Mark 1:1-8
Isa 40:3-5; Matt 3:1-6; Luke 3:3-6; John 1:1-2
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Mark 1:8 “...he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
As in the beginning of Genesis when God created a physical world to demonstrate his goodness, love and presence and like the beginning of the gospel of John
John 1:1-2
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
Mark begins his writing declaring a gospel – a message of good news.
There is amazing power in a word. A simple spoken word can change everything. A word spoken from a parent to a child can influence a child’s entire life. A word spoken from a spouse can bring love or discord into a relationship.
God intentionally breaks into the time and space he created with a word, a message, wrapped up in the life of his son, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Mark makes no mistake in starting out with the most provocative message ever penned. A message that the God of the universe has a son and that he sent to earth as a human. It is a message God had planned and declared through his prophet Isaiah over 700 years earlier and now brings to fruition. Over the centuries God has used prophets, individuals specifically and intentionally chosen to declare God’s words to humanity. Now he uses a man named John, known as ‘the baptist’ because he calls people to acknowledge and turn away from their sin and receive forgiveness from God. When people had made that step of repentance and received forgiveness, they signified it through the act of baptism as John immersed them into the Jordan River.
John was also a fore-telling prophet, “there is one coming more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worth to stoop down and untie”. He knew God was intentionally sending the most significant person imaginable into the world who would release God’s Holy Spirit making a unique relationship with God available to all who would choose Him.
John knew what it was to have God’s Spirit at work in his life; prophets were recognized as people God would occasionally use to accomplish His will. The Holy Spirit would ‘come upon’ a prophet for a specific activity or message, and John knew the thrilling significance of those occurrences. Now there is one coming that would mark the lives of people by the ongoing presence of God’s Holy Spirit, something John had only tasted and knew was as sweet as wild honey.
This powerful baptism of the Holy Spirit is something Jesus intentionally provides (v8 “he will baptize you with...”) to those in a particular spiritual condition:
· They have already responded to the preaching of sin and in conviction confessed and repented their sins;
· They have received forgiveness and experienced their public declaration of faith through baptism by water;
· And like John, they humbly recognized the power and position of Jesus the Son of God who baptizes them with the Holy Spirit.
God intentionally uses John to prepare the way for people to respond to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Mark begins his writing with God’s invitation for he knows God’s Spirit longs to reveal the incredible good news of Jesus Christ on the subsequent pages of his book.
As we begin this study of Mark perhaps you too would want to respond to God’s invitation of forgiveness for sins as you confess and turn away from the sin that has held your own life captive. You can receive forgiveness of all your sin; past, present and future; and experience the cleansing that God’s grace brings. Perhaps you need to be baptized – by water – to declare your faith in the Son of God who loves you and intentionally comes to you.
Perhaps you have already done that, but today you need to renew the reality of God’s grace and his forgiveness and humbly acknowledge that Jesus, the Son of God is your saviour. Today, let repentance and forgiveness prepare the way for God’s Holy Spirit to bring power into your life as we begin to study this intentional message penned by Mark.
I pray that God’s Spirit will be at work in your life today.
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