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THE GOSPEL OF MARK – INTRODUCTION

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FOLLOWING JESUS THROUGH MARK’S GOSPEL

INTRODUCTION

Our journey with Jesus must inevitably take us through the gospels because they are the record of much of His life and teachings that we are called to understand and to imitate.

Why Mark’s Gospel first?

According to Biblical scholarship, it is the first and earliest written record of the life and teachings of Jesus and it is the main source of Matthew and Luke.

It is the shortest and simplest gospel, written for Gentile readers, especially the Romans with explanations of some of the Jewish beliefs and practices.

It presents Jesus as the servant of the Lord, which is a powerful model for the disciple to follow.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1: Verses 1-8

 

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,
2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” —
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ’Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 Matthew and Luke begin their stories with the previous generation, Joseph and Mary, Zachariah and Elizabeth, and the events leading up to the birth of their respective sons. Mark’s story is open-ended – no record of who John was, who his parents were, and how he came to be carrying out a prophetic role; no record of Jesus’ human origins. He plonks the reader down in the middle of a story and leaves the other gospel writers to fill in the gaps.

At the same time, though, there’s a kingly majesty about the human figure of Jesus. He has a crier announcing His coming and preparing the way for Him. In true godly fashion, His forerunner is not dressed in finery, coming from the royal court in pomp and ceremony. He bursts from the wilderness because anywhere is God’s royal throne room. He appears from the courts of heaven, from years of tutoring in the wilderness school of God, dressed simply and eating simply. The focus is not on the messenger but on the message.

John was not merely mouthing the words of the prophet Isaiah. He was soaked, marinated in the words of the prophet. He had a burden and a burning in his spirit which, like Jeremiah, he could not keep shut up in his bones. It was a passion so fiery that he released it by shouting it to the wind. At first no-one heard it. He announced it to nature and nature listened.

Then one here, one there, who happened to be in earshot, began to hear, to listen and to call in a friend, a neighbour, a brother, to come and listen. It was a radical message like no other message they had ever heard. Messiah! Kingdom! Holy Spirit! New life! Change! Repent! God is here!

What was this? They had not heard from God in 400 years. Now a strange, scantily clad, wild man appears, shouting so convincingly that they had to respond. A tide of hope begins to rise within them. No man speaks so boldly unless he knows and speaks the truth.

 

Herald Of His Coming

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HERALD OF HIS COMING

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” – “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'” And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Mark 1: 1-4).

Israel’s migration through the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land was recognised in Scripture as symbolic of their journey through life. In order to navigate the treacherous and unknown path, they had to follow the landmarks which God pointed out to them on the way. He promised to accompany them, to show them the right way and to keep them from wandering off the path, getting lost and dying without food and water. His word would light the way for them.

Their destination was Mount Zion, (tsyiown – meaning landmark) the highest point in the city of Jerusalem. God had told them that it was in Jerusalem that He would establish His name. When they were settled in the land, they were to go to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate His appointed feasts which were prophetic of the work of the promised Messiah.

There were obstacles and dangers on the way. If they wandered off the path by failing to keep His commandments, they would die but, if they realised they were lost, they were to return to the path by repenting of their disobedience and by following His instructions (Torah – His commandments) which would keep them on the path and take them to their destination.

It was this imagery which lay behind the opening words of Mark’s gospel. His announcement – “the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, and the Son of God” would put his readers in the picture. Using Hebraic thought, he related the story of John the Baptist whose role was to call the people to repent (shuv – meaning to return to the path from which they had wandered and got lost).

Isaiah had prophesied, centuries before, that God would send a man ahead of the Messiah to prepare His way and to announce His arrival like the herald who would go before a king to alert the people that he was coming. God’s people had wandered off the path through disobedience and misunderstanding of His word. It was now time to come back so that, when Messiah came, they would learn to follow Him because He was God’s representative to bring them back to God through the forgiveness of sins and to show them the way to the Father by His perfect life.

Mark wanted his readers to understand that John’s appearance and message fitted perfectly into God’s prophetic timetable. He was no upstart preacher, some crank who dressed funny and spoke funny, but His appointed herald to prepare the way for His Messiah. John’s message was a clarion call to return to the way of Yahweh – to come out of the wilderness where for centuries they had wandered around with no one to show them the right way.

They had not heard God’s voice for four hundred years after the ministry of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament prophets. Now, at last, God began to speak again, through John, the last of the prophets of the old era. His role was to prepare the way for the Son of God who came from God not only to speak God’s word but to be God’s final word to His people. If they did not listen to Jesus, God had nothing more to say to them.

Jesus did not come from God with a new message. He came from the Father to show His people how to live the way He had instructed them from the beginning. He came to interpret God’s eternal message. He did not come to do away with torah, but to live it out in the spirit of Torah which was the revelation of God’s mercy to show us how it is done.

On the mountain with God in the wilderness, Moses had begged God to show him His glory. God revealed the meaning of His name – mercy and compassion. In the flesh Jesus became the meaning of God’s name by showing mercy and compassion to His people, culminating in His death to rescue them from the consequences of and slavery to sin.

Just as John the Baptist called his people to shuv – to return to the way of the Lord, so the Holy Spirit still calls His people today. Jesus issued one simple instruction to the twelve men who became His disciples – “Follow me,” and the instruction has not changed. The church of the Lord Jesus has, in the main, become lost in the wilderness of ignorance and sin again because its leaders and those who follow them have ignored His call and made up their own way.

A lady made a profound statement to me in conversation recently, “Without Jesus, all we have left is religion.” How true that is! Many churches have plenty of religion but no Jesus. How tragic that mere humans have usurped His place and taken His people off the path and back into the wilderness where they have become exactly what His people were when He came – harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

John’s message is as relevant today as it was then: “Repent! Return to God’s way because the good news is that Jesus is here!”

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

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The Gospel of John, Chapter 1 – Unity, Life, Light

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THE GOSPEL OF JOHN – CHAPTER ONE

UNITY, LIFE, LIGHT

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5 (NIV).

Have you ever read Genesis 1 and wondered where the light came from in days one to three when God only created the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day? Or perhaps you didn’t notice!

John’s gospel begins somewhat differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke. Like the book of Genesis, he begins with “In the beginning…” The beginning of what? Certainly not the beginning of God because He was already there in the beginning. And so was the Word.

Who was the Word, and why was He called “the Word”? According to Hebrew thought, God’s Word is a manifestation of Himself in another form. So the Word can be written, as we have it in the Bible, or it can be a person; and that person was the second person of the Trinity who came in human form to speak to us about the Father and to show us what He is like.

The writer to the Hebrews put it like this: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He also made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by His powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:1-3, NIV).

John tells us that the Word was with God in the beginning and that He was God. Does that sound like He, the Word, and God were two separate persons and yet one? He did what God did — He created everything. In Genesis 1 God created the universe through His word. He spoke and creation happened. But Jesus is the Word. Through Him it all came into being. It’s a mystery, isn’t it? What was John trying to tell us?

If Jesus and God were in it together, creating the universe by speaking it into being, then they must be two separate persons and yet, since they were both doing the God-thing — creating — then they must both be God. Two, yet one? Not one person but one in nature, one in essence, one in power, one in purpose — what the Bible calls echad — unity, not two Gods.

Here’s a simple illustration: God created Adam — one person. Then He took a piece of Adam and from it He fashioned Eve – two people. Then He brought them together in marriage and told them that they were to become one flesh — echad — the same word as the Hebrew creed, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one…” — echad,  Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV). They were to be a visual aid of unity because they were to be a reflection of the image of God — one.

John’s next theme is life. Life is much more than just being physically alive. It is the kind of life that willingly does what it can to make the lives of others better. It reflects the nature of God, is generous and kind and in touch with God and responsive to His will.

Now John introduces another theme — light, which is closely connected to life. Our first reaction is to think of visible light but again, Hebrew thought was different. They would ask the question, “What does light do?” Light reveals, exposes, illuminates and enables us to see pictures. Darkness is the absence of light. Again, according to Hebrew thought, light is everything that causes creation to function in unity while darkness is everything that disrupts unity and causes life to unravel.

When Satan was thrown down to the earth because of his rebellion against God, he brought darkness to the planet, both physical and moral darkness. “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep…” Genesis 1:2 (NIV).

Before God created the first human, the potential for him to be influenced by the evil one was already on the earth. It makes sense that God would not leave human beings to live in the environment of Satan’s influence without being able to choose to live in the light. So, according to John, God assigned the Second Person of the Trinity, who was the Word, to be present on earth by His Spirit to teach Adam and his descendants to live God’s way, which is to live in the light.

The Word was not only present and active in creation, He was also continuously active on the earth to influence His human creatures to love and obey Him and to live in fellowship with Him so that all of God’s creation could live in echad as a perfect reflection of their Creator.

That was God’s intention from the beginning but things went horribly wrong…