The Gospel for Monday, March 1, 2004
Mark 1:1-13
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the prophet Isaiah: Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to prepare your way before you. A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist was in the desert, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were baptised by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. John wore a garment of camel–skin, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. In the course of his preaching he said, ‘After me is coming someone who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptised you with water, but he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit.’ It was at this time that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised in the Jordan by John. And at once, as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit, like a dove, descending on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.’ And at once the Spirit drove him into the desert and he remained there for forty days, and was put to the test by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels looked after him. - The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
It is impossible with certainty to place this work in time, place, or authorship. The most probable estimates are that it was written by John Mark, a young man who was at Gethsemane and ran naked away when his clothing was grasped by a soldier. He later abandoned Paul and Barnabas on their first journey and was disliked by Paul for quite some time, though at the end of Paul's life, he called for Mark to be his help. Mark is reputed to have spent a great deal of time with Peter and to have translated Peter's rough Aramaic speech into an earthy Greek. This gospel seems to have been written for a Christian gentile audience in Rome, as Jewish customs and traditions are explained, and Aramaic expressions are translated. Most place the writing before Matthew and Luke, after the deaths of Paul and Peter, and before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. None of the foregoing is defensible except by probability, deduction, and induction.
Mark opens with Jesus already identifed as the Christ, and explains that John the Baptist was fulfilling Hebrew Bible prophesy in "preparing the way." John's was not the typical baptism of gentiles to become Jews, but a baptism of repentance (re-thinking) from sin. John describes his relationship to Jesus in the sandal-thong analogy as lower in relationship than a slave to his master; even masters untied their own shoes.
The introduction of the Holy Spirit at this point must presuppose the audience's familiarity with Jesus' entire story, as otherwise there is only a slim connection to the Hebrew Bible's use of Spirit. Jesus' divinity is acknowledged by the heaven's opening up to him, the descent of the Spirit onto him, and the Father's acclaim of approval and love.
The Spirt compelled him to a place where he could undergo complete reflection, preparation, and reformation into the one who would walk the path the rest of the way to Golgotha. The test by the Opponent is barely mentioned, emphasizing Mark's reliance on an oral tradition to have prepared his audience for this briefest of introductory accounts.
A Reflection
Forty years after running nude and terrified from Gethsemane, John Mark realized that the deaths of Peter and Paul marked the middle of the end of the oral tradition about Jesus. Perhaps as a Jew, Mark realized that the four hundred years of unrecorded Jewish religious and tribal history leading to his then-present time should not be a model for the case of this man he had personally seen, whose evident divinity made him very clearly more than just a man.
Christianity was emerging as very unpopular among the rulers of Rome and about as unpopular, still, among the Jewish religious elite who had collaborated with the Roman governor of Judea to remove the troublesome fellow from Nazareth as a political disturbance. Perhaps Mark wanted to leave an account for his Roman flock, and avoid the example of his Jewish forbears in Judea and Israel in the centuries leading up to Roman rule of Palestine.
Mark would describe Jesus' actions in vivid, descriptive terms, likely as Peter related them, Peter having been a first-hand participant and witness. Mark lacks the polish and elan of the other two synoptics, though neither disagrees with his account in timing, and seldom in what transpired. Mark has a sense of urgency that indicates that he wanted to ensure that Peter's account was quickly preserved for the ages.
He succeeded.
10:17:05 PM 
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