title="English

The Beginning

Mark 1:1

“All beginnings are hard!” wrote Chaim Potok as he began one of his novels. Personally, I have found this to be true. And today we begin a new series of messages – from the Gospel of Mark entitled This Too Shall Be Made Right. I spent four years of my life working on Mark’s Gospel when I did my dissertation and I return to it 29 years later for the first time to do a series of sermons out of it. I’m finding it hard to know how to begin so I thought I begin with something you may not expect, i.e., a video clip of Pablo Picasso creating a painting: http://youtu.be/-AHgNrjfMmg?t=1m15s.

That video clip shows an artist at work – knowing what he’s making. But, we who watch it don’t know what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. By the end, the result is very different from what we’ve expected. And, it brings us to the title verse in Mark’s gospel, 1:1, in which we see God once again beginning a new creative work – just like in Genesis. Mark’s opening word is the word “beginning”. But different from Genesis 1, this time God will not be creating “out of nothing” but will recreate what Eph. 2:10 calls a beautiful masterpiece out of a world that has gone wrong. This is what we read in Mark’s title verse:

The beginning of the good news about Jesus: the Messiah, the Son of God.

“All beginnings are hard” – so let’s let God’s Word guide us word by word as we begin:

#1: The Beginning

Like the Genesis and John, Mark’s opening word is simply “beginning”. In the beginning God created the world. Now, in Mark 1:1, God is about to bring about a new beginning. The Bible is declaring that a new divine creation is at hand. For the reader who has read the book of Genesis, this is a thrilling opening.

And notice this too: The entire book of Mark is called a beginning. What Mark is saying is that when we have finished reading his book, something new from God will have been launched. But, the good news doesn’t really begin until we get to the end of the book. Of course, this drives us to read how Mark ends his gospel. For many reasons, I’m convinced that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at 16:1-8. What we find there doesn’t seem, on the surface, to be such a great beginning. Why do I say this? Jesus has died. His disciples had betrayed and abandoned him in his last days. And, even though a young man dressed in white tells three women that Jesus had risen from the dead, the women are only alarmed by the news. They don’t seem to believe it at all. In fact, no human being other than a Roman centurion had ever seemed to grasp fully that Jesus was the Son of God. So, the end of the gospel that Mark says is good news says this:

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid (16:8).

We read this and wonder whether anyone will ever hear again about Jesus. Of course, Mark is not fiction but historic narrative so we know the disciples overcame their fear and carried the gospel out to the world. The point is this – The good news from God may not always look like good news in our human eyes. Similar to the Picasso video, as God is creating his great masterpiece, he knows what he is doing even when we don’t comprehend it. And this is what I want you to take home: What may look like an ending in human eyes is often a new beginning in the eyes of God.

I am quite sure that the Apostle Peter was the main source for Mark’s information in this gospel. Peter knew this truth well. He had seen Jesus die. Peter had been one who had consciously and intentionally betrayed Jesus. Peter had felt like a failure and he had given up hope. But, God had never given up on Peter. Peter would always want those of us who follow Jesus to know what he wrote about in 1 Peter 1: In this dying world, we have been given “a new birth into a living hope.” If you are facing what now seems like an ending, I urge you to entrust it to God today. He is the one who turns apparent endings into beautiful beginnings. This death of Jesus, according to Mark, is a new beginning.

#2: Good News

This beginning is an announcement of some good news (i.e., gospel). The word euanggelion, meaning good news, was a word used when a king sent someone to announce a great victory over an enemy. And, we’ll see in Mark that the idea of a new and victorious kingdom led by a powerful and good king is a central message. So, why does this kind of announcement need to be made? There are several reasons:

The first reason a victory needs to happen is that there is a lot of bad news in the midst of what was originally “very good”. When God first created, he made something that was beautiful. But, since Genesis 3, there has been a lot that is not so beautiful in God’s artistic creation. What kind of bad news did Jesus see in the world? Mark’s gospel keeps telling us of the kinds of things Jesus took on in his day. As we go through Mark’s narrative, we’ll see the bad things Jesus confronted: personal evil powers, sickness, poverty, people with disabilities, natural disasters, broken relationships, legalism, pride, abuse of power, unjust governments and systems, possessions being put in God’s place, death… There was a lot that had gone wrong. It would be quite a job to clean up a “work of art” gone so fully wrong. And, of course, there are still countless wrong things in our world. We need some good news in the midst of this world filled with bad news. If this world will reflect God’s glory, there is a lot that is wrong that will need to be made right.

The second reason a victory needs to happen is that there are real enemies to the rule of God that need to be defeated. The Bibles summarize them in three categories:

• The world – all the systems, values and patterns that have been established by centuries of sin, pride and self-centeredness. Paul warns us about this in Rom. 12 saying, “Don’t let the world shape you.”
• The flesh – We’re not just victims of what has gone on before us or of the patterns of our culture. We are also complicit. We are prone to live for ourselves instead of for God. In Eph. 2, Paul would say that when things are wrong in our lives, it’s not just the world. No, he said, “all us us lived gratifying the sinful cravings of our flesh and following our own desires and cravings.”
• The devil – Jesus constantly confronts the real personal evil called Satan and his minions. Let’s us not have such a limited worldview as to think there are no spiritual realities. In Eph. 2, Paul warns us about the one he calls “the ruler of the spirit of the air” who seeks to work in us.

Do you see my point? We need a victory over these enemies. We need good news in the midst of all this bad news. And Mark opens by telling us that the King over all kings is going to begin something that will lead to a complete victory. A new rule is breaking into this world with a new king. As we read the Gospel of Mark, we will be seeing whether this new king has the power and the will to defeat the enemies and to establish a new kingdom. (Let me tell you right now – Jesus does have that power and that will.)

This may sound very theological and conceptual. But, it is very personal. Why do I say that? Because all of us know that there are still some bad things in our personal lives that need to be forgiven and made new. There are some battles in our lives about which God needs to declare victory. So, we all need to respond to this new king. We will hear from the new king that we need to repent and believe and follow. We need to repent of our self-ruled ways and of following the ways of any others would-be-ruler in this world. We need to trust this new king. And we must follow this new king.

So, who is he?

#3: About Jesus

God’s good news is not about a pamphlet I have to read or a prayer I have to pray or a program I have to enter into. All those have a role to play in God’s new creation. But, the heart of the good news is that it’s about Jesus. Jesus is the one who lived the life we should be living but are not. Jesus is the one who died the death we should have to die because of our sins – but no longer have to because he did it in our place. Jesus is the one we should believe in. Jesus is the one we must follow. Jesus is the one who must be the Lord of our lives and our church. Jesus is the one to whom our lives should conform. The good news is about Jesus.

Who is he? Mark will show us so much. But, in this title verse, the Bible tells us two foundational truths:

• Jesus is the Messiah – The Greek word is Xristos = the Christ. Jesus is the one the Jewish people had waited for. He had been promised throughout Scripture in the prophecies. The Messiah was the one who would set all things right. The people of Israel longed for him and prayed he would come. But, as is the case with most of us, they had gotten the idea of Messiah horribly wrong. They thought Messiah would only bring blessing to Israel rather than to the whole world. They minimized Messiah’s calling to being only the political liberator of Israel from Rome. They even ignored all the parts of the Bible saying that the Messiah would have to suffer. So, throughout Mark’s gospel, Jesus would tell his Jewish followers not to say yet that the Messiah had come – not until they could grasp more fully who the Messiah was. In spite of that, the Bible states definitively that Jesus was and is the Messiah. As was promised in the prophecies, when the Messiah completes his work, all things will be made right.
• Jesus is the Son of God – Throughout the book, we will see that Jesus does what only God can do. He bears the characteristics of Jehovah God. He forgives sin. He raises the dead. He creates food. Jesus is the Son of God who alone can accomplish the work of the kingdom of God. He is worthy of our trust. He is worthy of our praise. He is worthy to be followed.

When we read this opening verse, we know who Jesus is. Then, throughout Mark, we will see that God the Father identifies Jesus as his Son. The demons also know who Jesus is – “the Holy One of God”, they will call him. But no human being grasps who Jesus is fully -- until a Roman Centurion sees Jesus dying. Sometimes the disciples see in part. (Peter called him the Messiah in Mk. 8 but, in doing so, did not grasp what that word meant.) So, we read with amazement as people see Jesus’ divine acts and hear his teaching but remain as dense as rocks to the fact that this is the Messiah, the Son of God.

Reading Mark is a bit like reading Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In that book, we know early on that Rodion Raskolnikov killed a pawnbroker – and then we read on and on to see how his covered-up crime will play out. In Mark, we know as readers immediately who Jesus is and we read on and on wondering whether people in the story will know that he is the Messiah and Son of God who has come to bring God’s good news. We wonder whether people will turn from their old ways, believe in Jesus and follow him. But what happens is this: As we see their unbelief and their constant turning back to old ways of thinking and living, we recognize ourselves. Each passage in Mark will force us to ask the most important question of our lives, i.e.: Have I surrendered fully in faith to Jesus, the only one who can forgive my sins, rescue me from my way of life, and begin to make all things right.

The beginning of the good news about Jesus: the Messiah, the Son of God.

I ask you to consider this statement: The beginning of things being made right in any area of your life begins with surrendering in faith to the rule of Jesus. I’m not offering a simplistic cliché here. I’m telling you that the starting point for the transforming of anything that is wrong in your life is Jesus. I’m not saying that if you trust Jesus today, you will never be selfish, lust-filled or angry again. I’m not saying that God will not use medicine to further his healing work in your body. I’m not saying that God will not use wise counseling to help you rethink how your do relationships and to help you develop new patterns of living from what has trapped you before. I’m not saying that you will not need a supportive community to teach and correct you and to help you find liberation from addictions. God uses each and all those things and many, many more. But, I am saying this: It all starts with Jesus. Do all those things without Jesus, and you will still find that true life is missing. The good news is about… Jesus.

Jesus is the one through whom all things were made in Genesis 1. Jesus is the one though whom all will be recreated until Revelation 21-22 becomes a reality and all things are made right – including all things in our lives..

Now we come to the Lord’s Supper. I am often told by people who build things that it’s easier to make something beautiful out of “scratch” rather than to have to work with something that already exists – and has become dirty, brittle, and broken. In God’s first creative work, he spoke and things came into being ex nihilo – out of nothing. But, in his greatest masterpiece, our own remaking, he is working with a world he loves but that is badly marred. We are brittle and stubborn stuff – not easily re-shaped. God had to come personally into this sinful world to begin this work. He had to become the ultimate suffering artist entering into the pain of this world. For the new creation to begin, we eventually see Jesus dying on a cross. On one side, we see sinful and broken people confused and wandering and fearful and trembling (like Mk. 16:8). But, this great Artist will complete his work of re-creation. The death of Jesus that looked like an ending was not an ending. The death was became the basis for our own justification and the resurrection became both the power and certainly of our own reclamation. It was the beginning of good news about Jesus.

When we think of God’s good news, we dare never forget what it took to begin our restoration. And that’s what we will do as a community today. Too all who admit that “I too am sinful and need to be forgiven – I too am broken and need to be remade”, I say, “Come now to the table of God’s grace.”

 

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor