Mark 1:1-8

I don’t know how many times I had read the beginning of this gospel before it struck me the first word in Greek of this passage. It does not merely, nor usually, mean the “chronological beginning.” The word means “the foundation” or the “basic principle” of the good news “of” Jesus Christ, the son of God. This “of” itself is ambiguous. It can mean both “belonging to Jesus” and “about Jesus.” The first sentence serves to introduce the whole work, its original title.

Given this, why would it start as it does? Why does it start with a quote from the prophets? What does this say about the “good news about Jesus Christ” and its “beginning”? As the story unfolds, how does the Gospel of Mark interpret who John the baptizer is? Who does this make Jesus? How is the one “coming after me” described? It is hard to see, but of course, to baptize means to “give a bath”? Why would this image be used for the “one who is coming”? What happens as this one “comes”? How is John the baptizer “making his paths straight”?

Isaiah 40:1-11

As you read the Isaiah passage, you will notice that it quotes the passage to which Mark refers. Look where this occurs in the overall passage. How does what comes before and after the specific verse that Mark quotes help understand why he quoted it? What is not apparent is that Isaiah 40 itself refers to a passage that “comes before” it. Read Isaiah 6:8-13. What does this apply about what Isaiah 40 proclaims? What does the passage suggest is coming after this judgment? What is the “Lord” who is coming bringing forth through the one who prepares the way? Why is it now a time of comfort? Why should we not fear?

2 Peter 3:8-15a,18

The passage from 2 Peter, in looking to the coming judgment of God in the return of Christ, seems to respond to the fact that despite the first generation of believers in Jesus expectation that Jesus would return soon, Jesus had not in fact returned. It helps us to remember that our hope for the return of Jesus is based upon God’s justice, Christ’s first coming and his resurrection from the dead, not upon some sort of timeline that we can draw from the Scriptures and merging it with a selective drawing of contemporary events. What is the reason for the delay, according to 2 Peter? What does this say about the justice of God? Does the call to the lives of believers change at all in the delay of Christ’s return? How does 2 Peter exhort us to “prepare the way of the Lord”? How does 2 Peter help us to read and live both Isaiah 40 and Mark 1.

After reading all these passages, what is it, at this point, that is the “beginning” of the gospel of/about Jesus Christ, the Son of God? What are some concrete ways that we can participate in this “beginning”?