concept of Messiah, according to Jesus’ understanding of his mission and the current view embraced by his contemporaries, was radically different. The current view was of an exalted figure modeled after the great King David and descending from the one who would bring victory to Israel over all her enemies and establish an earthly and worldwide kingdom. At the opposite pole from this secular and political view was Jesus’ self-understanding of his mission as a total commitment to God’s purpose and will, a life of humiliation and rejection ending in death. His contemporaries, even his disciples, were so conditioned by the former view of the Messiah as this exalted figure of power and majesty that they either rejected the person of Jesus and his message completely or totally misunderstood him until after his death and resurrection. It should be clear to us that there is a fundamental difference between the two images and that our own understanding or, more correctly, our misunderstanding of Jesus’ Messiahship is the result of our failure to make this distinction.
Matthew’s Radical Departure
Matthew has radically altered the baptismal account in his introductory remarks. Jesus came to John to be baptized; John protests, since it is more proper for Jesus to be the baptizer. However, Jesus encourages him to proceed, since it is proper that he fulfill all righteousness. It is evident that problems have surfaced about the baptism of Jesus in the early community and the author seeks to address them. A reconstruction of the background suggests that Jews, who were the objects of the community’s evangelism effort, had raised questions about the propriety of Jesus’ Messiahship. He could not be Messiah because he had been crucified and the scripture says, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged upon a tree” (Deuteronomy 21.22–23). Furthermore, they may have asked, “You say that Jesus was sinless. Why then was he baptized by John, since John’s baptism was for the remission of sins?” And again, “Why did Jesus accept baptism from John, since you say he was the greater, the Messiah?” There are similar indicators in non-canonical writings of this same difficulty that the author of Matthew addresses here. For example, in the Gospel to the Hebrews, cited by Jerome in his Against Pelagius, we find this testimony, “The mother of the Lord and his brothers said to him, ‘John the Baptist baptizes for the forgiveness of sin; let us go and be baptized by him.’ But he said to them, ‘In what have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless, perhaps, what I have just said is a sin of ignorance’.” This effort on the part of the author of Matthew, suggesting that John recognized Jesus to be the Messiah when he came for baptism, is a kind of an apology, a defense of the community’s interpretation of Jesus’ baptism, and is in contradiction with another passage where John does not know Jesus to be the Coming One (Matthew 11.2–3). As the passage stands in Matthew, John becomes the first professing Christian in a pre-Christian era and reflects therefore an addition either by the author or an outgrowth of tradition from the community of which he was a member.
Lukan Additions
Luke has altered the baptism account by omitting any reference to the Baptist, as noted earlier, and by relating that Jesus’ experience is the result of prayer. This is in character with one of the particular interests of this writer, since he always describes Jesus at prayer before the critical and decisive decisions of his ministry (cf. 6.12; 9.18; 22.41). The opening of the heavens and the descent of the Spirit become responses to Jesus’ prayer and to his openness to God, rather than a sudden, unexpected and spontaneous inbreaking of the Spirit into his consciousness.
Conclusions
Thus the intentions and concerns of each gospel writer become evident to the reader through a careful and critical examination of the baptism pericope. The most consistent account, in the opinion of this writer, is found in the Gospel of Mark. There is no ambiguity, but rather a clear and incisive depiction of Jesus as a man without any supernatural or divine qualifications who is chosen by God from the community of humanity as represented by Israel, anointed with the Spirit, and commissioned to be the deliverer of God’s people and all people from the destructive bondage to sin, death, and evil to which every human being is enslaved. The Markan account is most consonant with the Pauline poetic paean,
“Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
Signs and Wonder Stories in the Gospels
¶ Signs and wonder stories constitute a very large proportion of the tradition preserved by the early Christian community about the ministry of Jesus. These stories fall into a number of categories that include:
l) the healing of physical ailments,
2) exorcisms,
3) the control of natural phenomena,
4) raising the dead, and
5) occasions when numerous healings and exorcisms are lumped together into general accounts.
There are eighteen of these stories in the gospel of Mark with six general references, nineteen in the gospel of Matthew with ten general references, and twenty in the gospel of Luke with ten general references. Eleven of these stories are found in all three gospels. To set our discussion in perspective, the signs and wonder stories in Mark constitute three thousand four words of his total of eleven thousand forty-seven words, approximately twenty-seven per cent of the total; the stories in Matthew constitute two thousand three hundred twenty-three words of his total of eighteen thousand two hundred thirty-nine words, approximately thirteen per cent of his total; and in Luke a total of two thousand six hundred eighty-one words of his total of nineteen thousand three hundred forty-six words, approximately fourteen per cent. The word count is based upon the text of Codex Vaticanus
It is to be noted that the signs and wonder stories form a very large portion of the gospels, especially of the gospel of Mark since almost one-third of this gospel consists of signs and wonder narratives. It seems proper at this point to identify the material that is used as the basis for this analysis, so that there may be no question in the mind of the reader as to the inclusiveness or completeness of the analysis. Therefore the signs and wonder stories are named and listed according to category for future reference in the essay.
First and most numerous are the healings of physical ailments. The three gospels have the following in common:
(1) the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever (Mark 1.29–31; Matthew 8.14–15; Luke 4.38–39),
(2) the cleansing of a leper (Mark 1.40–45; Matthew 8.1–4; Luke 5.12–15),
(3) the healing of a paralyzed man (Mark 2.1–12; Matthew 9.1–8; Luke 5.17–26),
(4) the restoring of a withered hand (Mark 3.1–6; Matthew 12.9–14; Luke 6.6–11),
(5) the healing of a woman with a hemorrhage (Mark 5.24b–34; Matthew 9.20–22; Luke 8.42b–48),
(6) and the restoring of sight to Bartimaeus (Mark 10.46–52; Matthew 20.29–34; Luke 18.35–43).
Two additional healings are reported by Mark,
(7) the healing of a deaf man with a speech impediment (Mark 7.31–37) and
(8) and the restoring of sight to a blind man at Bethsaida (Mark 8.22–26).
Matthew
