The Baptism of Our Lord 2021 Series B

Midweek Lectionary
​2.1.4

Collect of the Day
Father in heaven, at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan  River You proclaimed Him Your beloved Son and anointed Him with the Holy Spirit. Make all who are baptized in His name faithful in their calling as Your children  and inheritors with Him of everlasting life; through the same  Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns  with You and the Holy Spirit, one  God, now and forever.  Amen.

Genesis 1.1-5

The context of our reading presents a unique challenge. Most often  in this first paragraph we consider what went before our text and how that  sets up and lends  significance to the text; here there is nothing. Not absolutely nothing, but God in His inexplicable,  unknowable, atemporal being  from whose  mouth come  those creative  words, “Let there be light” (Gn 1.3). Everything else: all physical creation, all the history of created beings interacting with one  another follows these words and these five verses. Our text establishes the context for everything else, it is a singular  point  from which comes  life and light and  our limited knowledge of God.

Within the context of our readings we note  the strong Trinitarian connection to the gospel reading, Mark’s account of the baptism of our Lord. (Our text is also read  as a portion of the OT reading for Trinity Sunday  in Series A.) Paul does  not mention the water of baptism or the work of the Holy Spirit directly, but these elements in our reading set the background for his bold call to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Even closer to our text, Psalm 29 point  to the creative  power  of God’s voice and calls for all creatures to give Him glory.

Read the Text and Discuss

• Does Moses, do we struggle with imagining that  first moment – “the earth  was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”  (Gn 1.2)?"
  
• Where  is this text echoed prominently in the NT?
  
• Why is this text not a good place to start  a Christian witness  to the unbeliever?

Psalm 29
Reardon describes the internal  context of our psalm, “The setting of this tempest is a giant  cedar forest, whose overarching branches assume the contours of a vaulted temple, and through this lofty sylvan shrine the booming voice of God comes  pounding and roaring with a terrifying majesty,  accompanied by the swishing of the wind and rain, while flashing bolts  of lightning splits the very trunks of the towering trees: ‘In His temple everything speaks  glory’” (55).

We immediately make a connection to our OT reading and “the voice of the LORD” which created the heavens and the earth.  The original Hebrew  is even more  impressive as the onomatopoeia of the qol YHWH, pronounced with the full guttural shock of the letter  “q,” rings seven  times in the cathedral forest. The same shattering force of God’s voice appears in Mark’s account of the baptism but unfortunately becomes lost in translation; the heavens are literally “split open”  or “rent asunder” as the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks.

Read the Text and Discuss

• Who are the “heavenly  beings”  (ESV) in verse 1?
  
• How does  the psalm  seek to reveal the “glory” of the LORD?
  
• The final petition for strength and peace forms a marked contrast to the rest of the psalm, how do they relate  to one  another?

Romans 6.1-11
Paul begins with a question that  causes  us to back up and ask, what prompts this question of continued sin and abounding grace?  Chapter 5 ends  with Paul contrasting the reign of death in sin with the reign of eternal life in Jesus. There we hear for the first time in Romans  of the life that  is ours in Christ as opposed to the death that  ruled through sin in the first four chapters.

This life comes  to us in baptism and so directly connects us to the gospel and the central  event of our readings, the baptism of Jesus. Our text is one of the cornerstones of Lutheran teaching and preaching. Here the passive  nature of justification  clearly stands out. Christ died, was buried, and was raised. Paul sweeps us unbound by time and space  into that  three-step pivot of cosmic history where we die with, are buried  with, and finally raise with Christ to walk in life’s renewal.

Read the Text and Discuss

• How does  the “not yet” reality of our lives in this age  show up in these verses?
  
• To whom  does  this text attribute the resurrection?
  
• What does  it mean  that  death no longer  holds  mastery over Christ?

Mark 1.4-11
Mark’s gospel begins with almost the same  suddenness as our OT readings, “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son God” (Mk 1.1) and bang!  “John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching…” (Mk 1.4). As we will find out, this is the style of the evangelist as he quickly shifts from one  scene  into the next; “immediately”  being  one of his favorite words. Another  characteristic of Mark are the more  detailed descriptors of what he does  chose  to include, the appearance and circumstances of the Baptizer being  a good example.

The short  second paragraph of our reading, the baptism of Jesus, contains many details  that  cast a different light on the event  when compared to the other gospels. First, it is not entirely clear whether anyone other than  Jesus observes the presence of the Spirit and the Father. If not, and only the reader is aware along  with Jesus, we have the beginning of the secrecy  or mystery surrounding Jesus’ divine identity.  Second,  the “splitting open”  that  we referred to earlier. The word forms an inclusio with its only other appearance in 15.38 as the temple veil is “split open.”

Read the Text and Discuss

• What is the significance,  if any, of John’s physical appearance?
  
• Does the Spirit appear in the form of a dove  or only descend as a dove would descend?
  
• Why does  Jesus get  baptized with this “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” along  with the crowds?