Mark 1: 1-4
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”
John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Comment:
Mark’s gospel doesn’t mention anything about the series of events dealt with at length by Matthew. He jumps into deep water simply talking about Jesus (his given name) Christ (another word for the promised one or the messiah) and adds the Son of God. To his Jewish readers to consider God having a son was blasphemous. The gentile readers of his day believed that members of their pantheon of gods used to to skip into the man-world for a bit of sex often and there were thus, according to them, many ‘sons of the gods’. It seems to me that Mark has taken on a huge task to convince the Jews that Jesus is God’s Son and the to convince the gentiles that Jesus is very different from their understanding of what son of god means. Having read Mark previously I think that he tackles his task with great skill. He shows Jesus in control over demon possession; physical disease; that he has the power to forgive sin; power over nature; power over death; but that needs time to read the book through. In the first 5 chapters he deals with all of these situations, and challenges us to call him (Mark) a liar or face the fact that Jesus was/is the Son of God.
John the Baptist is introduced as a fore-runner of this the Son of God.
Prayer: Please help me to make right decisions concerning what I believe and how I live!
As I read it! 