Mark’s Gospel was written shortly after the Jewish war in the year 66 AD. Christians began to face suspicion and gossip and hostility from Rome after the war. What did Christians know of the origin of their faith, and how could they respond to the execution of Jesus, their Founder? Mark collected a written record of Peter’s sermons at that time, and perhaps others, and wrote a Gospel to encourage Christians after a disastrous fire in Rome in 64 AD and after the Jewish war in 66 AD. Christians were arrested in massive numbers because of the fire, and those who professed to be Christians were slaughtered. So Mark showed Christians similarities between what they were facing and what Jesus faced in the desert battling Satan. Mark is the only Gospel to refer to wild beasts in the desert. “12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on Him”
Mark 1:12,13. Mark also reminded Christians that persecution would come: “9 As for yourselves, beware, for they will hand you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them. 10 And the good news (the Gospel) must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit. 12 Sibling will betray sibling to death and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 13 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved”.
From the very beginning of his Gospel Mark wishes to reassure the Christians to stay the course, and so he speaks to them about the promise of Scripture fulfilled in the ministry of John the Baptizer: “2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way,3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight’” Mark 1:2-3. John is important to Mark because he is the forerunner of Jesus and the one who baptizes Jesus. But it is the descent of the Spirit and the declaration of the voice from heaven that is so important. The same Spirit that hovered over the primeval waters at creation (Genesis 1:2) now hovers over a human being, Jesus Christ, suggesting that God intends to transform humanity. And then a voice from heaven speaks: “You are my Son, whom I love: with You I am well pleased”
Mark 1:11. God loves Jesus as an agent of a special mission. It also conjures up the memory of Isaac, another “beloved son” who was offered, but never sacrificed, on the altar. The voice of god does not tell us how Jesus is God’s Son or why God is pleased with Him, but it is a voice that most certainly reflects God’s divine choice of Jesus for a work of salvation of the world.
So today In invite you to read the opening chapter of Mark and consider who Jesus is. Come before Him in prayer today, repent and turn back to Him again.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” John 3:16.
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” 1 John 4:16.
“I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them” Hosea 11:4.
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” Ephesians 1:13.
“2 The earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters”
Genesis 1:2.
Comments