Will Fitzgerald
(Advent 2, Year B; Mark 1:1-8)
No reader comes to a book knowing nothing, and no reader comes to a book without certain conceptions and preconceptions of what they’re going to find in the text. Mark’s gospel is the shortest and probably the earliest of the four gospels, and in many ways it is the sparest gospel, with less explanation and more action than the others. It shows more, and tells less, than the other gospels. Things happen. Mark uses ‘and immediately’ a lot.
But that doesn’t mean that Mark leaves his readers completely without notes. In the first chapter a lot happens, but Mark tells us what he’s about. Immediately:
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (1.1)
or, as the King James version has it:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Traditionally, this gospel (which never names its author) is attributed to Mark, a disciple of Peter. Although this tradition goes back as far as 120 A.D., we can’t be certain who the author was. But, assuming this gospel is the earliest gospel (which, I think, most scholars of all bents agree on), ‘Mark’ is creating a whole new way of telling a story: a ‘gospel,’ a ‘good spiel’ or ‘good news’, an ‘euangelion’ (Εύαγγέλιον) from the Greek words for ‘good’ and ‘message/news’.
I don’t know what was going on in the heads of the original listeners and readers. Maybe they would have in mind the announcement of the Roman Caesars that they brought good news. If the Mark tradition is correct, he probably wrote from Rome; but in any case, the Roman influence was very strong everywhere. Maybe they had in mind the passages from the Malachi and Isaiah and the other prophets, such as from the reading from Isaiah today:
Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” (Is 40:9)
But whatever conceptions and preconceptions those early readers might have had, they would have heard the plain words: “good news.” Mark is telling a story, he’s bringing the message, he’s spreading the news: and the news is good.
And again, I don’t know what conceptions and preconceptions those early readers have about hearing the title “Christ” or “Messiah.” Did they immediately of a secular leader who would save Israel, or the oppressed, or something of that sort? And when they heard ‘Son of God,’ were they thinking of just a Roman hero, or an angelic being, or an anointed king? [1]
Who knows?
Whatever concepts and preconceptions those early readers might have had, they would have heard the plain name: Jesus. This good news is ‘the good news of Jesus.’ It’s either the good news that Jesus brought, or it’s the good news about Jesus: it’s hard to say what Mark meant. It’s very likely that he meant both, for, of course, he records both the teachings and the biography of Jesus. And in essence, I think, this is what a ‘gospel’ is: it records the good story of the life of Jesus and what he accomplished; and it records the good message that Jesus brings.
So, Mark gives his readers and listeners huge hints about what this story is all about. It’s good news of Jesus, who is the Christ, the Messiah; who is the Son of God. Whatever they might understand by those terms, he’s revealed his purpose, and we are in the privileged position of knowing that.
And (appropriately for this season of Advent preparation), Mark starts his story with John who proclaims ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.’ And John’s message took hold among many, as God’s work does from time to time: people from the countryside and from the city of Jerusalem itself—from all of the inhabitable places of city and farm—stream out to the wilderness where John was preaching. His life was as spare as Mark’s writing: stripped of all luxury and almost every possession, John preached a simple message: strip yourselves of your sins, change your minds, change your ways and be baptized (in the river, you notice—probably no little sprinkling for John, but full-out dunking; he was ‘the Baptist’ after all).
Over and above the good that comes from repentance, John declares they should repent for another reason, too: the Lord is coming, and we need to turn away from our sins—which after all, primarily are actions and habits and ways of thinking that separate us from God—so that when the Lord appears, we will be worthy of God and fit to be in his presence. In this, I think, John was only half right, for the whole good news is the grace that God brings though Jesus, the Son of God. But this takes us ahead in Mark’s story, and perhaps we should return chapter one, to return a season of advent waiting for the Lord’s appearing.
Again, we are in the place of waiting for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. Again, we are in the place of reliving, along with the characters in Mark’s gospel the anticipation of the first arrival of Jesus and his message. Again, we are in the place of waiting for the Lord to return again for his people.
As we read in 2 Peter:
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire?
But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish; and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.
So, let me suggest that we each take a special time out this week to meditate on ‘preparing and hastening’ the coming of the Lord by considering how we fall short of God’s ideal of holiness and godliness. Perhaps we could use the following questions to consider what changes we need to enact to be better prepared to receive the coming of the Lord:
As you do this, remember the whole good news: Jesus came to heal the sick, not the healthy; and Jesus will provide his Holy Spirit to repair and heal our sin-sick souls. But sometimes, before we can hear good news, we need to remember the bad news.
Hark, the glad sound! the Saviour comes,
The Saviour promised long;
Let every heart prepare a throne,
And every voice a song.
[1] See comments at http://www.montreal.anglican.org/comments/badv2l.shtml