Mark 1:1-8

With good news this exciting Mark can hardly wait to tell the story.  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.

Mark 1:9-20

Mark’s rapidly moving Gospel has Jesus’ baptism, testing, and the beginning of his ministry all in 11 verses.  At the baptism of Jesus we see all three persons of the Trinity acting together-the Father speaks, the Spirit descends, and the Son is baptized.  Having no need for baptism personally Jesus is identifying with humanity.  Jesus’ humanity was so complete that while perfect He identifies with us in baptism so that in our baptism we identify with Him.

It is the Spirit that impelled Jesus to go into the wilderness.  During this time of tempting by the enemy the Lord is tested. Mark says nothing about the specifics of the temptations.  He points out that wild beasts were with Him.  We shouldn’t romanticize this into a paradise of nature.  In the Jewish mind the wilderness was the place where the demonic had sway.  This was a place of danger, death and the demonic. This is not a picture of a quiet camping trip for reflection and rest, but 40 days of constant danger and conflict. 

The ministry of John the Baptist ends.  Humanly speaking, John’s followers may have had a hard time with Jesus’ presence and ministry as long as John was free.    The evil of Herod not only sets up Jesus’ ministry, but also protects it from needless rivalry.  Jesus’ ministry begins with a simple message, “Repent and believe in the gospel.”  These are the two ways to deal with evil.  Some would only try to get rid of the consequences of evil such as guilt feelings or a bad reputation.  But this doesn’t solve the problem of evil.  The other way to deal with evil is to adopt God’s attitude or perspective about evil.  This is what is meant by repent.  Repentance is more powerful a command than we might imagine.  It is not feeling sorry for doing evil, while that can be a part.  Repentance is to hate evil itself.  A repentant person hates evil even if they suffer no consequences from that evil.

The second part of Jesus’ message was to “believe in the gospel”.  If we end here the message is vague.  To understand what the gospel is we have to see what Jesus does next.  The next thing that Jesus says is, “Follow me.”  That is the gospel message: Following Jesus.  Not a philosophy, not a theory, not a religion, not a teaching, but a person.  The gospel message is the call to follow the person of Jesus.  We in the church often get involved in a lot of good stuff, but forget that the gospel is the person of Jesus.

Mark 1:21-34

Followed by His disciples (at the moment only 4 of them) Jesus goes to teach.  We need to notice that a major part of discipleship is learning.  We will never be effective at making disciples apart from high quality teaching.  For Jesus’ early disciples it was listening to the Master as He taught.  For us it must be through quality Bible study.  Jesus’ teaching is unlike that of the scribes because He teaches in His own authority not the authority of other learned men or tradition. 

It is incredibly important to note that Jesus’ first healing of a demon possessed man was in the house of worship.   The demoniac may have been a part of the congregation for a very long time.  It is unlikely that if the demon had manifested consistently that the man would have been allowed to continue to attend the synagogue services.  The demon influencing this man and through him the whole faith community was a “secret agent” if you will.  This may explain why so many churches are stagnating and dead.  This may explain why there is such a concentration of evil in some congregations.  It is possible that we Christians, with an area of our lives that is willfully sinful, unrepentant and un-submitted to God, carry with us the powers of darkness.  Not every manifestation of evil is dramatic.  In fact, the power of darkness may prefer to lie in secret, doing their harm subtly and will do so till confronted.   It is only when confronted with the truth, in this case the presence of Jesus that the demonic manifested.

We need to avoid two equally misguided approaches.  First, we need to avoid paranoia in which we see every struggle, conflict or problem as the work of the demonic.  Seeing a demon under every rock and behind every bush accomplishes more harm than good.  Secondly, we also need to avoid being in denial about the presence and power of the demonic.   Denial can be evil’s greatest tool.  There is also one positive action we must take.  Personal and heart felt repentance and the submission of every area of our lives to the Lord.  If we do not harbor an unrepentant heart the demonic will have no hold on us. 

Jesus’ teaching with authority that results in the power over the demonic is news and word spreads.  The motives of the gossips were no doubt missed, but the fact that God was at work could not be denied.  Jesus, for His part, acted as if this were the norm for His life.  Coming to the home of Peter, his mother-in-law is sick with a fever.  Jesus heals her and we need to note her response once healed “she waited on them”.  What is the proper response to God’s gracious care in our lives?  We serve.  By evening everyone wanted something from Jesus.  Who could blame them?  Jesus commands silence from the demons for they would certainly tell the truth about Him, but in such a way as to misguide the people.

Mark 1:35-45

Mark 1:35-45

A careful reading of Mark begins to reveal two characteristics that ought to be in the life of every disciple, but are sadly often absent.  Those two characteristics are passion and compassion.  What keeps you up at night?  Apparently, for Jesus it was His mission.  Sometime between 3 am and 6 am Jesus is motivated to get up and go pray.  What was that prayer about?  Mark indicates that it was His up and coming preaching tour.  “Been praying now I am going preaching” seems to have been His attitude.  The events of Capernaum had been dramatic.  The people came for healing.  Jesus came for preaching.  Had Jesus stayed there He could no doubt spend every day healing people by the 100’s.  But it would have gotten in the way of His purpose- preaching.  The good would have prevented the best.  So passionate is Jesus that once found (the verb for hunted v. 36 is very intense) He would not be distracted from His preaching tour.

On this tour Mark presents a pretty limited ministry.  Jesus is focusing on 2 things: proclaiming and casting out demons.  He is focusing on the good news and destroying the stronghold of the enemy.   What a far cry from many churches and Christians today.  A leper comes to Jesus for healing.  His faith is strong because we have no record of any prior healing of a leper.  The question is will this driven preacher take time to heal one pathetic, sick person.  Jesus is “moved with compassion”.   The Greek language is more explicit than English.  The word means that Jesus had stomach tightening, gut-level butterflies in the core of his belly so strong was his emotional reaction.  Jesus touched the man.  As a leper the man was untouchable and it may have been years since this man had experienced the compassionate touch of another person.  Jesus could have healed him at a distance, but love compels close contact. 

Jesus commands him to go and fulfill the ritual of cleanings.  The man cannot be fully reintegrated into society until this is done.  Also, if he does this it will prevent a popularity circus which would prevent Jesus’ synagogue speaking.  The leper is unable to keep such good news to himself.  Word spreads and Jesus has to retreat to unpopulated places.  Are we passionate like Jesus?  Are we compassionate like Jesus?  Are we telling the world about our healing for Jesus?  

Mark 2:1-12

Having returned after the preaching tour word gets out that Jesus is home.  Most likely “home” was living with Peter’s family.  While gone for some time everyone had the memory of the wonders done and His teaching and they wanted more.  Word spread and people came.  The actions of the friends of the paralytic may indicate that this was no impromptu action.  “If and when Jesus shows up again we will do this…” The construction of verse 3 may indicate a larger company of friends, but only four are serving as carriers.  The language indicates they intended to come face to face with Jesus; this is no distant vague nearness.  Verse 5 is a challenging verse.  Jesus responds to “their” faith with forgiveness.  Rugged individualism is confronted with Jesus forgiving one man based on the collective faith.  Certainly the paralytic was also a man of faith, but there is power and importance in being in intimate relationships with faith-filled people.  Jesus responds positively to bold faith.  Forgiveness wasn’t apparently what the sick man and his friends came after, but Jesus jumps to the greater need. 

The presence of the religious busybodies is a first in Mark.  In the other Gospels we see them in the ministry of John the Baptist, but this is their first appearance in Mark.  It is worth noting that their first reaction was negative.  Perhaps caught off guard their mental, first reaction was an accusation.  Some people have a default setting in their heart to be negative.

It must have been very strange to have Jesus read your mind.  In answer to the unspoken question, Jesus produces outer evidence to go along with the inner change.  The miracle of healing gave evidence to the authority of the spoken word.  That is the pattern of the New Testament.  We may doubt but the evidence is enough to convince if we are willing.  But if we choose to persist in unbelief (a stubborn refusal to choose faith) that unbelief reflects an issue of our heart, not the evidence. 

Mark 2:13-17

Jesus is being less and less accepted by the religious elite. But if they closed every synagogue to Him He would still have an audience. As humans we want to set up barriers that allow us to feel in some way superior.

Jesus went to where the people were. At one such crossroads Jesus invited Matthew to follow him. Matthew worked for Herod, which was not wrong, but he had been hated all the same. He would not be someone the religious elite would have embraced. We often paint the picture of Jesus' followers with soft colors thinking they may have been a little rough here and there, but basically lovable. It is more likely they were all jerks. They would have been people who were hard to love and difficult people to be with. 

Notice also, Jesus never stopped looking for disciples. If we were to draw a pie chart of how much of our life is committed and dedicated to making disciples, how big would that piece of pie be? If Scripture is true and we find what we seek, the reason we are not finding and making disciples is that we are not looking for them. Matthew is a case study on effective church growth. Matthew was won, became a disciple and then introduced everyone he knew to Christ. The only persons Jesus can't help are those who don't think they are sick.   In Jesus' day you did not go to the doctor to find out if you were sick, you went to the doctor only when you knew you were sick.  Only those who know they need Him will come to Christ.