The Gospel of St. Mark
Week 1Who is Jesus in the Gospel of Mark?
What does the Gospel mean?
It means good news, glad tidings, it means good news because there is a new king in town and he is going to fight our battles. The word is evangelion; this word announces the new existing power, a rising to power of a new ruler, or the victory of a ruler over his enemies.
Example: Inscription 9 B.C. –an announcement to the people under Augustus at the beginning of his rule.
“The providence which has ordered the whole of our life, showing concern and zeal,has ordained the most perfect consummation for human life by giving to it Augustus, by filling him with virtue for doing the work of a benefactor among men, and by sending in him, as it were, a deliverer for us and those ho come after us, to make war to cease, to create order everywhere…; the birthday of the god (Augustus) was the beginning for the world of the glad tidings that have come to men through him” (N.T. Wright – “What St. Paul Really Said”).
The Old Testament gives us a glimpse at these future kingdom announcments
- Isaiah 40:9
- Isaiah 52:7
Both Jew and Gentile, both God’s people and the rest of the world used this term to refer to the announcement of the new king and this new king’s victory agenda.
You will learn more and more later on in this class why it is such a great political, social, and spiritual threat to the world that Israel's king has landed. -why it matters for presidents and kings, parents, fisherman, and demons- Jerusalem has its own Gospel announcement and the rest of the world had better watch out because this one will rule from Nazareth to the ends of the world!
So what is it that the Gospel is about?
It is about the dethroning of all other powers; visible and invisible, in our hearts and on our television screens. It is about the destruction of death and hell! It is about the dawn of a new day and a new rising kingdom; this is why we say “thy kingdom come”. This was their salvation, this is our salvation.
If someone preaches the Gospel to you what are they doing?
They are announcing that Jesus is King of the world and you had better get down on your knees and pay him tribute! No one is apologizing for the fact that everything and everyone was created by him and for him; as uncomfortable as it may seem.or want It is not a matter of whether or not you like him even want to...though he does want your heartfelt devotion very very much!
Why all the talk about the Son of God
Psalm 89:20-27
“I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him:
With whom my hand shall be established: mine arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not exact upon him; nor the son of wickedness afflict him.
And I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him.
But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers.
He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.
Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth”.
To be the Son of God means to be Israel’s King. All of Israel are sons, but Jesus is the Son of sons, the firstborn among us, even though he is born after Adam.
As it is written in the prophets Jesus was the one who was foretold, but it was said that someone would prepare his way. These passages prophesy of a herald.
Malachi 3:1
“Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts”.
(read) Isaiah 40
“Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain”:
CONTINUE…
Why all this talk about mountains being made low and valleys being leveled out? The reason is that all of creation is taking part in a celebration of Jesus as king even if we can not see it. (example when the people are crying hosanna in the streets and Christ is sitting on a donkey the Pharisees tell Jesus to tell them to keep quiet, Jesus tells them that if he does even the stones will cry out). The idea here is that the world is rolling out the red carpet. Imagine all being made flat in your minds for a second. REALLY
John will be preparing a highway in the wilderness. The wilderness is the journey to the promised land. Isaiah in this chapter is talking to Hezekiah about how they will be lead into Babylon, but there will be a time that they will be released. The road is the journey out of exile, the end of slavery.
(read) Isaiah 52
Mark has connected the Old Testament with his own writings. So when did the Old Testament end? Did it end with Malachi, or did it end when the Gospel is preached by John. This is the common understanding by the Church. John the Baptist and his baptizing is like the commencement speech of a New Covenant. But it is all about what the prophets said…the two are connected.
So what does it mean, wilderness? Is Jesus planning on arriving somewhere out in the wild, untouched by civilization. The wilderness in the old covenant was such a place. It was a place where no plants were cultivated, weeds, flowers, trees did what was right in their own eyes. Jesus would be born into a different kind of wilderness. He would be born into a wilderness of sinners…where people did what was right in their own eyes, but not just any people, his chosen people. We will see throughout the book an interesting contrast to what might be expected. Jesus own people are looking for a God to please their very shallow and immediate needs, while Gentiles are looking for master of their souls. The worst kind of sin is the disobedience of God's people. The rest of the world was ignorant and blinded, but the Gentiles and few of his own who had the law and the prophets, will actually follow. The sin of God's people was greater (in effect - explain). Sin found a home in the temple, circumcision, and the law, because they were used for the wrong reasons.
(Ex.) These God's chosen ambassadors who were sent to be the light to the world, but they had boarded up the windows to forgiveness with their laws and with their rules about what it means to be the people of God and they had used their status for selfish and wicked reasons. The Pharisees had pulled in the boundary lines of who was officially in or out to a degree that no one else could get inside but themselves. This was a type of “click” that lied to others and made them feel like they ought to be a part, but denying them the ability to do so.
John is sent to prepare the way, he is sent as one who, just before dawn, rolls back the shades, turns the stove on, sets the table, washes the floor, and rings the bell to tell the household to be on their guard to receive this holy gift. He is like one preparing for a huge party – getting everyone all washed up and ready to receive, serve, and enjoy their king.
What happened at Jesus birth? There was no room for the King of the world, not in their hearts or in their homes – (two very similar things we will discuss more about).
In John began the gospel spirit. John was clearing the uncleanness out of his own heart, and the hearts of others and baptizing them. John was baptizing people in the wilderness. John was taking people through the Jordan and reenacting the exile from Egypt. He was then calling on them to be cleansed from their sins, not as if they would be fully forgiven from their sins instantaneously, but so that they would be forgiven when the Holy Spirit came. It was for a future remission of sins that John was preparing them for.
Why water? Water in the Old Testament was used on those who had touched something unclean. Moses kind of baptism was a complicated issue of other sacrifices, depending upon the uncleanness or the certain offense a person may have, there may be a wait for a certain period of time before they can be declared purified. But being washed was the symbol of being brought back to life. The water of the earth was a reminder of life. Unclean = Dead to the community, announced clean meant you were brought back to life among the people again. John’s Baptism was much simpler, and it was a better one, they were ready for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit after John’s cleaning.
John was not just cleansing them and making them ceremonially clean, or just dealing with the issue of forgiving sins, he did this at the Jordan river for a reason. Why?
The Jordan water is a geographical boundary line that God uses to say something spiritual with (never assume that there is something physical which does not communicate spirituality). The natural world , naturally, communicates God. We interact with it and it tells us something about him and he speaks through it. God used this boundary with Moses at the Red Sea and Joshua at the Jordan. He uses it to say that you are no longer the old people from that side of the Jordan but you are this new people on this side of the Jordan. You are the rescued ones drawing nearer to God than ever before, nearer the Promised Land. Passing through the waters of baptism represents passing through the waters of the firmament into the throne room of God. Through the water into a more glorious state.
So John, a new kind of priest has called these people to be baptized under Moses, and the Law without all the extra complexities. The new has elements of the old, it carried with it certain essentials. All the ceremony and old covenant ways were like ingredients, that after Jesus Christ was added to them it was like the yeast that burst all the other stuff into action. It came forth as a new thing. So John is is the base ingredients, water at the Jordan and repentance.
Gen 1:6
Why could John do this? Because God sent him to. John was, by ancestral rite actually a priest. But he was not to be fitted into the clothes of the priesthood and allowed the luxury of a more comfortable life (physically -in terms of food and raiment as well as prestige). But rather he was chosen for a life in the desert. John was a new kind of priest. John did not do this because all that Temple ceremony stuff was useless, John did it because all those signs and wonders and Temple art and robes were trying to point people to what it means to be the people of God, all those things were pointing to Jesus Christ and at the time of Jesus arrival his people could not see past them, they could not see past themselves! So John, unable to lead the people quietly as a priest, was chosen as a screaming prophet trying to get them to look and listen before it is too late.
John takes them back to the Jordan and reminds them, (and us) that something similar to the old days is happening, but it is happening in a new way now. John was preaching the gospel, which meant he was calling on the world to repent. He was trying to make room in people’s hearts for the king of the world. This king wants to forgive sins and live in men’s hearts, but as much as sin is allowed to rule in a heart, that is where Jesus is not welcome. He is not allowed, not because he does not have the right, but because there is no room.
--No room said the Inn Keeper.
