He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptised you with water; but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus comes after John. This is an interesting idea. To John’s hearers, the phrase ‘comes after’ would have meant to follow in a submissive sense, like a king is followed by a courtier. But John describesthe follower as the more powerful one – as if, bizarrely, the courtier outranks the King. What’s going on? John clears things up with the next phrase: ‘I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals’. Jesus may have followed John, but he remains immeasurably greater. Indeed, Jesus is so great that even servitude seems inappropriate. How could I come so close as to even untie his sandals? Or as one early theologian put it: ‘Not even in the station of his servant am I worthy to be reckoned’.
Just so: John baptises with water, but Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit. This isn’t meant to convey that John’s baptism was deficient, just that it points beyond itself to something greater. Water is, after all, water. But in Christian baptism we see a fulfilment of John’s baptism. The water, we now know, represents the spiritual life given to us by Christ. It has to do not just with repentance (as John’s baptism did) but with salvation – a promise at the heart of the Old Testament prophecies about God bestowing his Spirit (e.g. Joel 2:28-32).
Jesus affirms our humanity. Neither John nor water lack value (Jesus thirsted, and was himself baptised by John). But what do we need? We need God himself; and, Mark is again telling us, this means we need Jesus and his message. John ministered water, but the Spirit is ministered by God.
Author: Nick Raven
15/04/2020