We get the English word gospel from the old English word gōdspel. Now spel means to report of to tell news, and so with the prefix it looks like it could mean to tell news about God. Except that the prefix actually isn’t god, but instead means good. And so gōdspel, just like gospel, means the good news, or proclaiming good news. And that is the message that starts the gospel of Mark, “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Now we could probably spend our whole time just unpacking that single line, but we’re not going to, except to say that the Greek word for good news there, is the word that the old English gōdspel was trying to capture and that is euangelion. In looking at that word, I’m sure you can see some antecedents of some English words, like evangelist and also angel, which is appropriate as those who bring good news. But it had broader meaning than that as well. It was the news that was brought, it was the person who brought the news and it was also the word used for a reward given to the person bringing the news. So we still have the expression don’t kill the messenger, which would sometimes happen, but the opposite of that was that a reward would be given to someone who brought good news. Same word. And so we have reference to this in several famous Greek works, including Homer and Plutarch and Cicero. And yet, it appears that Mark is doing something very different here with this word. Mark is saying is that this good news is not just about the message, but it’s about the messenger himself. That Jesus is not just the bringer of the good news, but the good news himself and that appears to be unique.
Now Paul, who is responsible for the earliest Christian writings that we have, had also used the term euangelion as good news, but he was primarily referencing to the death and resurrection of Jesus. And although Mark has been said to be a passion narrative with a long introduction, he appears to be the first to be making not just the connection that he is, but also possibly creating a new genre of literature, the gospel. There is lots of argument of whether that is what Mark is doing here, as he doesn’t actually call this work a gospel, and there is speculation of whether he was building off of other works already in existence that we no longer have access to. But, this is a different type of work than what we know existed at the time, such as the works about great men, thinking things like Plutarch’s Lives. Luke’s gospel is very similar to that type of work, but Mark is not. He is doing something different, and again that’s encapsulated in this opening line “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
What Mark is telling us here is
that he is not writing a biography. He is not writing history. Instead, he is
writing theology. He has a very particular message that he is going to set out
to tell us not just about Jesus as a great man, but Jesus first as Christ. And
although we often treat Christ as part of his name, it’s actually a title, as
Christ is the Greek for the word Messiah. And then in some manuscripts it’s
followed by saying that he is the son of God, which is part of the confession
of faith that is so important to Mark, as we will see in a few weeks. There is
no ambiguity here about who Jesus is, or what his life means, Mark is being as
blunt as he can be in setting his story and purpose out right at the start.
Jesus is the son of God and he not only came to bring us the good news of God,
but he was himself the good news.
One of the problems we often have when we approach the
gospels, in particular the synoptic gospels which are Matthew, Mark and Luke,
is that we think they tell us the same story, because in fact we do have
similar stories found in these three. And these similarities are exacerbated by
the fact that we most often hear just bits and pieces of them as they are read
on Sunday or in devotionals. We rarely see the whole story being told in its
entirety. Now one of the good things about Mark, and I have to say that it is
my favorite gospel, is that it is short enough to be read in a single setting
so you can see how things are grouped together, and how the story progresses,
and how parts relate to each other and support each other and explain each
other. Mark is a great story teller, even in its very abbreviated form as
compared to the other gospels. And Mark has a very particular story to tell
about discipleship and the cost of discipleship that is different from the
other gospels, and so that’s what we are going to be exploring for these next
few weeks as we make our through Mark.
And one crucial piece that marks Mark as different,
certainly from Matthew and Luke, is the fact that he does not have a birth
narrative. He jumps right from his opening line into the story of John the
Baptist. In fact, the gospel also does not have the ending we all expect it to
have either, which is why I have named Mark as the gospel without a beginning
or an end, trademark. But that start is very intentional as we begin in the
wilderness, which is crucial, and much of Jesus’ ministry in Mark takes place
outside of Jerusalem. It takes place on the margins, on the edges, in the
extremes. According to the national myth of the time, Jerusalem was the center
of the world, the place that the entire world would come to submit, but here,
instead, Mark says that “all of Judea and Jerusalem” were going out to the
wilderness. They were turning from the Temple, or perhaps turning around from
the Temple, as to repent means to turn around, and going away from what was
supposed to be the center, to the margins, and, as one commentator says, it was
at the margin were salvation was being generated. And that tells us something
about what this good news is and whom this good news is for.
When we are living lives of brokenness, when we feel
unconnected from God, from each other, even from ourselves, it’s easy to think
that we are living in the wilderness, lost and alone. And yet think of all of
the stories of wilderness that we have in scripture, and what do people find
there? They encounter God. In fact, I have not done a systematic study of this,
but I’m guessing we might have more people encountering God in the wilderness
than they do certainly in towns, or even in religious places, like the Temple.
And so people are going to the wilderness with John to encounter, to receive
the forgiveness offered to them by God, perhaps because they feel too judged by
the religious figures in Jerusalem. Jesus goes to the wilderness to receive
baptism, which becomes tied up in repentance and forgiveness, and then leading
to the Kingdom of God, and in the waters of baptism he receives the Holy
Spirit. The gift that John says Jesus will give. And while the translation we
heard today says the sky was torn apart, the verb there is a little more
violent, of shredding, and it is exactly the same verb used when Jesus is
crucified when the curtain in the Temple is torn in two, that the divide
between the sacred and the ordinary, between God and the people, is torn apart
and removed. And perhaps that too plays into the idea of wilderness. And so
part of the good news that we are to hear and to receive is that when we are in
our own wilderness that God is present for us, maybe even more so, and that we
are not alone in that moment. And perhaps that is the message that we are to
convey to others as well. That is part of our good news, but it also requires
us to move outside of our comfort zones, the safety of our religious life and
customs, and to see what God is doing in the world and to seek to participate
in that reality.
But the other piece that comes with John is the set-up for
the cost of discipleship. We are told that John, fulfilling the prophecy of
Isaiah, and also of Malachi, who is also referenced in verse 2, is the one who
is preparing the way. And a thought I’ve been thinking about for a while is
that the earliest followers after Easter were not called Christians, that
doesn’t come until later, but instead were called followers of the way. And so
how is John preparing the way? And how are we called to prepare the way,
because we know of Easter when we read Mark, as did Mark and all those who
originally heard it, the community for which it was written, who were waiting
and preparing for the coming of Christ again, something we remember during
communion as an eschatological expectation, remembering that eschatology is
about the end of time, the second coming of Christ. Are we offering the good
news to others and preparing the way for others to encounter Christ, or are we
standing in the way of that, or putting up stumbling blocks. And more
importantly for Mark, are we ready to prepare the way by accepting the cost of
discipleship. Because what John the Baptist sets up in preparing the way is
that he is first arrested by the authorities, which begins Jesus ministry, and then
he too will be executed. And so we have a definitive example of the cost of
discipleship being set up immediately by Mark.
And then for one more time we hear the good news as Jesus. After John’s arrest, after Jesus’ own wilderness experience, he says “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” And then Jesus proceeds to show us both that good news and also what the Kingdom looks like and calls for us to participate, and we do that because, like Jesus, when we are baptized we too receive the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit gives us what? Power. That was a test. And the Spirit is God’s presence for us here, moving and working in us and on us and among us, and helping to remind us that when we are baptized we too are claimed as God’s own. That we are adopted in the waters as God’s own beloved children; that God says to each of us “You are my beloved; in you I am well pleased.” We are who God says we are. Do you know that? Do you believe it? Do you accept that? Because that is part of the good news that we receive, that Christ offers to us, because, as Paul writes, and we often hear in communion, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that proves God’s love for us. And so as we gather at this table in a few moments, a table that represents not just the gift of God and the love of God, but a reminder of God’s presence in the wilderness of our lives, whatever that may look like, and also a moment that calls us to be transformed through the power of the Spirit so that we too will not only understand the cost of discipleship, but also be prepared and empowered to go forth to prepare the way for the Lord and to proclaim the good news. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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