At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan — the first appearance of Jesus in Mark is not as a teacher or healer but as a man from Galilee standing in line for baptism with the repentant crowd. Jesus is not confessing his own sin but publicly identifying with sinful humanity, aligning himself with the crowd he has come to save. Matthew records John's protest and Jesus' response; Mark simply records the act. The Galilean origin is significant: Galilee is not Jerusalem, not the center of the religious establishment, and Jesus' ministry will be headquartered in this peripheral region precisely because the kingdom arrives at the margins before the center.

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