Gospel of Mark

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.  I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Mark 1:1-8

With a new year, begins a new set of posts focusing on the Gospel of Mark. Mark is the earliest gospel, the shortest gospel, and Mark selects each word carefully.  Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark does not mention a word about Jesus' birth.  No angels singing, no shepherds or wise ones coming to the manger, not even a single word uttered about how Jesus came to earth.  Instead, Mark starts off with what in the original language would have been an incomplete, grammatically incorrect, sentence.  Beginning!  Good News!  Jesus!  the Christ! Son of God!  Each word carries weight.  Each word invites us to dwell deeply.  Beginning echoes back to Genesis 1, when God began (present tense...rather than past tense) to create all that is.  Good news is an amplification of the word gospel or evangelion in Greek.  Right there, Mark has set side by side the tension of what he is up to.  You see, gospel does not just describe what you read in the New Testament.  Evangelion, good news, is what Caesar declared to bring when he came marking with his global military superpower into your town conquering you.  Evagnelion, good news, now you belong to Rome.  Bad news...taxes to pay for said global military superpower, who by the way takes control away from your life.  Mark is theologically saying, remember God was there from the very beginning.  God is still here, even when the boot of the Roman empire is oppressing you.  

To declare good news into that kind of a situation is a paradox...a mystery that on the surface makes no sense...but the more you explore...the more you realize the truth laying just beneath.  Good news is what God has, is, and will always be up to in the world.  Even in the midst of continued violence.  Even in the midst of fear.  Even in the midst of pain, brokenness, and death.  You see, good news is about more than what we can explain intellectually.  Good news...God news...is about more than just politics and power.  Good news...God news...is about more than what we see, touch, taste, and feel.  God's good news changes everything, even when on the outside it appears that nothing has changed, inside we know life to be different.

The difference is about the Christ (or Messiah) and the Son of God (which is what people called Caesar).  The good news...God news...will turn upside down everything.  And in our texting, tweeting, microwaving, instant society, we say, "Okay then God...let's see it...NOW!"  But the good news Mark is going to tell us about takes time.  Mark stretches back to Isaiah, when the prophet in a time of exile of foreign rule, boot on your neck, conquered, bleak moment (just as people during Jesus' time felt); Isaiah declared there was another path.  A path that was not might makes right.  A path that was not fear driven.  A path that was not tax drive.  A path that was not about conquering or military complex.  A whole new path...that some might say we still don't full realize or travel.  That is the path way toward the One who is the Messiah (who confronts the religious brokenness) and the Son of God (who confronts the human brokenness).  

And then, we get the arrival of John...who bursts on the scene with a strange diet and even stranger message.  Repent...which is not about guilt.  Repent is about getting on the road to God...hear how that echos Isaiah?  Repent means pay attention to here and now because it matters.  We've turned repentance into a golden ticket for another, future life.  But repentance means living a life where this present moment, the choices we make right now, matter.  As Rob Bell says, 'How you do anything is how you do everything...everything is spiritual'.  We need to remember that a community of faith is not a self-congratulatory, self-indulge, self-centered place for us to remind us we are God's chosen.  A community of faith is to challenge us to keep on the path...and pick us up when we stumble.  A community of faith holds us accountable with love...just as John does...but not under the guise that we can buy our way through our offerings back into God's grace.  Grace is.  Grace beckons.  Grace calls out.  We respond to the best of our ability here and now.  And then the next day.  And then the day after that.

I am always amazing that eight verse of Mark...and the above only scratched the surface.  I also want to invite you to let Scripture READ your life.  

What path are you on as you start a new year?  Where are you heading?  What road signs are around you?

 How does the baptismal claim of God upon your life challenge or change where your life is right now?

I pray that in the coming posts you will sense MORE than a trace of God's grace.  May these posts continue to help re-orient our lives toward the One who does make all the difference.

Blessings ~