Reflection for the Baptism of Christ

 

Between 2000 and 2012 I worked as a very low-grade civil servant at the Foreign Office in London. It was an interesting period in diplomatic history, with regime change being much spoken of in the media with regards to Iraq, and the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

 

Mark’s Gospel is also about regime change, in this instance the entering into human history of the Kingdom of God, and the overthrow of human empires, including that of Rome. (Something that Mary sings about in her Magnificat.) Indeed, Mark’s Gospel begins with the words Evangelion (Good news), but this kind of good news is not the kind we think of in our everyday lives, the word Evangelion refers to good news that shapes and changes the world. It would be used to announce the accession of a new emperor in Rome. (And Mark is a writing in Rome, sitting at the feet of St Peter the city’s first Bishop, and the first Pope.)

 

The Baptism of Christ continues this theme of regime change. In our own age we see the descent of the dove on Jesus as being a sign of the Holy Spirit and linked with the voice of the Father from the heavens. This is the only time in the Bible where the tree persons of the Trinity are present together in the same time and place: the Son is baptised; the Spirit descends; the Father speaks. In Eastern Orthodoxy this moment of divine encounter is known as the Theophany, the manifestation of God on earth.

 

But for Mark’s Roman audience the descent of the dove had a double meaning, it represented much more than the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, it was also a sign of cosmic significance. This was not the first time a bird had landed on someone in Roman history. At various times emperors to be had been blessed with the auspicious sign of a bird, in particular an eagle landing on them: of note are the emperors Claudius, Augustus and Hadrian. The sign of the eagle of course is one of power, nobility, and authority, it was also a sign of the might of the Roman Empire. Great indeed must be the person on whom an eagle lands! But in the Gospels it is not an eagle but a dove that descends on Jesus.

 

To the Roman mind the dove represented the antithesis of the eagle, that is denoting non-violence (or even fear). In Jesus it represents the Peaceable Kingdom of God spoken of by Isaiah (chapter 11) where the lion and lamb lie down together. Jesus comes to shepherd in the Peaceable Kingdom of God, not an empire of subjugation and military might, but one of peace. This would have spoken both to Mark’s Roman audience, who were used to its might and its military triumphs, but also its persecution of Christians, but also to his Jewish readers who knew all too well what it meant to be under the iron fist of the rule of Rome. For them it would also be a reminder that in the scriptures Israel is described as a dove.

 

The opening chapter of the Gospel of Mark is not the only time that the Kingdom of God and empire of Rome will be juxtaposed in this way. In chapter 5 we meet a demoniac whose name is Legion, a reminder of the way in which the land and people were subjugated under the unjust and tyrannical rule of Rome. And at his crucifixion Jesus ascends the hill named Golgotha where he will be enthroned upon the cross, a reminder that the glorification of the conquering Roman took place on the Capitoline, the hill named after the skulls (caput) found there when digging the foundations for the Temple of Jupiter.

 

Mark’s Gospel then is one about regime change. Not the political regime change espoused by Blair and George ‘Dubya’ Bush, changes that led to an increase in violence for those freed from the tyranny of oppression. The regime change spoken of by Mark in his gospel, and which begins at the Baptism of Christ is one which ushers in the New Creation, the Peaceable Kingdom of God, a Kingdom marked by justice, and as baptised Christians we are called to be heralds and builders of that peaceable kingdom in our own lives.

 

Fr Matt