Over two thousand years ago, in a land on the Mediterranean Sea, a king was born. His name was Alexander, heir to the throne of his father, Philip of Macedon. Philip had unified the Macedonian people under his rule, and had gone on to conquer the other Greek speaking people in Greece. When he was assassinated in 336 BC, his son, Alexander ascended to the throne. Alexander was 20 years old.
Alexander had been tutored by Aristotle, who instilled in him a love of the Greek culture. He knew Homer’s Iliad – the account of the Greek conquest of Troy – by heart, and idolized the Greek warrior Achilles.
In a 13 year campaign, Alexander led his armies Eastward across the known world. He ended the 200 year old Persian Empire, and conquered in the name of the Greek states, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Egypt, Persia & Babylon, and even entered India.
He was a brilliant general, and the world has always known him not just as Alexander, but as Alexander the Great.
But Alexander was also a ruthless and paranoid man, regularly having executed any who spoke any criticism of him at all. He was a binge drinker and once, in a drunken rage, impaled one of his closest friends. He was driven to conquer by his need to outdo his father, whom he resented, and he used his people, his soldiers and his power as a king, as a means to further his own personal ambition. Over time, he became increasingly convinced of his own divinity and demanded to be worshiped as a living God, the son of Zeus.
He had no heir, and established no means by which his empire could be made secure beyond the power of his own leadership. When he died, at 33, his military generals fought each other, and carved up his empire and each ruled a part of it. Alexander’s kingdom was effectively no more.
About three hundred years later, on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, another child was born, who would reign over a different kind of kingdom.
He was Jesus, born inauspiciously in a stable in rural Israel to a small town carpenter and his young fiancé. Jesus was raised in Nazareth, a hick-town about which it was joked: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
He was tutored in the local synagogue, and would have known intimately the books of Moses, the Jewish Law, and memorized Leviticus. His heroes were Abraham and Moses and David.
In his three year ministry, he never left his native land, and led a band of twelve unschooled men, fishermen and others, who often didn’t understand his purposes and his mission.
He was an itinerant preacher and miracle worker. He was powerful not in military might, but in his teaching, which was with authority.
He was gentle, loving, compassionate, even forgiving his murderers as they had him nailed to a cross.
He was driven, not by ambition, but by a love for people, a concern for their good, but most of all by a humble desire to obey God, his Father.
He, too, understood himself to be divine, a son of the one true God. But he never forced worship of himself. (Though he did receive it when it was freely offered.)
He also died at 33, having been crucified by the Romans at Jerusalem. But three days later, his followers claimed he was alive again, resurrected. They continued to worship him, and speak of him to all who would hear. And within a generation, a host of people all around the Mediterranean would pledge absolute allegiance to him, even at risk of their lives.
Today, Alexander the Great is honored as a historical figure.
Today, the movement Jesus began spans the globe, with 2 billion people identifying themselves as his followers. Today, in the Western world and many other parts of the globe, an entire month is set aside, culminating in a day that bear’s Christ’s name: Christ-mas, and his birthday is an annual holiday.
Despite Alexander’s best efforts, he is surpassed by Christ in the esteem in which he is held and in his impact on the world. No one in history has been a greater force in shaping the world than this crucified Jewish rabbi, son of a carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth.
In this Christmas season we again reflect on this Jesus, and celebrate his birth as the turning point in history. As Christians we often lament the commercialization of Christmas and wish people would return to the true meaning of Christmas: Jesus’ birth. But I think that even as Christians we need, each year, to stop and consider Jesus. It’s a danger for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus without really taking time to consider again who Jesus even is. But after all, doesn’t all that we believe, practice, live for, teach, and base our future hope on depend on the answer to that question: Who is Jesus?
Our church exists, we say, to know Christ and make him known? We call people to surrender their lives unconditionally and absolutely to Jesus, and to worship and obey him. So who is he?
The four gospels of our New Testament were written precisely to address that question. The single motivating factor behind Matthew, Mark, Luke and John’s penning the gospels was to communicate who Jesus is.
Some years ago I heard a Catholic priest say that if he were stranded on a desert island, and the only item he was permitted was a portion of the Bible, he would unhesitatingly choose the Gospels. “As long as I have the gospels,” he said, “I am content.”
I understand that. Like a diamond in settings of gold and silver, the whole Bible showcases the gospels: the accounts of the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. The Old Testament anticipates Jesus, and the rest of the New Testament proclaims and explains him. The gospels are the centerpiece of the Bible.
As we enter the Christmas season, which is, of course, a time to focus on the fact that the divine son of God became flesh and lived among us, this is an appropriate time for us to encounter Jesus in the gospel. So that’s what we’re going to do. For the next weeks and into the new year we are going to encounter Jesus in the gospel of Mark.
Of the four gospels Mark is, if you will, the most straightforward. It’s almost entirely narrative and reads like an action story. Where Matthew, Luke and John include extended sections of Jesus’ teaching, Mark focuses more on what Jesus did, his activity. So in Mark you have 18 miracles recorded but only 4 parables.
Matthew and Luke include the account of Jesus’ birth. John has a comparatively extensive treatment of John the Baptist. Mark dives right in, to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Let’s do the same…
The passage we read today, chapter 1:1-13, is Mark’s prologue to the whole book. It sets the stage for everything to come. Right away Mark, in verse one, lets us know where he’s coming from: the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
‘Hey!’ Mark says. ‘This is gospel!’ ‘Gospel’ is just an old English word meaning ‘good news’. The account of Jesus is good news! It was good news then. It is good news now. ‘Glad tidings of great joy!’ we sing at Christmas time.
So Mark is saying, ‘Not only am I going to let you know who Jesus is, but who he is is good news. It’s not only important information, it’s good news! It’s gospel.’
We Christians have for centuries adopted that term and applied it to the whole Christian message, the content of our faith. So when we share our faith, we call it ‘sharing the gospel’. We use the word flippantly, I think. I’m not convinced that many Christians really have a sense that the reality of Jesus, his death for our sins, our subsequent right relationship with God, Christ’s resurrection, our hope of heaven, the peace, joy, and meaning of our life on earth, all of those things… I’m not convinced we, myself included, have a sense that this is good news. If we did, wouldn’t Christians be the most joyful people around? Wouldn’t sharing our faith be natural, not something we keep feeling like we need training to do properly, without feeling awkward? Good news isn’t usually hard to share, and if our faith is hard to share, perhaps it’s because we’ve forgotten that this is good news. We feel like we need to make converts to our religion, where in fact we’re sharing the joy of abundant life with people.
We’ve got good news!
And it’s good news about Jesus Christ. It’s about him. He’s at the center. The Christian message, the whole system of doctrine and practice, is centered in a person: Jesus. He is the Christ, says Mark, as testified to by Scripture. And he is the Son of God testified to by God himself.
‘Christ’ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’, and it means ‘Anointed One’. It’s not Jesus’ last name, but a title, and refers to Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies of the coming Messiah, Mark notes in verse 2: 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 desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him”’. And so John came…
Mark immediately roots this gospel in Old Testament prophecy, and so indicates that the person and ministry of Jesus, which Mark is about to recount, is testified to by the whole Jewish Scripture, our Old Testament. The Messiah God had promised through his prophets would be preceded by a messenger who would prepare the way for him. This, says Mark, is what happened when John the Baptist came on the scene as Jesus’ forerunner. The gospel of Luke recounts the miraculous circumstances of John’s birth. The Gospel of John includes lots of detail about John the Baptist’s ministry. Mark has none of that. He introduces John only briefly and only enough to say that in him, the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning Jesus began to be fulfilled.
The Israelites were waiting for God’s promised Messiah of Israel. Prophecies of the Messiah threaded through the entire Old Testament. They told of the coming of one who:
- would crush the head of Satan, Genesis 3:15
- would be a prophet surpassing even Moses and a priest surpassing Aaron
- would inherit the throne of his ancestor David, and would reign forever.
- would be called ‘My Son’, by God
- would be the very presence of God among his people
- would die for the sins of many
- would inaugurate the kingdom of God on earth
- would minister to the poor, blind, lame, and would set captives free…
This Messiah, this Christ, says Mark, is Jesus, and he proceeds with his gospel to demonstrate that.
John the Baptist comes onto the scene to prepare the way for the Lord. He preaches repentance, and baptizes people as a sign of that repentance. Repentance is still the right response to God. Repentance simply means to change the direction of your life, instead of moving away from or contrary to God, to moving toward him, with him. It’s a word that means a conscious decision for a total life change, total submission to God. Baptism represented a washing away of the old life and the beginning of a new life, or an immersion in God. People from all over the area come to hear him, the first prophet since Malachi four hundred years earlier. But John pointed beyond himself to one greater, whose shoelace John felt he was unworthy even to untie. The other gospels, and history for that matter, tells us that John was a great prophet, of immense influence and revered by the people as a great prophet. Yet he says, “The one who will come after me is of infinitely greater worth than I. To be his most menial servant would be an honor too great for me.”
We call Jesus our friend and Saviour, and rightly so. But do we forget that it is an honor far beyond our station to serve him, let alone have a relationship with him.
So John, and by association the Scriptural prophecies, testify to Jesus Christ.
But there is another testimony, far greater.
One day, as John is baptizing, Jesus of Nazareth comes to him and is baptized. As Jesus comes out of the water, Jesus saw heaven being torn open and the Holy Spirit descending upon him “like a dove”… (Not ‘in the form of a dove’, by the way, but ‘in a dove-like manner’. The word Mark uses is reminiscent of Genesis 1 where the Spirit of God was ‘hovering’ over the waters as Creation begins. As Jesus arises out of the waters of baptism, the Spirit is beginning his work of re-creating. With Jesus comes a new beginning.)
And as the Spirit descends upon Jesus, there is a voice from heaven which declares: You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. I’m not sure for whose benefit all this is. Is it for those around, for them to explicitly hear God’s declaration and affirmation of Jesus? (Mark seems to indicate that only Jesus saw the tearing of the heavens and the Holy Spirit descending. The other gospels indicate that many of those around didn’t even understand the voice.)
Or was this for Jesus’ benefit? As God the Son begins his earthly ministry that will ultimately end in his brutal and humiliating execution three years later, the other two persons of the Trinity stand with him, so to speak: God the Holy Spirit comes to him, and remains with him throughout his ministry, empowering him. God the Father reminds and affirms him that he is God’s beloved Son. The humanity of Jesus surely needed this encouragement. When he would be despised and rejected by many, he still knew that he was the beloved one of God his Father.
We are often afraid of what others may think of us, how people might respond to us. The Bible says that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper. What can man do to me?’… How great is the love the father has lavished on us, that we might be called his children. And that is what we are! What freedom there would be for us if we only knew the love that God has for us. That even this morning, God says to us who have believed in his son Jesus, ‘You are my beloved son, daughter; with you I am well-pleased!’
Most of us don’t know that. Most of us are still trying to get God to love us by working hard for him, or by not messing up. Quit trying! God loves you. All our service and busy-ness doesn’t make him love us one whit more. We can’t earn his love. If we could, what would that make God? Rather, it is to the experience of his prior love that we respond, and it is by it that we are strengthened.
That was true of Jesus, too. It was out of the knowledge of his Father’s love, and by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, that he would live his life. That was why even at the moment of his death, when reason would have told him all had been futile, that he still said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ Having known God’s love for him, he trusted God completely.
After his baptism, the Spirit sent Jesus – literally ‘drove’ him – into the desert where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. Even for us, a ‘wilderness experience’ will often follow a God-encounter. Last Sunday evening we had just a great time of worship and singing. I would not be surprised is some of you, and especially you who led that time, had a really tough Monday, and even a tough week.
For Jesus, having just been powerfully, explicitly and publicly affirmed as the Son of God, one of those incredible spiritual moments, is driven into a wilderness experience, a time of testing at the hands of Satan.
Here, too, is one of the recurring themes of the whole book of Mark: Jesus in confrontation with evil. As we celebrate Christmas, it is good to remember why Jesus came to earth at all. The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work Jesus came to undermine and ultimately destroy the reign of evil and establish the kingdom of God, and throughout Mark we will see Jesus again and again dealing with evil spirits.
So that is our introduction to the book of Mark, the gospel concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is also our introduction to the Christmas season.
We are thinking about and celebrating the birth of Jesus, in Bethlehem’s stable so long ago. But who is he? Who is this baby who lies in the manger?
· He is Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed of God
· He is the very reality of God, God with us, the Word made flesh
· he is the fulfilment of prophecy
· he is the one who died for our sins, and the sins of the world
· he is the one in whom there is forgiveness, peace with God, and fullness of life
· he is the hope of a sin-sick world
· he is the one our hearts long for, and we can be satisfied only in him
· he is king and lord, who reigns with righteousness and justice
· in him the grace and glory of God are perfectly revealed
· he was dead, and behold he is alive, enthroned in heaven at the right hand of God the Father
· by his death he disarmed the powers of darkness and triumphed over them. He struck a death-blow to sin, death, pain, sickness, violence, loneliness, greed, and all that is wrong with the world
· in him the tide has been turned and history marches relentlessly toward the full redemption of all things
· he is the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and in him we, too, can become beloved children of God.
· Testified to by Scripture, declared by the voice of God, vindicated by his resurrection from the dead, and experienced and loved by millions, including me, even today
This is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of God. In him you, too, can have life, forgiveness, and peace with God. This Christmas, do buy gifts, and receive gifts with joy, as you show love and receive love from others. But in the midst of it all, remember Jesus. Because to lose sight of him in the busyness of the season is to trade steak dinner for a mud-pie. Only in Jesus does even the bustle of the season have meaning. May you encounter him again, with joy and wonder and awe.
Amen.