The beginning. While this gospel is focussed on reaching a non-Jewish audience (see last weeks intro to the gospel for some background here), Mark still wanted to anchor his work in the narrative arc of all scripture – that means the Old Testament. That means showing that Jesus wasn’t some random, and that his coming was foretold even before creation and that he was God himself.
When I’m reading, I like to highlight and make notes as to what strikes me. Each blog in Mark I do, I’ll post mine. There’s no right answer to this, it’s your personal observations and questions and meditations as you read God’s word.
The beginning takes us back to Genesis 1:1 – the creation work of God himself. Mark actually doubles down on this reference when Jesus is baptised in 1:10. It says that they saw the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. There is only one other place in scripture where the Spirit is likened to a dove – in Genesis 1:2 where the Spirit hovers over the waters. As Tim Keller says, to capture this vivid image, the rabbis translated this passage as “the Spirit of God fluttered over the face of the waters like a dove.”
This is something new. A new act of creation is happening.
It’s interesting that Mark names Jesus twice in the first verse. He calls him Jesus the Messiah and the Son of God. Why both? Aren’t they the same thing? Actually no. To understand this we need to try and put ourselves back in the place of a first century Jew or Gentile. We understand the “Messiah” as being Jesus and all that he encompasses. But remember, they were still grappling with who Jesus was and what he had come to do. The concept of the Messiah for them was someone God-sent who would bring about the salvation God promised. The Messiah was not necessarily anything more than a prophet. In Deuteronomy 18:18, God had promised he would send another great prophet, and since Elijah, there had been an expectation of another saving one sent from God. To add “the Son of God” was to hit people between the eyes. This was a whole new dimension. A Messiah was expected. The Son of God was NOT expected.
“As it is written in Isaiah” Mark says – again, anchoring Jesus story in the narrative arc of all scripture. He was known, he was expected, he was foretold. What he actually quotes is an amalgam of Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3. This mix and matching is not surprising given his audience. What is interesting though is that God gave those words through Malachi and Isaiah when his people were lost and feeling alone and needing God’s peace and grace. He promised resolution. Just no timeframe. And now it had come. The waiting…the hundreds of years of waiting, were over.
The words that link paragraphs are always interesting and important. Here, Mark says “and so”. This shows a clear link that Baptist was again, no random. He came specifically as foretold by scripture. He is the messenger to prepare the way. The description of John links him specifically to Elijah, the last great prophet sent from God. 2 Kings 1:8 describes Elijah as wearing a garment of hair and having a leather belt around his waist. So, this Elijah-like prophet is preparing the way for the Lord.
There is a sense of a two step progression. John is the messenger, Jesus is the Lord. John will baptise with water and Jesus will baptise with the Spirit. John preaches a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus preaches that the kingdom of God has come near and so repent and believe. In every sense, John is preparing the way. This is something sort of expected, but also so new, it requires the way to be prepared.
It is striking that Mark highlights Jesus’ divinity and humanity. His divinity is clear in the baptism narrative. But he mentions he was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted by Satan. We know more detail of this from the other gospels. I remember my doctrine lecturer once posing a question “Was Jesus unable to sin, or was Jesus able to sin but didn’t?” I also remember him, after we had talked ourselves round in circles for an hour, saying “like all good theological questions, the answer is Yes.”
What is always find startling is Jesus, in his humanity, was tempted beyond all endurance. He was genuinely tempted because he is genuinely human. He experienced everything that we do. He must have been exhausted, agonised, anguished, starving, thirsting even to the point of death. And yet still he did not bow to Satan.
So yes. He is divine and has the power to save. But he is human and has experienced everything I have and triumphed. He triumphs in his divinity as the Son of God. In his weakness and frailty he triumphs in his humanity.
This is mind bending. In a few short verses, Mark has placed Jesus in the narrative arc of scripture, he had proclaimed Jesus as both messiah and Son of God, he has declared the gospel of repentance and belief and has highlighted both Jesus divinity and humanity.
This is as new now as it was then. And there’s a newness in re-remembering the depth of what Mark is communicating to us.
Let me know your questions – there’s so much in here we could spend many weeks! We could look at the concept of baptism, what happened to John when he was sent to prison and why, we could go SO much more deeply into repentance and belief. We’ll cover a lot of these as we go on, but please feel free to post questions or comments here or on the Facebook post if you want to engage!