English Greek Bible

† "Angel" is part of the word euangeliou. An angel is a messenger of God. angeliou is a message from God.

† St. John the Baptist is referred to as an angelon, angel, messenger. Yet the reference is more loving than just some messenger; he is the "angel of Me", My angel, My messenger. Note also the word apostellō, suggesting St. John the Baptist may be viewed as a forerunner of the Apostles. Further, God sends him right in front of our faces, evoking the immediacy of the message that recurs frequently, and evoking a response to its presence that should be equally immediate. And how much God must love us to have sent someone before us to prepare our way.

† An angelic voice cries out in the solitary place where there are no distractions of human society. While our way, and the way of Our Lord, is prepared for us by God and His messengers, we must participate, as we see in the imperative to prepare the way of the Lord. The word eutheias here means straight in the non-literal sense, in the sense of ethical uprightness, but it also contains the word-part euth-, which is related to euthys, meaning immediately: immediately straight, not crooked, not lazy nor delaying nor slothful. So the theme of immediacy continues with verse 1:3 where it says we must make no delay in preparing God's way within us, just as He has lovingly prepared our way for us.

† Submerged in the place without human distractions, in the purifying state of metanoia, of inward change of mind and heart, hamartia, sin, missing of the mark is sent away. Here is also the birthplace whence the formal Sacrament of Baptism usually given to infants grew. And of course infants we would not submerge in solitude nor expect a rational choice on their own part of inward change for their sins to be forgiven.

† St. John the Baptist was a desert ascetic whose spiritual practice consisted largely of fasting. A grammatical note, notice there is no pause between the first subject-object sentence part and the second, while the first part is in the past tense and the second part is in the present, showing a non-parallel structure. Perhaps the less strict grammatical form reflects the grittiness of the life of St. John the Baptist, who lived strictly on a spiritual level, yet not in a way overly concerned with particulars of form.

† St. John the Baptist was humble and fully acknowledged the greatness of Our Lord. His full acknowledgement seems similar to exomologeó (exomologoumenoi) in verse 1:5: to out-and-out acknowledge sin, or to confess. Though in his case, it is not acknowledgement of a moral missing of the mark for which we ourselves are at fault, but a saint's humble acknowledgement of his relative imperfection in the bright light of God's perfection. So we see St. John the Baptist was no hypocrite. He tells others to change their inward selves, to fully acknowledge their shortcomings and imperfections, to be humble for the sake of purifying the way of God within us, while he also fully acknowledges who he himself is.

† Water is purifying. Purification by the lesser element, water, precedes purification by the greater element, Spirit. St. John the Baptist's action further identifies him as being the lesser good that comes before the greater. The word Pneuma is filled with meanings. It calls to mind Genesis 2:7 when God breathed into the dust to bring man to life, to give him a living soul. It may be said in a sense that God's breath, God's Life is the Holy Spirit. Our Lord submerges us in that Life to purify and uphold our own.

† Although Jesus is the Anointed Son of God who comes after St. John the Baptist, and He has no sin to cleanse, He too humbles himself by being submerged in the ceremonial act of purification. Jesus, who asks His followers to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, was also not a hypocrite.

† There is no delay between when Jesus receives the submersion in water given by St. John the Baptist and when He is submerged in the Holy Spirit. The instantaneous sequence of the events shows the profound holiness of Jesus. There is practically no time between when Jesus receives the lesser and greater Baptisms because He is already worthy of the greater one.

† The greater Baptism corresponds with God being pleased with Him.

† The lesser and greater Baptism, the voice from heaven, and He is thrown out into the desert by the Holy Spirit of God who is pleased with Him and loves Him. The experience of saints supports that it is not uncommon for a person with whom God is pleased to undergo difficulties. God's ways are mysterious from a human perspective.

† Although He was in the solitary place where God allowed the Adversary to antagonize Him (perhaps not entirely unlike Job), He was not cut off from God, Whose messengers were ministering to Him. St. Mark refers to St. John the Baptist as the messenger of God whom Isaiah spoke of, so it may be possible that other people visited Jesus while He was in the desert, though this would be a speculative interpretation, the standard interpretation being that the messengers who ministered to Him were the purely spiritual beings God created before creating man. In any case, when the messengers visited Him in the érēmos, it was certainly not for a social event, but perhaps to bring Him a little water while He engaged in His spiritual activity of utmost importance.

† The word for spirit in 1:23, 1:26, and 1:27, pneuma, is the same as the word for Spirit in 1:8, 1:10 and 1:12. The differences in the earlier verses are that it is capitalized, and it is qualified by the word "Holy", while in the later verses it is not capitalized, and is qualified by the word "unclean". Notably, while the Holy Spirit appears in the place of solitude in Mark 1, the unclean spirits appear in the synagogue among a group of people. Also, while the baptism of St. John the Baptist with water and of Jesus with the Holy Spirit out in the solitary place are purifying and sanctifying, the man with an unclean spirit appears in the synagogue, which may suggest the place and people in it are themselves to some extent unclean, or at least not at a high level of sanctity. Jesus however, Who has been by purified by St. John the Baptist and sanctified with the Holy Spirit, drives the unclean spirit out of the man and out of the synagogue. Through the purity and power of the Lord and Holy Spirit the unclean spirits are driven out.

† St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul where he wrote that he went out without being observed, his house being at rest, is reminiscent of Mark 1:35.