"Really Good News" - Notes on Mark 1:1-8

Introductory Comments on Mark’s Gospel:

The Gospel of Mark was written around the year 70 CE (some 40 years after Jesus death & resurrection). It was most probably addressed to Christians living in and around Rome. Many of these Christians and early Jesus-following communities were suffering for their faith in the face of opposition.

“Mark” was the first Gospel to be written. We know that because both Matthew and Luke relied on information and traditions supplied by Mark in the construction of these later gospel texts. “Mark” is not a ball-by-ball description of the life of Jesus, not a traditional biography; but rather a gathering of traditions, incidents and teachings that instruct us about the great significance of Jesus’ coming into the world. More than any other gospel it focuses on the crucifixion of Jesus and the significance and impact of this for Jesus’ followers.

So the first readers in Rome, and then all later readers, could look back and gain an overview of the most important elements of following Jesus in the contemporary modern world. We are continually being asked in the text of this Gospel as to how we would respond to Jesus at this … and that … point of the story. We are being asked to enter the story and learn what it means for you and for me to be a disciple of Jesus.

Where we Begin:

You will of course notice there is no Christmas text in Mark. There seemed to be more interest in Jesus’ birth a little later when Matthew and Luke wrote. It could also be that Mark hadn’t gained any information about what happened at the beginning of Jesus’ life on earth. In any case, through the dramatic introduction in Mark, we can see that this writer wanted to quickly launch into the significance of who Jesus was, how he lived, and what he taught.

The heading (if you like) reads: "The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God". This doesn’t mean that the first few verses are the “beginning”, then comes the middle, followed by the ending. That’s not it at all! This means that the whole book of Mark is the “beginning” of the good news!! What do you think should follow??? If the whole gospel text is the “beginning”, what is really chapter two???

The answer would be: the followers of Jesus knowing and living the “good news”! This is the “beginning of the good news” says Mark; ultimately the “good news” will be in the hands of those who become the followers of Jesus – those who take the name of Jesus to themselves!

Also in the first verse, Mark was going to unambiguously point to the hero of this story of salvation. “Jesus”, the Greek form of Joshua, itself means ‘the Lord saves, or ‘God is Salvation’. The title “Christ” (the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered Messiah) indicates the ‘anointed one’ of God – the ‘one’ designated to liberate God’s people. The title “Son of God” indicates a ‘divine man’ or a person with a specific role and special divine power.

Preparing the Way:

We have talked recently about our own roles in preparing the way for an understanding of the message of Christmas in our neighbourhood – a call to people to open their hearts to a radical spiritual reality, the living Jesus Christ. There was such a one preparing the way in the historical circumstances of Jesus’ coming – “John the Baptiser”. Mark saw this preparation as part of God’s own long-term planning, expressed by Isaiah and other prophets many centuries before.

Whereas we might see our cries of testimony to Jesus (in our day and age) as being expressed in the “wilderness”, John himself came from nowhere, out of the desert, with an inspired message of “repentance”. It would be a willingness to ‘turn around’, people taking a ‘change of direction’, that would allow Jesus to liberate the world. A person willing to “repent” would show that they were ready to receive God’s forgiveness.

This forgiveness was not something that God was offering begrudgingly – God desperately wanted to give people this gift out of God’s own abounding grace; God just wanted to know that people were serious about doing something positive with this forgiveness. Making a physical sacrifice for sin, and then going on living unchanged, was not going to save anyone! We all need to take a reality check and confess our misdeeds and warped attitudes. Then we will truly experience God’s heart of forgiveness. Confession, and sometimes public confession, is the path to healing.

What a Response!

There obviously was a significant response to John the Baptist’s call to “repent” (v.5). What does this indicate???
· A sense of a spiritual void that desperately needed to be filled (there had been a lack of prophets and spiritually gifted people in this society for a long time – here was clearly a God-centred spiritual person who the people could put some trust in)
· Strong feelings of guilt and shame that needed to be addressed.

People were coming from everywhere to be ministered to by John. How can we get a response like that! There is no doubt a lot of spiritual poverty around us – can we present an alternative with enough integrity for this spiritual poverty to be recognised, understood and responded to? Are we ready to facilitate a ministry of grace and forgiveness toward those with a heavy and guilty heart??

These people were baptised by John. This was not a new phenomenon, as ritual bathing was practiced in several Hellenistic religions of the period as a rite of purification. Here though, baptism certainly became a symbol of the cleansing that comes through:
· Confession – that opens the heart afresh to God
· Repentance – the determination to change
· Forgiveness – the restoration into harmonious relationship with God.

John the Baptist was not dressed in the finest suit – he made do with whatever was available. He didn’t dine at the finest inns – he ate whatever he could find to sustain life. He probably wasn’t even the greatest with words, but the two main things he said cut right into the path of people’s needs. You could say that John the Baptist was just an ordinary person, yet completely focussed on God’s mission in the world. He was humble, he knew where he sat with God, he knew the role he was to play, and he had an acute sense of expectation that God was about to act in a remarkable way. The two strands of John the Baptiser’s message of hope were:
· Repent, and
· That this repentance is in preparation for the One who is the greater, the long-awaited Messiah, who will offer the gift of the very Holy Spirit of God. So great is Jesus, that in comparison, John is not even worthy of adopting the role of a slave removing the shoes and bathing the feet of a guest entering into his master’s home. [How ironic then that Jesus would actually later (at least in John’s gospel) wash the feet of his disciples!]

The Giver of The Spirit:

It would be the coming into and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the communities of faith in the first century CE that would identify people as Jesus followers, bind them together in unity, and give them all the gifts required for living and spreading the good news about Jesus. So when we go beyond confession and repentance towards accepting Jesus as our Saviour, as the One who provides the means of forgiveness in his own sacrifice, we receive a gift that will allow us to stick to our convictions and develop our faith through thick and thin – the gift of the Holy Spirit. The water baptism that we Baptists (and other Christian denominations) offer as a sacrament becomes a symbol that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour, and that we are following him in the strength of the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptist’s station at the Jordan River is only the small beginnings of the mission of God which Jesus will take through his disciples and the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth.

Concluding Comments on Mark’s Gospel:

Mark's Gospel is intended to be read in totality; Werner H Kelber writes: "There is only one way to understand Mark’s gospel message, and that is to read his whole story from 1:1 to 16:8".