Hidden glory in the water

Mark 1:4-11 ⁴John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

⁵The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him. They were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. ⁶John was clothed in camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He preached, “One more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals! ⁸I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰Just as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.”

The Lord said to Jesus in Isaiah’s prophecy, “You are my servant Israel, in whom I will display my glory.” (Isaiah 49:3) Amen.

God is referring to his Son and servant Jesus when he refers to him as Israel in our Old Testament lesson from Isaiah, “You are my servant Israel, in whom I will display my glory” (Isaiah 49:3). Jesus will display God’s glory to the nations.

We hear a lot about God’s glory throughout the Old Testament. “High above all the nations is the Lord. His glory towers above the heavens” (Psalms 113:4). “Then they will sing about the ways of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord is great” (Psalm 138:5). “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring a gift and come into his courtyards” (Psalm 96:8).

The Lord revealed his glory numerous times throughout the Old Testament. The glory of the Lord led the people out of Egypt as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22). When Moses received the Law at Mt. Sinai, “The Glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days. … The appearance of the Glory of the Lord looked like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel” (Exodus 24:16-17). When the Tabernacle was erected, we’re told, “Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent. Moses was not able to enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud stayed over it, and the Glory of the Lord filled the tent” (Exodus 40:34-35).

We end the Lord’s Prayer praying, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.” We sing a doxology of glory to the Triune God at the end of our Psalms, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.”

The glory of God is not some accidental feature of God’s character. It is an essential quality of who God is. God’s glory cannot be removed from him, otherwise he is no longer God. A person’s glory may be found in wealth, reputation or family. This glory may be taken away but they still remain people. But God cannot be God without his glory.

This is why God is jealous of his glory. “I am the Lord; that is my name. I will not give my glory to another, nor my praise to idols” (Isaiah 42:8). It is shameful when people attempt to remove his glory and share it with false gods. Earlier this week we heard the opening prayer of Congress was offered “in the name of the monotheistic god, Brahma, and a god known by names by many faiths.” That is attempting to curry the fickle favor of idolaters.

Since God loves to reveal his glory and also guards his glory so zealously, it seems strange that Jesus’ glory was mostly hidden. Sure, the angels sang of God’s glory in the Bethlehem sky, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind” (Luke 2:14). Other than that, throughout Jesus’ life, mostly there was “no attractiveness and no majesty. When we saw him, nothing about his appearance made us desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). Jesus was just another carpenter to many people. He was a resident of Nazareth, and nothing good comes from Nazareth (John 1:46).

God’s glory was there since Jesus was the Son of God, but people were so blinded they only saw Jesus’ humanity. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from clearly seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

The season of Epiphany is about Jesus revealing his glory to the world. Throughout the six Sundays in Epiphany, we will catch glimpses of Jesus’ hidden glory. The first sighting of Jesus’ hidden glory is in the water of his baptism.

St. Mark sets up Jesus’ hidden glory explaining that his baptism appeared to be like everyone else’s baptism. “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Very simple. Very straightforward. It seems like there is nothing special with this baptism. Then Mark adds this detail, “Just as Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.’”

The heavens were “torn open.” The Greek word there is “schizo” – where we get our English words “scissors” and “schism” from. “Schizo” means to “split,” “rend,” “tear open.” The heavens weren’t opened nicely and daintily. This word has an almost violent connotation. The heavens were torn open.

This set of paintings behind me were the first set received over a decade ago. I was here when the artist, Melanie, was putting the finishing touches on the paintings. I remember her darkening the clouds above John and Jesus. We discussed that God the Father was about to tear open the heavens to begin speaking to his Son. It needed to be darker and more ominous if God was tearing open the heavens.

What do you think of when you hear that the heavens were torn open? What do you expect to happen next? Usually when God splits open the skies, you would think it would be his judgment that comes crashing down, like lightning striking the earth. Think of the time of Noah when God opened the floodgates of heaven (Genesis 7:11). The clouds burst open, and it rained for forty days and forty nights. Massive, total destruction. A worldwide catastrophe. God’s extreme judgment on a wicked and corrupt humanity. In that case, the heavens being torn open spelled doom and disaster.

Or think of the time of Abraham and Lot. The heavens opened up that time, too. And what came down? “The Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire out of the sky from the Lord” (Genesis 19:24). God sent fire and sulfur down as a judgment upon the perverse and wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

So the idea of the heavens being torn open is not usually a very pleasant or desirable thing in biblical language. The prophet Isaiah cried out to the Lord, “Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64:1)! Isaiah wanted the judgment of God to descend upon the wicked nations of the earth.

This background, then, should shape our expectations when we read that at Jesus’ baptism the heavens were torn open. We would expect that God’s judgment should come crashing down. After all, look at the people who were being baptized. It says that all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to John, confessing their sins. These were sinners who were coming to John for baptism. And if they were sinners, then they were ripe for judgment. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

And that is true for us also, isn’t it? We are sinners ripe for judgment. You and I have broken God’s commandments. We have dirtied our white baptismal gowns with our sin. We have shared God’s glory with the false gods of sleep, sports, social media, and every other activity that tears us away from God and his worship. We live in fear. Or we live in over-confidence. We have said things unintentionally hurting others. We have spoken intentionally to injure others with our words. We have not loved and helped our neighbors as we ought.

Like Moses and Elijah, we cannot look upon God’s glory because of our sin. As we’ve heard in our Thirsty podcast on the first six chapters of Ecclesiastes that everything is meaningless without God.

We have thus earned God’s displeasure and wrath. His judgment should come crashing down on us. The wages of our sin is death. When the heavens are torn open on the Last Day, we should come out of our graves to receive the fire and sulfur of God’s eternal judgment.

Jesus comes to be baptized in the Jordan, just like all those admitted sinners. Then, after he’s baptized, the heavens are torn open. And what comes down out of those heavens? Fire and sulfur? A wipe-’em-out flood? Neither. Rather a voice and a dove. A voice and a dove? What kind of judgment is that?

The judgment comes when the heavens are torn open and the voice says, “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.” There is Jesus. The Christ. The Son of God. The pleasure of God the Father. Glory revealed! In the water!

And this is God’s judgment on him: “You are my Son, whom I love. I am well pleased with you.” God loves this man Jesus. And he loves what Jesus is doing, standing there at the Jordan, taking his place among sinners. The Father knows what his Son is going to do for them all, starting here at the Jordan. And God just loves that. Notice what he says: “I am well pleased with you.” God was well pleased to choose Jesus for this mission he is about to undertake. He’s well pleased that Jesus gets down into the water with sinners like you and me.

But where is the judgment? Where is the displeasure and wrath? That comes three years later. At the cross, God’s righteous judgment comes crashing down like a ton of bricks. Instead of fire and lightening, darkness covers the whole land. Then the temple curtain was “schizoed,” torn in two from top to bottom.

Jesus identified with sinners in his baptism in the Jordan. Now he identifies with them again on Calvary as the sin and guilt of mankind is put on Jesus’ divinely human body. He suffered the wrath and judgment that should have been poured out on sinners like us. On that Good Friday, the heavens were not torn open, but rather they were closed shut so that the judgment of God was only directed upon the Son whom he loved. By shutting the heavens to our destruction, Jesus opened the heavens to our salvation.

It all starts here at the Jordan in Jesus’ baptism. That’s what Jesus is saying yes to when he steps into the water. And it pleases the Father to no end that his Son takes our place, to give us life that has no end. It pleases the Spirit as he descends upon the Son in anointing and blessing him for his work of salvation.

Because Jesus carried out and completed his work, what happens at your baptism? At your baptism, all your sins are washed away in those Christ-filled waters. God says the same thing about you that he said about Jesus: “You are my beloved child. I am well pleased with you for Jesus’ sake.” And the Spirit descends upon you, making you a new creation in Christ and empowering you for a life of service in God’s Kingdom. The gates of hell are slammed shut and the doors of heaven are torn open for you.

There is glory hidden in your baptism, too. Amen.

The LORD said to his servant and Son Jesus: “It is too small a thing that you should just be my servant to raise up only the tribes of Jacob and to restore the ones I have preserved in Israel, so I will appoint you to be a light for the nations, so that my salvation will be known to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Amen.