One More Powerful, a Reflection on Mark 1:6-8

John was wearing a garment made of camel's hair and a leather belt. His diet consisted of locusts and wild honey. You know, not many descriptions of wardrobe or clothes are in the Bible. Because I now have a copy of the reference edition of the Common English Bible, I was reminded that Elijah himself was dressed in the same way (See 2 Kings 1:1-9) and that dietary rules for all of us permit eating any kind of migrating locust, any kind of bald locust, as well as crickets and grasshoppers (Lev 11:22).

According to Allen & Williamson, in their Preaching the Gospels, Mark is using John the Baptist to alert the reader to the apocalyptic nature of the ministry of Jesus. His readers would have gotten the allusion to Isaiah (see also Exodus 23:20; Malachi 3:1; and Isaiah 40:3).

Further, in that time (again, I'm using Allen & Williamson), apocalyptically oriented Jewish groups sometimes initiated people into their communities by baptism. In their thinking, sin is a power in the old age that binds people. Repentance is "the dynamic action of turning away from disobedience ... toward God, obedience, justice, and living in covenant in the divine realm."

John, like Elijah, is the one who discloses the one for whom we are waiting (Malachi 4:5).

God, acting through Jesus, has more power than John, Caesar, Herod, the Jewish leaders, Satan, the demons, or other entities. While John prepares people for the new age with repentance and immersion, Jesus will baptize them with the Holy Spirit (Allen & Williamson).