The Gospel of Mark Begins Today!

Today we begin our Lenten reading plan through the Gospel of Mark. The readings are assigned to the weekdays between now and Easter, with the exception of Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, each of which has a reading assigned to it as well.

Don’t forget that we have 3 Ash Wednesday services today: 7:00-7:20 AM; 12:00-12:20 PM; 7:00-7:45 PM.

Also, don’t forget that we’ll have daily online Bible study every weekday morning, 7:00-7:10 AM, starting TODAY. Join us via www.facebook.com/mungerplace or www.mungerplace.LIVE.

And, I’ll be teaching two churchwide Bible studies on Mark: 3/9 and 3/30, 6-7 PM.

Now, on with the show.

P.S. I’ve included my sermon kicking off the Mark series at the very bottom of the post.

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Mark 1:1-13

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

1 The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’”

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

The Baptism and Testing of Jesus

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

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Mark hits the ground running, starting his Gospel with the events that are taking place in Israel as Jesus launches his public ministry. John the Baptizer is at a symbolic site—the Jordan River—and is preparing Israel to enter into a new Promised Land. Just as centuries before Israel crossed the Jordan, now is the time for God to do a new thing, and the people need to be spiritually ready. And so Jesus goes to John and endorses John’s ministry as he launches his own ministry, showing to everyone that he will be the new Moses who takes God’s people into a new Promised Land. The Holy Spirit’s presence on Jesus is proof that his mission is a divine mission—the Father loves and endorses the Son with the gift of the Spirit. (Note the Trinitarian language!)

And that’s what makes the next sentence so powerful: Jesus is immediately driven by the Spirit into a wilderness of temptation and testing. In other words, sometimes difficulty and suffering have a purpose in preparing us for our God-given mission.

How might God be preparing you today?

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First sermon in our Mark series: “The Translucent World.”

The Translucent World from Munger Place Church on Vimeo.

The Gospel According to Mark

For the next 2 months, I'm going to be reading and blogging through the Gospel of Mark. Here's what you need to know.

These Are Saint Peter's Memoirs

The earliest tradition we have (dating from the end of the 1st century AD!) links Mark to the Apostle Peter, and Marks's Gospel is filled with the kind of eyewitness details that one would expect from Peter's preaching: details that do not make any difference to the plot, but are the kind odd details an eyewitness would remember. For example, when Jesus is about to feed the 5,000, Mark tells us, "Then he commanded them all to sit down on the green grass" (Mark 6:39, emphasis added), or when Jesus heals Jairus's daughter, Mark, who is writing in Greek, records the Aramaic phrase that Jesus actually used: "Taking her by the hand he said to her, 'Talitha cumi,' which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, arise'" (Mark 5:41). Neither the detail about the green grass nor the recounting of Jesus's literal words makes any difference to the story; they are the kind of details that Peter the eyewitness would never forget. There are many more eyewitness details like this.

Mark Has Arranged Peter's Preaching to Make a Point

And yet Mark has done more than just put down on paper Peter’s eyewitness testimony about Jesus: Mark has shaped his material to bring a particular question into prominence. That question is the central question of history, Who Is Jesus? That is the question that Jesus puts to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29), and it is the question that ultimately every person must answer for himself or herself.

Mark's is the Shortest Gospel

Mark begins not with the birth of Jesus--as do Matthew and Luke--nor with a meditation on on the cosmic significance of Jesus--as does John. Rather, Mark begins with the wild prophet John the Baptist baptizing the adult Jesus in the Judean Wilderness. From that startling beginning, Mark's Gospel hurtles forward, skipping over much of the teaching material in the other gospels (there is no "Sermon on the Mount" in Mark, e.g.) and the famous parables of Jesus, all leading up to the horrifying crucifixion of the Son of God. Mark's is a mysterious, powerful little book.

Let's Begin

And so, I'd like to invite you to read along with me each weekday, starting today and finishing on Tuesday, July 2. Each day's reading will take less than 5 minutes to read--you can do this. To help, each weekday I'll write a brief reflection on that day's reading. Here's today's:

The baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan by John the Baptist seems to have been one of the spiritual highpoints of Jesus's life, and the moment when his identity of the incarnate Son of God was confirmed:

⁹ At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰ Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Mark 1:9-11

And yet immediately after that moment of spiritual intensity, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert to be tested:

¹² At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, ¹³ and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Mark 1:12-13

Here's the point: don't make the mistake of thinking that the hard times you're facing mean that the Lord has abandoned you. In fact, it might be because of his love for you that the hard times have come: diamonds are only made when pressure is applied.

Today's Scripture

Mark 1:1-15

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