Mark 1:9

The fact that Mark identified Jesus simply as Jesus may show that he wrote his Gospel to people familiar with Jesus. Jesus did not come to John from Judea or Jerusalem (cf. Mark 1:5) but from Nazareth in Galilee where He had grown up and was living. [Note: See the map "Places Mentioned in Mark’s Gospel" at the end of these notes.] The obscurity of this little town is clear from the fact that not the Old Testament, Josephus, or the Talmud ever mentioned it.

Jesus underwent John’s baptism to identify with man and man’s sin (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:21). He did not do so because He needed to repent. He did not. He also submitted to baptism because by doing so He identified with the particular group of people that John was baptizing, namely, the Israelites. Jesus associated His baptism with His death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50). Consequently it is probably proper to conclude that He viewed His baptism as a public acceptance of His role as Israel’s Suffering Servant, Messiah. Jesus was about 30 years old then (Luke 3:23).