Mark 1:1-8

Mark 1:1-8

With good news this exciting Mark can hardly wait to tell the story.  So Mark jumps into the story of the life of Jesus 30 years after His birth.  It is almost as if Mark is saying, “I can’t wait to tell you this.”  His only concession to an introduction is this first paragraph about John, who is in and of himself, an introduction.  John was the link in the chain connecting Jesus with the Old Testament and was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy and the Elijah character that Malachi predicted.

John, like any good introduction, is not the story.  His job is to make the road ready.  He wasn’t going to do or try to do the job of the Messiah.  Many times in our lives as disciples we try to do the work that only the Lord can do.  We try to solve the problems, we try to fix things ourselves or we try to make it work out by our strength and wisdom.  John understood what his part was and what was the Lord’s work and he was wise enough to stick to what was his.  My job as a disciple is not to fix the problems people have.   My job is, like John, to prepare and make the introduction of Jesus to people. “Making things happen” is not my work.  John was not simply asking people to accept his ideals, rather he was asking for active participation in the new thing that was coming about.  His baptism was a forerunner and introduction of Christian baptism.  It was lacking only the coming of the Holy Spirit’s presence, which he predicts in verse 8, which we receive in Christian baptism. 

John may be a character that we can or may want to relate to.  He was independent, self-reliant, strong and a little wild and untamed; he was a survivalist.  But all the same, John took a profoundly humble view of himself as related to the one to come.  To remove the master’s shoes was the task of the lowest household slave and was a preparation for washing the master’s feet.  John, the prophet, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, the successor of all the Old Testament prophets does not consider himself to be good enough to be the Messiah’s most menial slave.  How terribly often is this attitude absent in Christian leaders?  John demonstrates the difference between himself and the Messiah by saying what he brings is water, but what the Messiah brings is the Spirit.

"Lord, grant that I may find my purpose and meaning in introducing others to Jesus. AMEN"