Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

Today, we hear the beginning verses of Mark’s gospel as the gospel writer presents his version of the Jesus story.   And, in this gospel, we do not hear stories about shepherds and angels, about wise men and a stable, or even a word about Mary and Joseph as we do in Luke’s gospel.  There is no listing of ancestors and a birth story as we find in Matthew.  And, there is no cosmic, out of this world beginning as we read in the Gospel of John.  Mark’s version of the Jesus story is very stark, far more ordinary and rather abrupt as it begins at the river when God breaks into this broken world through the person of Jesus.   “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.”  Mark’s telling of the Jesus story begins as Jesus enters the river with others to be washed in the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  This gospel begins with Jesus’ baptism.  It begins with Jesus entering the historic waters of the Jordan River and doing so in solidarity with sinners, a