Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Gospel According To Mark. Day 2, John The Baptist

The book of Malachi, which we just completed earlier in the week, had this to say about the person we will study today, "I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way for Me." (Malachi 3:1a) The Lord promised to send someone ahead of Him to Israel in the same way a great king would send a messenger ahead of him into a city to tell the people to prepare for the king's arrival. We will see Malachi's prophecy fulfilled today.

Mark starts his account of the gospel story like this, "The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God." (Mark 1:1) He wants there to be no doubt in our minds as to the identity of the main character of the gospel: Jesus of Nazareth, who is the promised Messiah and the Son of the living God. I love it that Mark calls the gospel story "the beginning" of the good news, for the story of the gospel is still being written in the hearts of men and women in our own day, and it will continue to be written until the Lord Jesus Christ comes to reign from David's throne. The works of Jesus that Mark is going to describe to us are just the beginning of everything Jesus has done and will do. The creation work of the Lord only took six days, but He is still busy working in the lives of the humans He created, as Jesus pointed out when He was criticized for healing on the Sabbath, "My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working." (John 5:17b) Amen! What if the Lord refused to heal on the Sabbath? I came to know Christ as my Savior on the Sabbath! He didn't tell me to come back on another day; He gave me the healing I needed on the day I needed it.

Mark will now quote both Malachi and Isaiah in reference to the messenger who comes on the scene before the arrival of the King, "As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: 'I will send My messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way'---'a voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.'" (Mark 1:2-3) Mark only mentions the name of Isaiah here, but he has combined Malachi 3:1 with Isaiah 40:3. Malachi and Isaiah were both speaking of the same person, as we see here, "And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." (Mark 1:4)

This is another thing I love about Mark, the way he says "and so" in verse 4. He's saying something like, "The Old Testament prophets, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, predicted the arrival of John the Baptist on the scene. And so it happened. The Lord said it would happen, and so it did." Mark never expected it to turn out any other way. The Lord promised and the Lord delivered. The word of God said such a thing would happen and it did happen. This is a brief but very profound testimony of faith. What if we read our Bibles with Mark's "and so" attitude? I wonder what would happen if we read the precious promises of the Scriptures and always said to ourselves, "The Lord promises His grace will be sufficient for me, and so it will be. The Lord promises to provide for me, and so He will. The Lord promises to be with me always, and so He will be."

John the Baptist steps onto the pages of the Bible after four hundred years of absolute silence from God. For four centuries the people have endured the famine foretold in Amos 8:11, "'The days are coming,' declares the Sovereign Lord, 'when I will send a famine through the land---not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.'" When at last a prophet finally appears, the people eagerly flock to hear his message, "The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized in the Jordan river." (Mark 1:5) Imagine what this must have been like. The Lord has not spoken to the people through a prophet for so long that they must have doubted whether He would ever speak to them again, despite the fact that the Old Testament closed with God vowing to keep His covenant with Israel. It's no wonder so many of the citizens of Judah and the city of Jerusalem rush out to the desert to see John. John's birth to the elderly priest Zechariah and his equally elderly wife Elizabeth was as miraculous as the birth of Isaac to the elderly Abraham and Sarah. (Luke 1:11-17)  This was surprising enough, but now that he's in his thirties John looks like a mighty prophet of old, perhaps like Elijah himself, and he speaks like a prophet of old with a message about sin and the need to repent. Some of the people wonder if this is the "Elijah" foretold in Malachi 4:5, who will prepare the hearts of the people to receive the King. Others wonder if John could be the Messiah.

John is careful not to allow himself to be confused with the Messiah. He wears the garments of a prophet just as Elijah did in 2 Kings 1:8. "John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey." (Mark 1:6) John eats what he forages in the wilderness, trusting God to provide his needs as Elijah had to trust God to provide his needs in the wilderness in 1 Kings 17.

Though John never makes any claims to be the Messiah, the Apostle John tells us that the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites out into the desert to ask John who he was. (John 1:19) When asked point-blank whether he might be the Promised One, "He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, 'I am not the Messiah'". (John 1:20) He also denied being the literal reincarnation of Elijah (John 1:21), for the Scriptures never said Elijah would come back in person, but that the Lord would send someone "with the spirit and power of Elijah". (Luke 1:17) In other words, the Lord anointed John through the Holy Spirit to be a prophet in the same way He anointed Elijah. The preaching of John is endowed with the same authority as the preaching of Elijah.

John knows that the religious leaders and the citizens are wondering if he might be the Messiah, so he speaks very plainly about who he is and who he is not. "And this was his message: 'After me comes the One more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'" (Mark 1:7-8) A rabbi in John's day could require his students to perform all of the duties of a servant with the exception of untying his sandals. This was considered too lowly a task for a rabbi's followers and was more of a task for a hired servant or even a slave. But John says, "I would do anything for the One who is coming! I would be honored to lower myself to untie his sandals, but He is so great and I am so small in comparison to Him that I am not even worthy to touch His feet." 

John's ministry is the most sensational thing to happen in Judah in four centuries, yet he says he's not worthy to untie the sandals of the One who is coming after him. The crowds are flocking to see John in the same way people in our day would flock to see a famous movie star or music artist. It's hard for the people to imagine Someone so great that the famous John the Baptist isn't worthy to untie His sandals. But what he's telling them is, "You think this is something? Just you wait! You are about to see things you never imagined!" Or, to put it in modern terms, John boldly declares, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"











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