Having only yesterday finished Luke’s orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us (Luke 1:1), the life of Jesus the Messiah, today we go back to the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1). As we do so, it’s worth noting the differences between Mark’s and Luke’s “beginnings”.
Whereas Luke tells us all about the birth of Jesus, and some details of His early life, Mark gets right into what he calls “the gospel”, the revelation of Jesus as the Messiah, for all to see and believe. In chapter 1 verse 2 he brings us to John the Baptist (who appears in chapter 3 in Luke). He doesn’t tell us as much about John’s ministry, or his interaction with those who came to him to be baptized. Instead, Mark proceeds directly to John’s proclamation about the Messiah: the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:7-8). ”The gospel”, after all, is about the Messiah, who is then revealed in Jesus of Nazareth to John, who hears the voice from heaven saying, You are my Son, the Beloved; with You I am well pleased (Mark 1:11). In Mark, we get right to the point of it all, that in Jesus God has come to be among us, to connect us to Himself, to suffer and die for us that we may have real life.
We would do well to remember, in all of our questions of faith and various beliefs about the nature of things, that, at the center of it all, is Jesus. He is the Main Character of our life. And, on occasion, we would do well to strip things back to the Core of it all, Him, and make that our faith, and our message.
