Mark 1:9

In Matthew we have seen the fullest credentials of the Messiah, from angels and from people. He was born there and then as King of the Jews, in Israel's own land. But in Mark all this is, with equal beauty, absent. There is no preparation but John preaching and baptizing. Then at once the Lord Jesus appears. He is not born, not the object of homage, but preaching. He takes up the work that John soon after laid down when he went to prison.

He is the Son of God in service. He humbled Himself by His own choice, as no one else ever has, and this is His brightest glory. His poverty makes others rich. That is why the genealogy that comes first in Matthew is not found at all in Mark. Love needs no title to serve, only the power to do so.

There is nothing a person dreads more than being nothing at all. Even to be spoken against is not as dreadful to our poor proud spirit as being unnoticed at all. Yet Jesus spent by far the greater part of His life in that total obscurity. The record holds only one incident from His earliest years until He comes out for the ministry of the word of God and the gospel of the kingdom. And He lived in Nazareth, known as the lowest place in poor despised Galilee. Even a godly Galilean sneered and wondered whether any good thing could come out of Nazareth.

The Servant appears to begin His service. He came out from Nazareth of Galilee. There too, during the hidden years, He had served.

God, through John the Baptist, had called His people to repentance. Those in whom His word did its work came to John for baptism. It was the first sign of life and of obedience. Jesus was perfect in life and in obedience. He had come down in grace for the remnant of His people. He goes there, takes His place with them, and receives John's baptism as they did. Touching and marvellous testimony! He does not love from a distance. He does not love only by granting pardon. He comes by grace into the very place where the sin of His people had brought them.

Whatever John might think, the way of Jehovah lay through Jordan. Jehovah-Jesus was looking toward those who were poor and of a contrite spirit... The Lord meant, by a public and unmistakable act, to own that way. He answered the one who tried to hinder Him with grace: "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness"... With special grace He linked John with Himself in the submission that godly service always involves. "It is fitting for us" are His words, for He was now stepping out into public view as the Servant of Jehovah.

Now we see Him coming out from Nazareth of Galilee, and Himself baptized by John in the Jordan. This is indeed the pledge by which He devotes Himself to the path of service that lies before Him. It is His "Behold, I have come." The Jordan pictures the death that is "written of Him in the scroll of the book," according to its law of sacrifice.

Jesus comes from Nazareth, the humble and despised place in Galilee, and submits to John's baptism. He did not do it because He had anything to confess. He did it to identify Himself with those souls who in repentance were making a move in the right direction. Just then, before He came out in His public ministry, Heaven showed its approval of the perfect Servant. No one was to misread His lowly baptism.