“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.”
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.
Church Fathers on Mark 1:9
Mark the Evangelist, like a hart, longing after the fountains of water, leaps forward over places, smooth and steep; and, as a bee laden with honey, he sips the tops of the flowers.
He was baptized, that by being baptized Himself He might shew His approval of John’s baptism [ed. note: vol i, pl 109, note h], and that, by sanctifying the waters of Jordan through the descent of the dove, He might shew the coming of the Holy Ghost in the laver of believers.
Wherefore Matthew relates that the voice said, 'This is my beloved Son;' for he wished to shew that the words, 'This is My Son,' were in fact said, that thus the persons who heard it might know that He, and not another, was the Son of God.
Read all 10 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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