MARKAN MEDITATIONS

Meditations in the Gospel of St. Mark

St. Mark 1:1-8

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THE GOSPEL of Mark plunges strait into the account of the ministry of Jesus, unlike Matthew and Luke which give some account of Christ's birth, or John which tells us of Christ's eternal existence before he was born at Bethlehem. Mark instead has one opening verse in which he tells the astounding and glorious news that Jesus is the Son of God. Not 'a son of God' but 'The Son of God', totally unique. It is the declaration that God had come amongst us to save us.

These opening verses of the Gospel tells us of the preparations, arranged by God, for the ministry of Jesus. Let us notice three great truths.

Firstly, the desperate condition of the human heart. There was no way that the Jews realised how unprepared they were to receive their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no way any human being, of themselves, can understand the desperate state of their human condition. There is always the feeling that generally speaking human beings are good at heart. Where there is some understanding of the chronic state of moral and spiritual sickness of the human condition, there is always the feeling that humanity itself can find the answer.

Mark's Gospel commences with the account of what God did to prepare people for the coming of Jesus. He sent John the Baptist to tell them their need and where that need could be met. So John preached repentance, which must involve bringing people to view how God sees their behaviour and bringing them to be ashamed of their behaviour. There can be no forgiveness of sins without being sorry for our sins. So we read in verse 3 John preached repentance for the remission of sins.

Repentance, however, cannot of itself forgive sins or make the sinner better in himself or before God, so in this preparatory work, God ordained that the Baptist would point to Jesus who was the one who would bring in forgiveness which was full and free. This pattern is the essence of Gospel preaching, and the two must always go together and never be separated. To preach the law without the Saviour only depresses and fails. To preach the Saviour without people understanding why they need a Saviour, means that they come to Jesus for less than true saving reasons.

As the prophecy from Isaiah, which is quoted here, tells us, the human heart, without a very powerful changing working done to it, is like the wilderness which is impregnable and impassable. The fact that God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus, tells that human beings are in such a state of darkness spiritually that Jesus will mean nothing to us unless we are prepared for Jesus

Secondly, the Good News in Jesus. These opening verses tell us three great truths about Jesus as Saviour. Firstly, that he is the Son of God. It is God himself who has come down to this world to answer our great need. It is God who was ready to take our flesh so that he could represent us and substitute himself for us, and so act to save us. It is God in love who has come near us to deliver us. Secondly, these opening verses tell us that Jesus is Lord (v3). Here is the Gospel revelation that Jesus has authority and power to accomplish all he came to do. He is the Lord, and when we place ourselves under his rule, he will not fail us, but will deliver us from all the ills and conditions of humanity. He will bring us to God, for God has given him all authority in heaven and earth to do this. Thirdly, Jesus in the Baptiser in the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist could do nothing to save sinners. He could only lead them to Jesus. His baptism of repentance was never enough. Jesus is an effective Saviour. The Baptism in the Spirit which is being spoken of here is all the work of the Holy Spirit to apply to the penitent soul the Salvation Jesus won for us in his life and death. Jesus not only worked salvation, but he Baptises in the Holy Spirit so that his salvation may be made ours, with all its blessings. There is nothing which our Lord has left undone to save us.

Thirdly, we learn of the eternal love of God. We may take the quotation from Isaiah in our stride. However it tells us that the coming of the Saviour and the preparation ministry of John the Baptist was all planned a long long time before it took place. This quoting of the prophecy not only tells us of the foretelling, but opens to us the underlying purpose of God that runs all through the Bible.

God from the very beginning, even at the moment Adam sinned, promised the Saviour. All through the Old Testament more and more of God's plans to save the world are opened up to us. In fact Paul reveals to us in Ephesians chapter 1 that the salvation in Christ and the ones to be saved had been determined before creation (Ephesians 1:4,5). That this saving action came from the grace of God towards humanity, in their desperate plight, is also what Paul lets us know in verse 6 of Ephesians 1.

Here is God's eternal attitude towards us sinners - an attitude of grace and love. In this opening of Mark's Gospel, Mark is at pains to point out this love and grace by showing us that the coming of the Saviour had been eternally planned as is revealed in the fact that the coming of Jesus, and why he came, is foretold in the Old Testament.

So in these opening verses we are told, before the account of all that Jesus did to save us is told, that Jesus is the Saviour sent by God in love to save us. It is the introduction to all that follows and gives us expectation of all the blessings which Jesus provides.