Good morning! Please open your Bibles to Mark chapter 1. We are starting a new series that’s going to take us through the next several weeks, and we are calling it “GOOD NEWS.”
For the longest time, there were basically just two types of news. There was BAD NEWS, and there was GOOD NEWS. Someone might say, “Well, what about OLD NEWS? Isn’t that a type of news? Well, no. What’s the opposite of new? OLD. So OLD NEWS isn’t really news. It’s olds.
Someone else might say, “What about “NO NEWS?” Wouldn’t that be a type of news? Not really. You can fill in the rest of the saying with me, right?: NO NEWS is… [GOOD NEWS]. So, we are back to just two types of news.
Now, in the last couple of years, we’ve had to acknowledge that there is a third category of news. Along with good news and bad news, there is… FAKE NEWS. We didn’t used to have to worry much about this one. If Walter Cronkite said, “That’s the way it is…” then that’s the way it was.
Not so much, anymore. We live in what many describe as a “post-truth” society. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines “post-truth” as describing a situation “in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts.” And so in a post-truth culture, any news someone hears is filtered through whether or not it conforms to your presuppositions, or advances your emotional argument. So you might as well get ready and buckle up, because the deeper we get into this election year, the more you will hear policiticians on both sides making appeals that are based emotions and beliefs rather than facts. And both sides will claim that they are speaking the truth and that the other side is fake news. Does it make anyone else want to just turn off the news completely? Actually, you have a great opportunity to do that during this season. Every year people often pick something to give up during the season of Lent, the forty days leading up to Easter. And this year, I’m giving up the news. I’m deleting all my news apps, I’m turning off all my notifications, and I’m cancelling the scheduled recordings on our DVR. And I’m telling you because I want you to hold me accountable. You get to ask me if I watched the news this week. You get to ask Trish if I watched the news this week.
Friends, I would suggest to you this morning that a post-truth world needs the absolute truth of the gospel more than ever. The gospel may be the only thing left in our world that can never be accused of being fake news. And I know many of you already know this, but the word gospel itself literally means “Good News.” In the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, the word translated gospel is euangellion. “Eu” meaning “good” and “angellion” meaning message. And someone who proclaimed the euangellion was called a euangellios, or evangelist.
Mark begins his account of the life of Jesus with these words. He says in Mark 1:1 that this is “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” So everything Mark writes is going to be for the purpose of showing that Jesus is the God’s Son and the savior of the world.
Since we are going to be in the gospel of Mark for awhile, we should probably start off by learning a little about who this Mark is. Mark is actually John Mark, a Jewish Roman citizen who lived in Jerusalem. According to Acts 12:12, his home was a meeting place for the early church. His cousin was Barnabas, and he accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey. Mark wasn’t a disciple himself, but most people believe that Peter was his primary source for his gospel.
Mark’s gospel was the first one written, somewhere between 40 and 60 AD. It’s also the shortest gospel, about half the length of Matthew. And more than any other gospel, it focuses on action. If there’s one word that characterizes Mark’s gospel, it’s the word immediately. Mark uses it over thirty times in the gospel. Unlike Matthew and Luke, which both start with a genealogy and a birth narrative, Mark jumps straight into the action with Jesus as a grown man. If you think of Luke as a historian, think of Mark as a journalist—hitting the facts. He includes lots of details that could only have come from an eyewitness.
Let’s go ahead and stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word, and as you are reading, I want you to notice some of these details we talked about:
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a]
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,[b]
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare[c] the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately [there’s our first “immediately”] he saw the heavens being torn open [that’s an eyewitness detail. Even though Matthew and Luke both record Jesus’ baptism, no one else describes the sky being “torn” open] and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased.”
12 The Spirit immediately [there’s another one] drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;[e] repent and believe in the gospel.”
Pray…
Let’s keep going with this idea that Mark is writing like a journalist, providing us with the facts of who Jesus is. What’s the first thing a journalist learns? When you are writing a news story, you need to cover the five W’s:
Remember the Five W’s? Who, What, When, Where, Why
Who: Jesus (v. 1, 9) and John (v. 4)
A name: Jesus. This was a pretty common name in Jesus’ day. It’s the Hebrew name Yeshua, or Joshua, and it means “Yahweh saves.” We get this in Matthew’s gospel, when the angel Gabriel tells Joseph that Mary is going to have a baby, and “you shall call his name ‘Jesus’ [Yeshua] for he will save his people from their sins.”
A title: Christ. Contrary to popular opinion, Christ isn’t Jesus’ last name. Joseph and Mary weren’t Mr. and Mrs. Christ, and Jesus’ brother James wasn’t James Christ. Christ is a title. It’s the Greek word for the Hebrew mashiyach, where we get our word Messiah. It means anointed One, and in the Old Testament is was used to describe prophets (Elisha); priests (Aaron); and kings (David). So it’s a super-significant title for Jesus because he is all three—prophet, priest, and king.
A nature: Son of God. Now, this doesn’t mean Jesus was born of God in a human sense, by an act of procreation between God and the virgin Mary. We need to be clear about this, especially when we are talking to Muslims about Jesus, because they think that’s what we think about Jesus. We need to understand Son of God the way the Jews would have: that Jesus was claiming to be God himself. Mark used it to point to Jesus’ deity, and it is used in the rest of the New Testament as a title to show that Jesus was fully God, with all the characteristics and attributes of God the Father and God the Son. You see it in Philippians 2:6, when Paul says that Jesus was “in very nature God.” Or in Colossians 1:15-19, when he describes Jesus as
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[f] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
One more: Hebrews 1:3
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
There is another very important “who” in these first few verses. His name is John. And the reason he is important is because hundreds of years before Jesus was born, the prophets Malachi and Isaiah said that there would be someone coming before the Messiah to prepare the way for him. A messenger who would be crying out in the wilderness. And so Mark, being the good journalist that he is, gives us the context in verses 2 and 3, and then gets to the facts in verse 4: “John appeared.” And he’s in the wilderness, all jacked up on protein and sugar (because that’s basically what locusts and wild honey is), and he’s preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And this is crazy, because Jews from all over Jerusalem and Judea are coming to get baptized. And the reason this is crazy is because at this time, Jews didn’t get baptized for repentance. They would practice ritual cleansing, but a baptism of repentance? That was something you would only do if you were a Gentile converting to Judaism. Yet, here’s John, baptizing Jews left and right. And we realize that John is preparing the way for something new. He is initiating people into a new way of relating to God--A relationship with God that isn’t based on being born a Jew, but on being born again.
This helps answer a question that probably a lot of you have wondered about. I know I have: why was Jesus baptized, if he didn’t need to repent? Jesus never sinned, so he had no need of a baptism of repentance. So why is he being baptized here? And I think it accomplishes two things. Number one, it sets an example for us. In Matthew’s account, Jesus tells John that it is necessary in order to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15).
Second, Jesus’ baptism isn’t so much an initiation as a coronation. It identifies Jesus to the people as the divine Son of God. Look at verse 10:
10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son;[d] with you I am well pleased.”
Here we see all three Persons of the Trinity: God the Son coming out of the water; God the Holy Spirit descending on Him like a dove, and God the Father speaking from heaven. It is an incredibly significant moment for the people that are watching this. And there’s something else about this that’s really, really cool: I mentioned before that Mark is the only gospel writer to say that the heavens were “torn open” at Jesus’ baptism. There’s only one other time in the gospel of Mark that the word “torn” is used. Can you guess where? [Pause].
Three years later, Jesus would hang on a cross. And when he breathed his last, Mark wrote that
38 And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he[a] breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son[b] of God!” (Mark 15:38-39)
The curtain of the temple was what separated the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God resided, from the rest of the temple. And at both His baptism and at His crucifixion, Jesus tore open that which was separating holy God from sinful man. At both his baptism and His crucifixion, Jesus was revealed as the Son of God.
The Who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And the What is The Gospel (v. 15)
This passage starts and ends with an emphasis on the gospel. Verse 1: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
And then at the end—after Jesus is baptized, after Jesus is tempted, we see it again. Skip down to verses 14- 15 for a minute:
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand;[e] repent and believe in the gospel.”
So Mark’s book is the gospel. Jesus’ message is the gospel. We are responsible to repent and believe in the gospel. So what is the gospel?
The gospel is the royal announcement that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived a perfect life in our place, died a substitutionary death on the cross for our sins, rose triumphantly from the grave to launch God’s new creation, and is now exalted as King of the world. It is an announcement that the war for our souls, which started in the Garden of Eden ended at the Garden tomb.
And it is a proclamation that calls for rebels everywhere to lay down their arms. This is the WHY of the gospel .
The royal proclamation requires a response. Repentance and belief.
Repentance is an inward change. It’s the Greek word metanoia, and it literally means to change your mind. When we repent, we mourn over and turn from our sin. Imagine you’ve been on your feet for hours. You are tired of walking. You are weary of standing. All you can think of is the pain in your feet, the weariness in your body [marathon illustration?] This is repentance. I’m sorry I ever signed up for this race.
Belief is the Greek word pistis. It is an outward action. It means to put your trust in. And not just trust Jesus as one of many options. But to trust in him completely as the only option. To go back to the marathon illustration, belief is when you finally trust that the race is over, and you don’t have to run anymore. You give up. And you get the medal.
[Illustration: Steve Blume giving his medal to a St. Jude patient.]
There are two more of the five W’s of journalism that Mark covers in this passage, and I want to deal with both of them as we bring this message to a close and consider how it applies to us. And I know these are different from the order that’s on your listening guide, but love me anyway.
Where did all this take place? Mark gives us the answer multiple times: The wilderness (v. 4, 12)
• Verse 3: there’s going to be a voice of one crying “in the wilderness.”
• Verse 4: John is baptizing “in the wilderness.”
• Finally, in verse 12,
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Mark really wants us to know that this part of the story takes place in the wilderness!
Why is this such a big deal? Well, think about a wilderness. In the New Testament, the word is used over fifty times. Sometimes it describes a literal place—a desert, a dry place, a place where nothing is growing, or a place of soltude. But sometimes it describes people. A woman unloved by her husband. Sheep desterted by their shepherd. A desert isn’t just a physical place, it’s a spiritual place.
Is it a place where you are right now?
And the amazing good news of the gospel is that Jesus has come into our wilderness! He left His home in heaven and entered into our dry, desolate, barren, unloved, uncared for wilderness. He faced down the devil in the wilderness. He was with the wild animals in the wilderness (another detail that is unique to Mark’s gospel). And Jesus alone can bring life to the desert.
The question is, are you ready for him to bring life to your desert? This brings us to the last of the five W’s: When:
There’s two indications of time in this passage. You see the first one in verse 5: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee.” We’ve talked before about how Greek uses two different words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos: calendar time, interval. This is what’s implied in verse 5. And I mention it because you need to understand that Jesus was a real person. He walked on the earth at a specific time—in those days. During the time of Herod. At the height of the Roman empire. He came from a real place—a tiny town in Galilee called Nazareth. “In those days” anchors Jesus in history.
But then there’s another kind of time in the Greek. Kairos: a divinely appointed and definite time, the time when things are brought to crisis, the decisive epoch waited for. This is the word used when Jesus says, “The time has come. Repent and believe in the gospel.”
When you come to a kairos moment, things are brought to crisis. Maybe you’ve come to that moment this morning. You are tired of being in the desert. You are tired of trying to run the race. Repent and believe the gospel.
INVITATION (Romans 1:16)
