Whenever the opportunity presents itself to recommend to someone where to begin reading the Bible, my first answer is the Gospel according to John. It is deep, it is thought provoking, it is challenging, it is eye-opening… because it is not just the story of the Life of Jesus but also a detailed presentation of how that Life fits into God’s original and still unfolding plan for us. However, in terms of getting acquainted with the story of Jesus, for the first time, probably the easiest route is the Gospel according to Mark.
The Gospel of Mark starts, as writers say, in media res. There is no background given, no preamble, no Nativity scene. We start in the middle of the action, and that pace never lets up. Mark is notable for using several times the phrase “and immediately…” (or, as in Darby’s translation: “and straightway”) thus telling us that one scene leads directly into another. Maybe he does that to get us to consider the active Providence of God… to consider that probably nothing in Jesus’ life happened by chance. After all, this whole Plan of Salvation had to be activated within the span of about three years. That’s all the time Jesus had.
Thence the title of this series.
To me, reading this Gospel is like being caught in a whirlwind and carried along… toward Hope.
Mark 1:1-3 Beginning of the glad tidings of Jesus Christ, Son of God; as it is written in [Isaiah] the prophet, Behold, *I* send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way. Voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of [the] Lord, make his paths straight.
Mark begins by telling us that, first and foremost, we need to know that the Gospel – the good news – of Jesus Christ is indeed good news because He was (and is) the Son of God. This is why the beginning of this story does not start with His birth. Instead, Mark reminds us that, way way back in time, a Plan was put into motion by God and written down for posterity by His prophets. And given the importance of this Plan, it needed to be unmistakable, impossible to ignore. So, God ordained that there would be a herald to tell Israel when its time had come:
Mark 1:4-6 There came John baptising in the wilderness, and preaching [the] baptism of repentance for remission of sins. And there went out to him all the district of Judaea, and all they of Jerusalem, and were baptised by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed in camel’s hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins, and ate locusts and wild honey.
The first thing that made the announcement impossible to ignore was the appearance of the herald (he came dressed like the most powerful prophet in Israel’s history: Elijah (see 2 Kings 1:7–8, and Malachi 4:5)). And to certify that he was the one, He gave his voice supernatural power. As Mark tells us: people from all over Israel flocked to hear his message: large numbers accepting it, confessing their sins, and being baptized.
No one in Israel could have missed that moment. And as soon as John got their attention, he fulfilled his ordained role as the herald by pointing them toward Jesus and to the fact that, in His hands, God’s Plan would unfold with (again unmistakably) Divine Power.
Mark 1:7-8 And he preached, saying, There comes he that is mightier than I after me, the thong of whose sandals I am not fit to stoop down and unloose. *I* indeed have baptised you with water, but *he* shall baptise you with [the] Holy Spirit.
His listeners would have recognized the Divine significance of the Spirit from the beginning of Genesis, where the Spirit of God hovered over the waters at Creation. But what did John mean by saying that Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit? I think, in the context of Jesus being the focal point of the fulfilment of prophecy, John is referring his listeners to the prophet Joel:
Joel 2:25-29 And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of Jehovah your God, who hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.
And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, Jehovah, [am] your God, and there is none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.
And it shall come to pass afterwards [that] I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Yea, even upon the bondmen and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.
The Son of God has arrived
Mark 1:9-11 And it came to pass in those days [that] Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised by John at the Jordan. And straightway going up from the water, he saw the heavens parting asunder, and the Spirit, as a dove, descending upon him. And there came a voice out of the heavens: *Thou* art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight.
There is no escaping this declaration; Mark makes sure of that: If I claim to be a follower of Jesus today, I must mean the Jesus who was and is the Son of the One and Only Living God… He is not just a good man, or a wise teacher, or a hero, or guru, or a model worth emulating. He is the Son of God. And that is the only reason He is worthy of being followed.
Because He is the Son, the enemy’s power is nothing by comparison:
Mark 1:12-13 And immediately the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him.
This is one of the many reasons the Gospel is the good news: Satan, the enemy, who has had free rein over this world since the fall of Adam and Eve, an enemy that has supernatural power and constantly conspires to destroy my life, that enemy is powerless before the Son of God. Is there any doubt what side of this conflict I want to be in?
Because this is God’s Plan it cannot be derailed:
Mark1:14-15 But after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn nigh; repent and believe in the glad tidings.
King Herod imprisoned John and eventually had him killed. But that could not possibly stop the Plan that John ushered into this world. And so, Jesus picked up where John left, using the exact same words as John. And this is another reason why this Gospel is good news for us today: God’s Plan cannot be derailed: Good news for me… and good news for those that I love because there is Hope for them… regardless of where they are standing today. Because if I still have breath tomorrow, I still have the chance to speak the power of the words of this Gospel over their lives and into their hearts.
We are a crucial part of the Plan
We are co-executors of that Plan
Mark 1:16-20 And walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon, and Andrew, [Simon’s] brother, casting out a net in the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said to them, Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men; and straightway leaving their trawl-nets they followed him. And going on thence a little, he saw James the [son] of Zebedee, and John his brother, and these [were] in the ship repairing the trawl-nets; and straightway he called them; and leaving their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, they went away after him.
Just like those disciples were first called, we are called today. And just like they left their old lives behind, once they made their decision, we are called to leave our old lives behind… so that the Promise of that Plan can flow through us to all those around us.
Mark 1:21 And they go into Capernaum. And straightway on the sabbath he entered into the synagogue and taught.
So, Mark tells us that they went into Capernaum. In other words, Jesus’ ministry is their ministry also. They are not in this mission just as students, or as observers, but as active participants. Whatever challenges, whatever hostilities were raised against Jesus in those days, were also raised against the disciples. We should not be surprised if that happens to us today.
The Good News is that the way they responded, the way they lived out their lives even when faced with a hostile world, is the way we can live today.
This is utterly important because if, instead, we try to perform this mission with the attitude of the world, we are going to react with anger at any hostility thrown our way. And neither Jesus nor his disciples lived that way. No matter what the enemy threw at them, they stuck to God’s Plan, His way.
One of the dangers of trying to carry out this mission with a “worldly” attitude, is that we might be tempted to pre-empt the hostility by asking the political powers of this world to defend us.
If that tactic sounds fair and reasonable to me, I need to seriously question who I think Jesus is. Because if He is the Son of the God who made the Universe, infinite in Power beyond any human comprehension, and I have been recruited by Him to work on His Plan, then why would I turn to puny fallible humans for help, instead of Him?
This mission is God’s mission; and we carry it out His way.
Mark will point out to us time and again that this must be our view of reality: That we are participating in a mission with supernatural power; a power that only belongs to God.
Mark 1:22 And they were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as having authority, and not as the scribes.
It is supernatural: The Gospel isn’t normal human speech, or clever argument… not rhetoric… but God actually speaking in the hearing of His children. And they cannot help but recognize that voice.
Do we still sense this? Or have we lulled ourselves into complacency by reading the Scripture over and over, without ears open? If reading the words of the Gospel does not cause my heart to pause and force me to examine my life, I think something has gone wrong in my life.
To make sure we get the point of the reality of this supernatural power, Mark goes on:
Mark 1:23-26 And there was in their synagogue a man [possessed] by an unclean spirit, and he cried out. saying, Eh! what have we to do with thee, Jesus, Nazarene? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the holy one of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And the unclean spirit, having torn him, and uttered a cry with a loud voice, came out of him.
Not only does the Word of God have total absolute power over the enemy, Mark is also telling us that it must be, and always remain, Holy. Mark will point this out again several times; Jesus did not let the demons speak even when what they were saying was true; even when they were glorifying the Son of God.
Why?
Because God is Holy.
And He will not share His glory with anyone else.
This goes back all the way to the first commandment: He is the One and Only God; we cannot put any other god, any other person, even remotely beside Him.
Why not?
Because we humans are utterly fallible and gullible: Someone with worldly power comes to us and tells us they believe in the same God we do, that they support our religion, that they want to give us all that we need and deserve, that they are going to defend us against those heathen that don’t believe in our God… in other words, they tell us that they will protect us from the enemy, and you know what we do? We eventually start treating them like prophets of God, and listening to them instead of God, and giving them power over us.
If this sounds far-fetched, how would you react to these words:
“The national government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life…” [1]
“The government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, is creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.” [2]
“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.” [3]
“We have experienced a miracle, something unique, something the like of which there has hardly been in the history of the world. God first allowed our people to be victorious for four and a half years, then He abased us, laid upon us a period of shamelessness, but now after a struggle of fourteen years he has permitted us to bring that period to a close. It is a miracle which has been wrought upon the German people…. It shows us that the Almighty has not deserted our people, that He received it into favour at the moment when it rediscovered itself. And that our people shall never again lose itself, that must be our vow so long as we shall live and so long as the Lord gives us the strength to carry on the fight.” [4]
“Finally, I would like to say something to those people who keep talking to me about religion: I am also religious, profoundly religious on the inside, and I believe that Providence weighs us human beings.” [5]
Yes, you guessed right… those are the words of Adolf Hitler to his people…
[1] Speech delivered at Berlin 1 February 1933; from Adolf Hitler (1941). My New Order. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. p. 144.
[2] Speech at Reichstag Berlin 23 March 1933; from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 370.
[3] Speech 26 April 1933 made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933; from Ernst Helmreich (1979). The German Churches Under Hitler. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. p. 241.
[4] Speech 19 March 1934 to the Old Guard of the Party at Munich; from Norman H. Baynes, ed. (1969). The Speeches of Adolf Hitler: April 1922-August 1939. 1. New York: Howard Fertig. p. 405.
[5] Speech 26 March 1934; Max Domarus. Speeches and proclamations, 1932-1945. Wauconda IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. 2004, p. 2841.
We don’t need the power of man, we need the power of God.
Because we do not war according to flesh
The message of the Gospel will have an effect on the world around us because it can be recognized by every human being as the Word of the God that created them.
Mark 1:27-34 And all were amazed, so that they questioned together among themselves, saying, What is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. And his fame went out straightway into the whole region of Galilee around.
God will do whatever it takes to keep that message spreading…
And straightway going out of the synagogue, they came with James and John into the house of Simon and Andrew. And the mother-in-law of Simon lay in a fever. And straightway they speak to him about her. And he went up to [her] and raised her up, having taken her by the hand, and straightway the fever left her, and she served them.
But evening being come, when the sun had gone down, they brought to him all that were suffering, and those possessed by demons; and the whole city was gathered together at the door. And he healed many suffering from various diseases; and he cast out many demons, and did not suffer the demons to speak because they knew him.
If that was true of them back then, it is meant to be true of us today: As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (N IV) For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
This awesome power is available to us but…
We can never forget that all this Power comes from God’s Love
Up to this point in this chapter, the Gospel has been poured out in power in the community where Jesus lived. Those miraculous healings and deliverances were blessings for the people in that immediate area. But God’s Love is not meant to be contained or limited to just our close circle…
Mark 1:35-39 And rising in the morning long before day, he went out and went away into a desert place, and there prayed. And Simon and those with him went after him: and having found him, they say to him, All seek thee.
And he says to them, Let us go elsewhere into the neighbouring country towns, that I may preach there also, for for this purpose am I come forth. And he was preaching in their synagogues in the whole of Galilee, and casting out demons.
Thus, the blessing of the Gospel starts pouring outwards, outside our lives, outside our comfort zones, carrying us with it until we understand that there is no one outside its reach; not even the people rejected by society…
…embracing even the Lepers
Mark 1:40-42 And there comes to him a leper, beseeching him, and falling on his knees to him, and saying to him, If thou wilt thou canst cleanse me.
But Jesus, moved with compassion, having stretched out his hand, touched him, and says to him, I will, be thou cleansed. And as he spoke straightway the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
I love this encounter. Here is a man, living in hopelessness, repulsive to his society… who cannot even get close to a synagogue to hear the Word of God… who finds himself day after day living in decay. His only company: his own despairing thoughts and maybe those of the others that, like him, are condemned to the same living death that leprosy was.
Yet, in the middle of that agony, that man heard about Jesus and reached a conclusion, a conclusion that could only be true if He was the Son of God: “If you want to heal me, you can.”
And Jesus honors him, honors that desperate conclusion by using his own words: “I want to: Be healed.” And on top of that, Jesus touches him, He holds that man with His hand as if to tell him: “This is real, this is not a dream, this death that you have lived so long, has no hold on me or on you any longer.”
And then in the middle of that miracle, Jesus also thinks of the religious leaders of his society. Being a prophet, he knows full well they will soon become His enemies. And yet, He thinks of them and their need of the Gospel, and He determines to send them a message they – of all people – could fully comprehend… via the Leper:
Mark 1:43-45 And having sharply charged him, he straightway sent him away, and says to him, See thou say nothing to any one, but go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing what Moses ordained, for a testimony to them.
But he, having gone forth, began to proclaim [it] much, and to spread the matter abroad, so that He could no longer enter openly into the city, but was without in desert places, and they came to Him from every side.
HOPE
Hope because the Plan of Salvation that God promised would come, indeed came: And He sent His own Son to carry it out.
Hope because He won’t let us miss it. The Gospel that reveals the Plan has supernatural power to call us to it.
Hope because the enemy’s power is nothing compared to God’s.
Hope because God’s power has come into our world, our lives, with that Gospel. And He has chosen us not just to experience it but to participate in it. And even if we are but human, in our lips: that Word of the Gospel is still His Word, has His Power, and can save anyone who listens to it with an open heart.
Hope because God will never let His Will and His Plan be corrupted by humanity or the enemy.
Hope because His Power can reach through us to save our loved ones… but also, perhaps more importantly – as part of our mission – everybody else in the world.
Hope because the Power of the Gospel is founded on God’s limitless Love: A Love that will touch the most desperate Leper and give him, give me, Life eternal.