MARK 1:2-8
Read Mark 1:2-8
Mark is a man in a hurry. Having told us in Verse 1 who Jesus is and why he came, he gets straight to the point. He starts with a quotation from the Old Testament. What this is telling us is that Jesus didn’t come out of nowhere, unexpectedly. He wasn’t an afterthought in God’s plan. God had been preparing his people through the prophets for some time. And here is the prophecy of Isaiah about a messenger preparing the way for the Messiah and calling in the wilderness being fulfilled in the person of John the Baptist.
Just as we get no detail about Jesus’ birth and childhood from Mark, so we get no detail of John’s birth and childhood. We thank God for his provision of four gospel accounts, each with a different emphasis, to gives us a fully rounded account of Jesus’ life and ministry. But Mark is a man on a mission to get to the heart of what Jesus was all about and for him, such details are not necessary in promoting the gospel message.
And the first thing he does is to show the continuity with the Old Testament, the only scripture that was available at the time. John looked like an Old Testament prophet and spoke like an Old Testament prophet to prepare the people for what God was going to do next. John ministered to the people, baptising them and calling upon them to repent of their sins. And although that ministry was very successful (the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him, v5) the main point of his mission was to point to someone greater than him who would soon follow him; and of course that was Jesus.
John preached repentance and baptised people with water, a symbolic cleansing of their sins. The person following him would baptise with the Holy Spirit, bringing a more powerful and long lasting cleansing that would lead to eternal life. And the remainder of Mark’s gospel is dedicated to showing Jesus for who he is; the Son of God bringing salvation to the sinful people of this world.
We could see John the Baptist as a human signpost, pointing away from himself and pointing towards Jesus. He talked himself down and talked Jesus up. And in doing that he is an example to us all. Our witness as Christians is to deflect attention away from ourselves and point to our saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.
To God be the glory, great things he has done, and nothing greater than to give us the gift of Jesus.