Today, we remember the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptizer. In the passage from the Gospel according to Mark, there is a lot of symbolism and many confusing details which have puzzled the Church through the centuries. How can we make sense of it?
The first thing to look at is the entire rite of baptism – what are its origins, what does it mean, and how was John’s version of baptism different than those that the people of Israel might have been familiar with? John did not invent the ritual of baptism. In Judaism, there were actually two different rites that used water – the rite of purification and the rite of baptism for proselytes. We will see reference to the rite of purification in the story of Jesus’ miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. In this rite, the people wash themselves after they had been in contact with something viewed as unclean, as with the body of an animal or some discharge of bodily fluid. The rite would include washing one’s body to ensure one did not contaminate anything else. The rite of baptism for proselytes was by immersion in water as we see with John’s baptism, but viewed as a sign that one was clean from their former life and now a member of the Chosen People.
