Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Wednesday, January 2, 2013 Read – Luke 3:21-22 & Isaiah 42:1-9 The baptism of Jesus was THE crucial event for Mark’s beginning – the powerful and dramatic “explosion” of God coming into the world. Mark tells the baptism as an invasion of God – “The heavens ripped open and God coming down!” If we listen closely, Luke tells the story in a far subtler fashion – in fact, the way he tells the story we might wonder whether or not Jesus was actually baptized by John. Luke tells us in verse 20 that Herod has “added to his sins by locking up John in prison”. It is only after John has been imprisoned that Luke tells about the baptism of Jesus. Of course, we can surmise by implication that John had done the baptism, but the way the story is told has a purpose of de-emphasizing the baptism of Jesus and its connection to John. Luke does not state clearly that John witnessed the descent of the dove/Spirit – in fact Jesus’ baptism is told as a past event and now Jesus is praying when the dove appears. All of this is very subtle, but Luke has done his modifications with purpose. Certainly he is not intending to “correct” Mark but to place the emphasis in a new way. Luke has also softened the scene incredibly. The heavens are not “ripped” open in Luke’s story but merely “opened” much as one would gently “open a door.” We might wonder why Luke chose a different word than the word Mark used. The answer is to be found in the design and purpose of each writer – Mark had his purposes and so does Luke. As with Mark, Luke portrays the voice as coming only to Jesus. The words of the voice are the same as in Mark. It is interesting the both Matthew and John tell a very similar story and in both of them John the Baptist, and presumably others, see the dove and hear the voice (John does not tell of a voice but clearly John the Baptist sees the dove.) Since it is very likely that, like Luke, Matthew also used Mark as his primary source, the question arises why Matthew chose to make the change – but that is for another time. Luke sticks with Mark here. The voice from heaven spoke words that come mostly from Isaiah 42 with allusions to Psalm 2, Isaiah 64, and perhaps the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac and even Psalm 144. Let’s turn now to Isaiah’s words. Isaiah 42:1-9 is the first of four “servant songs” that have been identified in the book of Isaiah. Luke, following Mark, does not quote the complete servant song – but we can likely presume that he has the whole passage in mind. When we find a quotation or an allusion to the OT it is usually best for us to dig deeper and gain the full context of what is quoted or alluded to. Just who is the servant in the “servant songs” of Isaiah? There is no easy answer to that question. At least three possibilities are available. The servant may be the people of Israel who are often referred to as the “servant of God” – but that does not fully fit since the servant in the “servant songs” has a ministry to Israel. The servant may be the prophet who is proclaiming the message – but that also falls short since the ministry of the servant reaches beyond that of an ordinary human being. The servant may be the hoped for “Messiah” who God is sending to bring deliverance to his people – this is probably the best alternative, however, one does need to account for Isaiah’s vision that this “servant” would have real impact in his time and not just for a future time when the Messiah would finally arrive. It is likely that the gospel writers, and Luke in particular, understood Isaiah to be referring to the coming Messiah. The reference of the voice from heaven is much more important to Mark than it is to the other gospel writers, including Luke, since the content of the message identifies Jesus as the “Son of God” something that Mark wants to reveal to his readers, but will keep strictly hidden from human understanding within the story until the crucifixion of Jesus. Luke and Matthew both inherited Mark’s “Messianic Secret” but, as we will see, neither was compelled to maintain that “secret” – it was not their concern but Mark’s. We can conclude from the way in which Luke tells the story that the baptism of Jesus is far less important for Luke than it was for Mark. Luke’s version is incredibly shorter, written in much softer tones, and modified to place Jesus in the midst of prayer. If we only had Luke’s version, I think we would think of the baptism of Jesus in a different light than we are likely to do. It appears that the baptism of Jesus was of far less importance to Luke than the others – if he had not found it in his source, one wonders if he would even have mentioned it.