resurrection, includes us in God’s family the Church, and includes us in new life in the Holy Spirit.

     “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,” the Gospel says. The Greek behind “wilderness” also means “desert,” and we need not think that the desert is only geographical. It can also be spiritual, psychological, social; it can be any area of life in which we feel the absence of God. It also was and is a place, geographical or otherwise, where people go to search for God, where people can turn toward him free of distraction. That was the impulse which impelled the desert hermits and monastics of the early Church. The same impulse urges on many hermits and monastics and others today. It is worth noting that the word ‘hermit’ comes from the Greek for ‘desert’ – ‘eremos.’

     John came “proclaiming a baptism of repentance,” as our translation has it. Many of you have heard me before about this word “repentance.” It comes from Old French, and means “to be sorry.” It fails to carry the full meaning of the Greek word behind it, which includes renunciation of past failings, but also includes a strong sense of turning on to a new path, of directing the mind along a new way, the way toward God. That is why Mark introduces John’s baptism of mind-changing (if I may be forgiven such a clumsy expression) right after he mentions the straight paths of the Lord. The changed mind follows the straight paths, the way of the Lord. That’s what John’s baptism is, the “baptisma metanoias,’ as the Greek has it; it is the experience of the freed mind following its path to its true end, its life in God.

     So that is the beginning, and the goal, of the Gospel which Mark is proclaiming. John’s baptism leads to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to the full participation in the life of God which Jesus has brought us, and continually brings us, as we encounter him in all the beginnings, all the new moments, of our lives. In nomine, etc..