The Baptism of Jesus

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (1:9)

The four Gospels are telling Jesus' baptism in a little different nuance. The Book of Mark reports very simply and directly that Jesus was baptized by John. At that time people might think this sounds a little strange. How could it be possible that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, got baptized by Baptist John? Maybe because of that problem, Matthew is telling this situation through John's mouth like this: "But John tried to deter him, saying, 'I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?'"(Matt. 3:14). The writer of the Book of Luke reports only the fact that Jesus got baptized, with omitting the story of 'John' in Mark's Gospel as well as of an excusatory exposition in Matthew's Gospel.

That question why Jesus got baptism is still valid these days. Why did Jesus, who is a sinless person and the Christ for salvation of mankind, get baptism, which means getting forgiveness through confession of sins? (Mark 1:4) It is possible for us to analyze this as follows:

First, Jesus might see the possibility of the light of salvation through John the Baptist like other people at that time. Since the Books of Gospels do not pay attention to the actual relationship between Jesus and Baptist John, we cannot get the precise information about it through the books of Gospel, but somewhat in a practical manner we could say like this: Jesus might consider John's baptism as a renewing power for the people.

Second, Jesus might not be sure of his character as a Messiah. It is strange for him to get baptism from John if he was confident of being a Messiah. It is so hard to figure out from when Jesus starts to embody the idea of being a Messiah. It is not right to insist that he knew it from the time he was a child. Because Christian faith regards Jesus as God himself, it might sound to be blasphemous to say like Jesus' realization of being a Messiah, but without damaging the reality of Christian faith we should keep on asking this kind of questions.

Third, he might get baptism in the sense of being humble down to the human level. His consistency of humbling down showed in the fact that he came down from heaven to the earth as well as that he's been living an ordinary life like other people. On any moment Jesus was not in prestigious state of mind. It was so peculiar that many pious people thought Jesus actions to be very ridiculous. His getting along with the sinners and enjoying wines, there can be nothing wrong with his baptism like other people.

The essence of the incident of Jesus' baptism is summarized that he is historically a real person. A real person who has blood and flesh like us standing on foot so that he needed to get baptism of repentance. Christianity never doubts Jesus' humanity like this in any moment, and it showed such resolute attitudes towards the theory of docetism as heresy, that it tried to scrape of that theory.

Even today we should think the history of Christianity to be very precious. We are the people who were debt practically to the early Christians' faith, their church leaders, as well as to the seniors of faith who have been working through 2000 years of age. Without their heritage of faith, it is impossible for us to have faith today. It could be a harsh nonsense for modern Christianity to give emphasis just on daily spiritual experiences, without knowing theology, which could be history of Christianity, as well as Christian spirituality.

Oh, God. We like to realize Jesus is the foundation of life, who got baptized in the river Jordan, even though he is the sovereignty of the baptism.

Nazareth in Galilee

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (1:9)

Mark explained that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee to the Jordan River where Baptist John was baptizing. It means that the hometown of Jesus is Nazareth in Galilee. Galilee was the whole area of northern province in Israel. The central province was Samaria, and the southern part was Judea. Judea was the province with legitimacy as descent of King David's royalty, Samaria was not acknowledged for their impurity of blood because of interracial marriages with Gentiles, and Galilee was regarded as the legitimate Judea's people but it was again discriminated because of the faraway locations from the Jerusalem, the capital city with the temple.

Throughout history of ancient kingdom, Galilee including Samaria had been having hostile relations with Judea. After King Solomon died, the kingdom was divided with the north and the south. The broad provinces including Galilee as well as Samaria were where General Jeroboam founded a country as the name of Israel, when King Solomon was still living. It was a big land and there were lots of people. It was the result of public alienations from the ruthless administration of Solomon, who was known as the king of wisdom. Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, could have a small land of southern Judea. Northern Israel was conquered by Assyria before Southern Judea was. Maybe at that time many people in Galilee and Samaria were captured as prisoners and those provinces must be colonized by Assyria. Then Samaritans got married with the Gentiles, and henceforth, they were looked down upon by other Israelites.

Galilee also was governed by Assyria but they were different from Samaria. They did not marry interracially. Probably people in Galilee might have some resistant tendency. When we see that the central government in Rome regarded Galilee as very dangerous place, we could guess how fearful their tendency could be. We didn’t know how strong their resistant tendency was, but there was a beautiful lake in Galilee. It was the Lake Galilee. Jesus declared the good news of God's kingdom near the Lake Galilee. Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdalene, and are the towns surrounding this lake. This lake might cleanse the harsh hearts of Galilee people. When Jesus was a child as well as a youth, the environmental factors in this Galilee region might give some strong impact on him. Nazareth in Galilee, being looked down with cynical criticism like "how could anything good come from there?", was the hometown of Jesus, where it had decided the fate of Jesus.

The fact that the hometown of Jesus was not Jerusalem but Nazareth in Galilee means that salvation of God have started from the unexpected place by an unexpected way. Jesus was not such a special person with any social privileges, fame, and any special achievements. In this point of view, it is necessary for us to have eyesight which could peel off the stereotyped viewpoints built upon by society. We'd better change our way of living in which we regard living in the big cities like Seoul as very worthwhile, even though there could be inevitable circumstances. Where could Nazareth in Galilee be to us today?

Lord, give us wisdom to find out our spiritual hometown. Amen.