An Introduction to Mark (Mark 1:1-13)

INTRODUCTION

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Mark 1:1-13.

While you’re turning there, let me take a few minutes to introduce you to our new series on the Gospel according to Mark.

The Gospel account recorded by Mark was traditionally understood to be written earlier in the first century—with many conservative scholars suggesting sometime within the 50s-60s AD; and some conservative scholars suggesting a little earlier than that, but the evidence is rather limited. Placing its authorship in the 50s or 60s tells us that this book was written within 20-30 years of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. It also then suggests that Mark is one of the earliest NT books written, which helps us understand why Mark has the focus or emphasis that he does, but I’ll come back to that.

The Gospel according to Mark is the shortest gospel account, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Mark is less detailed than the other accounts—in fact, when Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the same exact account, Mark’s account is usually the longest and most detailed of the three. Its brevity, however, is partly due to the action-oriented nature of the book—you’ll see this rather quickly and regularly throughout the gospel account—Mark has a quick-fire way of working through the details with very little pause between the incidents that happen within his book (the exception being the last week of Jesus’ life, in which things in Mark slow way down).

All this makes sense, when you consider that traditionally—though Mark is the author, who wrote the book down; the early church believed that he was recording Peter’s account of the events. Men like Papias, Martyr, and Irenaeus all wrote about Mark being Peter’s memoirs or Peter’s account of the life of Christ. And internally, you can consider that Peter is the first and last disciple mentioned, he’s mentioned by name more often than any other Gospel account, the book of Mark follows a similar outline to that of Peter’s sermon in Acts 10, and Mark tends to be harsher on Peter than any of the other accounts.

Structurally, the book itself does two things: (1) from chs. 1-8, Mark is predominantly answering the question, “Who is Jesus?” The answer is provided by Peter, who says, “You are the Christ” in Mark 8:27-30. (2) from Mark 8:31-Mark 16, Mark is predominantly answering the question, “What type of Christ is Jesus?”

Thematically then, Mark’s primary focus is the identity of Jesus as the Messiah, who is the Son of God—you’ll notice that from the very start of the Gospel until its end.

Of course, there are some other themes woven into the book—e.g., Jesus as the suffering servant, there’s a repeated call to discipleship, and the Kingdom of God regularly appears, but all those other themes tie into the identity of Jesus—that He is Messiah; that He is the Son of God; and this is what the Son of God did for His people.

This morning’s text actually makes that very argument quickly and repeatedly, but let’s read the text before breaking that idea down:

Mark 1:1–13 ESV

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’ ” 4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” 12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

As we study this text together, we’re going to look at it in three parts: (1) John the Baptist Prepares the Way (1-8), (2) Jesus’ Baptism (9-11), and (3) The temptation of Jesus (12-13). Each section of the text highlights who Jesus is from different perspectives—in the first section, Mark highlights Jesus’ identity through the Old Testament, in the second section, Jesus’ identity is highlighted by the Father and the Spirit, and in the third section, Jesus’ identity is highlighted not necessarily by Satan, but rather by the role that Jesus plays.

Again, consider what Mark is doing—he’s expressly stating that Jesus is Messiah—he doesn’t leave that for questioning, he shows us who Jesus is rather quickly.

And so, our goal for this morning is to understand that Jesus is God’s promised Son who has come to accomplish God’s salvation—we thus need to order our lives around who He is.

Prayer for Illumination

John the Baptist Prepares the Way (1-8)

Mark’s Opening Statement (1) — our text starts with a rather profound statement with several notable details:

The verse itself starts with just “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Of course, we notice the similarity between this book and the one that starts the Bible—Genesis, which starts with, “in the beginning God created.”

Additionally, we know that John starts the same way and like John, Mark might be doing this intentionally for it’s connection with Genesis.

Why exactly do they do this? There are a few reasons to consider

(1) it does highlight the ultimate origin of what Mark writes—this isn’t his gospel, this is Jesus’ Gospel, which derives its origins in the beginning

(2) for Mark and really John, the introduction of Jesus is just as big of a deal as the creation of the world.

Of course, Mark would start this way then when his whole goal is to show that Jesus is the Messiah.

So Mark starts his Gospel account by connecting what he’s about to say with that of really the God of creation before he explicitly makes the statement that this is really the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And again, there are some notable details:

e.g., the word gospel gets thrown around a lot, but there is a significance to it—its translated as the good news and its not always used to speak of Christian things.

In fact, some Markan scholars point out that there is a similarity between how Mark 1:1 starts with an inscription that was found—the inscription was about Caesar Augustus and was written a few years before the birth of Christ and it did two things (1) it changed the start of the calendar year to align with the birth of Caesar Augustus and (2) it praised Augustus for bringing peace to the Roman empire. The claim is that Caesar Augustus’ birth was the beginning of [the gospel].”

And so, you can see why scholars read Mark 1 and see a similarity. The exception being that while the Romans claimed that Caesar Augustus’ birth was the gospel, Mark is very clearly stating that the gospel is really rooted in Jesus, who He is, and what He has done and will do.

So, this is the good news of Jesus, who is both Christ and the Son of God.

Christ is a title meaning the anointed one, which of course, connects to the Hebrew Messiah, which also means the anointed one.

But, of course, we see that phrase, the Son of God, which doesn’t mean that Jesus is the son of God in the same sense that we talk about human fathers and human sons. Jesus is God’s Son who shares the one divine nature nature of the Father and the Spirit—that’s what’s being considered in this Father-Son statement. Like the Father is God; so is the Son.

So, Mark starts his account by making very clear who he believes Jesus is and by making very clear what the purpose of his book is:

He writes to clearly profess Jesus as Messiah

And he writes to convince others that Jesus being Messiah is important enough to change your life.

Of course, that statement alone mean little unless you see the evidence of who Jesus is—and so, Mark continues by giving that evidence.

The Old Testament Connection (2-3) — in vv. 2-3, we see a connection made between the OT and the NT.

Mark is not the only person in the NT to make these sorts of connections, but by starting with these connections at the onset of his account, implies that he see the connections as rather important.

Which by the way—as a side-note. There are some professed Christians and even some pastors who claim that Christians today don’t actually need the OT. Let me encourage you to ignore them.

What we believe as Christians is directly connected to the OT in that without the OT the NT doesn’t make much sense.

Mark makes a connection explicitly to Isaiah. It’s specifically to Isa 40 and includes some of the verses that we used during our Call to Worship this morning, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

You’ll notice that it’s not a direct quotation from Isaiah—its actually a combination of Isaiah, with Malachi 3 and Exodus 23.

Some get caught up in the fact that it says its from Isaiah, but its apparently an amalgamation—let me encourage you on two points with that: (1) our modern-day conventions for research-oriented writing (including getting citations absolutely correct with page numbers) weren’t considerations in the ancient world and (2) it was common to combine citations and give credit to one individual instead of citing all three prophets. It ought not cause concern, it’s a different time.

However, what it does do is that it shows us that it wasn’t just Isaiah making prophecies like this and when understood Christologically, the NT authors realized that several OT prophets were all prophesying the same truths about the Christ.

Mark sees the prophecies of the OT as finding their fulfilment in Jesus Christ, which is why he highlights these prophecies here.

Though, you’ll note, that in this case, the prophecy is about the forerunner of Jesus rather than just Jesus.

There is one who will prepare the way, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness.” By the way, keep the word wilderness in your mind, we’ll talk more about it later.

And this voice will be crying, “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

John the Baptist and his Baptism (4-8) — it’s then fairly obvious that Mark sees John the Baptist as the one crying in the wilderness because immediately we’re introduced to John in vv. 4-8.

We’re given some details about this man, who was baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” e.g.,

We’re told that he was “clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist” and he had the diet of “locusts and wild honey.”

Some scholars tie his lifestyle into what’s sometimes called an ascetic lifestyle like the Essenes of the time period—who separated themselves from the rest of Israel, lived in the wilderness, and ate equally unusual foods, but it would be a mistake to assume that John was an Essene as well.

And it would be a mistake to assume that John was highly influenced by the Essenes, we just don’t have enough information to know for sure.

We know that John was baptizing folks in the wilderness—of course, considering chronology, we need to ask the question, “where did John get the idea for baptism in the first place?”

Because what we see here, isn’t necessarily normative of Jewish culture and religion and it’s similar to what we see later in the NT concerning Christian baptism, but chronologically—this is before Jesus ever commands people to be baptized. So, where does this idea come from?

John didn’t invent the idea of immersion in water. The Jewish people were already familiar with ritual washings and immersions for purification, and we know that groups such as the community at Qumran practiced ritual immersion as well. Later Jewish sources, like the Mishnah and Talmud, describe the immersion of Gentile converts to Judaism—though we don’t know if that’s what John was doing in Mark 1.

It does, however, give us the background for what he’s doing while showing us what’s so remarkable about it. John takes an already familiar image of washing and purification and calls people to submit to a baptism of repentance in preparation for the coming Lord.

John is in the wilderness, eating and living an ascetic lifestyle proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, why? Because the Lord is coming.

He’s essentially saying, “the Lord is coming, you need to be ready.”

How do you get ready? Repent, confess your sins, and then be baptized as an outward showing of your repentance.

It’s worth noting that as he’s doing this, he’s also making a separate proclamation in vv. 7-8, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

He realizes exactly who he is—he knows what his role is as a prophet proclaiming the coming Messiah.

And, to some extent, he understands who Jesus is—to the extent that he knows that Jesus is so much more worthy than He is that he can’t untie Jesus’ shoes.

In that time period, dealing with feet—even untying someone’s shoes was considered something only slaves did—thus, you get the impression that John recognized that the coming Messiah would be so great that he’s not even worthy to be the slave of that person.

Of course, he doesn’t always understand who Jesus is—in fact, remember when he’s in prison, he does send someone to ask Jesus whether or not He actually is the Messiah or if they should look for someone else.

But at this moment, he very clearly understands some significant truths concerning the man who is to come.

We do need to ask what exactly Mark means by the baptism of the Holy Spirit because this is the only instance that Mark mentions it.

There is a very real understanding of this during the NT era that the bestowing of the Holy Spirit belongs exclusively to God—so, consider what all he’s saying by making that statement.

But what exactly does it mean?

First off, it isn’t something that John makes up—it again, ties who Jesus is with prophecies of the OT where we see several instances in which God will pour out his Spirit on His people.

Secondly, there was a prophetic hope in the prophets concerning the last days in which God would pour out His Spirit on His people—an active presence of God himself amongst His people.

And with that in mind, we immediately jump to the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, where the Spirit of the Lord is poured out to His people—the day in which God’s people first have universal access permenantly as God’s Spirit dwells within His people.

Which is something that occurs at the moment of salvation for God’s people now, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Essentially, what we’re seeing is a contrast between John’s baptism by water and Jesus’ baptism by the Spirit—John recognizes his baptism of people as a shadow of a more real baptism

John’s baptism merely prepares the way, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the real thing.

And, what John is saying very clearly is that the one to come is so much greater than he is precisely because he is the means through which God’s people will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the means through which God’s people gain direct access to Him in a permanent manner as ones baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Transition: So, you see in the first 8 verses this realization of who John the Baptist is, which is really an indicator of who Jesus is. We might say it like this—that John the Baptist is really only important in redemptive history because he was divinely promised as the forerunner who is then the first to point to Jesus as the Messiah in the New Testament. Again, you see Mark very plainly stating who Jesus is by tying Jesus to the one who was prophesied about. In the next three verses, we see a testimony from the other persons of the Trinity concerning Jesus in Jesus’ baptism.

Look at vv. 9-11 again with me:

Jesus’ Baptism (9-11)

Mark 1:9–11 ESV

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

The Setting of Jesus’ Baptism (9) — v. 9 tells us that Jesus came for the purpose of being baptized by John.

The distance from Nazareth to the Jordan where scholars think John was baptizing wasn’t long until you remember that they mostly walked these distances. And then 30 miles seems like a lot, which causes you to ask why Jesus, who Mark has made abundantly clear is God, decided to walk 30 miles to be baptized by John the Baptist.

Until you remember two key details:

First, Jesus is God and man—and while Jesus could never sin, in becoming the God-man, He acts as the second Adam. So, even though Jesus was perfectly righteous, in being baptized by John, He acts in line of His representative headship over His people.

Second, the baptism of John was a rite meant for the unclean, which highlights the idea that though Jesus wasn’t unclean, he takes the place of those who are unclean.

Additionally, Matthew 3:15 records the same event and Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist when John tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized is that He must do this to fulfill all righteousness.

But Mark doesn’t highlight those concerns and that’s actually rather intentional.

Remember what Mark’s overall goal is in his Gospel account—to answer the question of who Jesus is.

And he’s already answered that question in terms of who John thought Jesus was—and he’s already answered that question in light of what the OT says concerning the Messiah.

Now he’s answering that same question in light of Jesus’ baptism and we see it particularly in vv. 10-11.

Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit (10-11) — vv. 10-11, “And when he [meaning Jesus] came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘ You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Textually, what we have is pretty simple—we have the baptism of Jesus by immersion in the waters of the Jordan.

I think it’s worth noting that this is a very Trinitarian event—meaning, its one of the few times in which we see the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the explicitly in a singular situation.

With that said, we do have to ask the question, “who actually sees the Spirit and hears the voice from heaven?”

Because v. 10 says that Jesus saw the heavens being torn open. In John 1, John claims that he also saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and that the Spirit remained on Jesus; and that he had been told that the one whom the Spirit would descend and remain on would be the one that baptized with the Holy Spirit, who is the Son of God.

But in Mark, we’re not even told of John witnessing that event—merely that Jesus witnessed the Holy Spirit and hears the voice from heaven.

However, that ties into what Mark is trying to do in his account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—as from this point forward, there’s often a secrecy in terms of who Jesus is.

Back in Mark 1, Jesus is baptized, and the heavens are torn open, which in and of itself is an awe-striking event.

It’s even more awe-striking so when you consider the OT passages that speak of the heavens being torn open like this, e.g., when Isaiah cries, “oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.”

Jesus, who is God—has come down; and in this instance, we see that connection betwen Him and the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

And we see the Holy Spirit itself descend to rest on Jesus before God speaks about Jesus, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Notice that we see that concept again, that Jesus is God’s Son—and, in this part of the passage, it’s that Jesus is God’s beloved Son and that He is well pleased in His beloved Son.

Let me remind you again, that the idea that Jesus is God’s Son isn’t meant in the same way that we often conclude—Jesus is God’s Son in that Jesus shares the same divine essence of God; that He and the Father, additionally with the Spirit are one eternal being with equal status.

It doesn’t imply any sort of hierarchy in terms of deity, nature, or glory.

However, this doesn’t stop the statement from being a rather identifying statement about who Jesus is.

There is something to consider here—that Jesus is baptized as a representative for His people, and then His baptism is then followed immediately with the Father identifying Jesus as His beloved Son and the Spirit resting on Him.

And then you consider the Old Testament pattern concerning God’s presence and the cleanliness of God’s people—in that, if God’s people aren’t consecrated and cleansed, He doesn’t come down to them. Put the pieces together here.

Jesus in His baptism willingly identifies himself with the sinful people he came to save—meaning that by being baptized, despite not having sin, He identifies with God’s people; and in doing so, His Father shows pleasure by speaking favorably of what’s going on.

Remember Mark’s purpose in his book—to answer the question of who Jesus is—and we’ve seen that answered from the OT with John the Baptist in mind; now, we see it from God and the Holy Spirit—both identifying who exactly Jesus is while expressing pleasure in what Jesus is doing on behalf of God’s people.

Transition: Of course, the text continues with just two more verses that tie in with the introduction of Jesus in the Gospel according to Mark. At first glance, it seems as if these two verses don’t necessarily connect with all that we’ve seen, but when you consider all that Jesus is doing as the Son of God, who is Messiah, vv. 12-13 both connects who Jesus is with His overall redemptive purpose.

Look at vv. 12-13 with me.

The Temptation of Jesus (12-13)

Mark 1:12–13 ESV

12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

Considering the Wilderness (12) — the same Spirit who descended on Him during His baptism is the same Spirit who drives Him out into the wilderness.

Notice two things:

First, that word immediately is partly how we know that Mark is connecting vv. 1-11 with vv. 12-13—and when you consider what’s happening, you understand why Mark sees a connection between the two events.

Second, we know that this section is connected to vv. 1-11 because it’s still dealing with the wilderness (remember how I said we would come back to that idea?).

We’re going to come back to that in just a second—but first note that Jesus was in the wilderness.

He was tempted for forty days

He was tempted by Satan Himself

And in the midst of it all, He was with wild animals while the angels ministered to Him.

Now, let’s consider the wilderness motif in Mark 1:1-13.

In the first thirteen verses of Mark, we see the wilderness mentioned or referred to four times, which tells us that there is something significant in how Mark views the wilderness in light of identifying who Jesus is.

When Mark starts his Gospel account, he starts by quoting Isaiah 40 in which Isaiah describes the coming salvation of God in language that’s intentionally used to remind us of the Exodus—that God had delivered His people from Egypt, brought them through the waters, and led them through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.

Isaiah looked forward to another great act of salvation (a new kind of Exodus) when God would come to deliver His people.

Mark tells us: that the time has come.

John the Baptist then appears in the wilderness preparing the way—and the people go out to him in the wilderness to pass through the waters of baptism; and then Jesus Himself goes through the waters of baptism before going into the wilderness where He stays for forty days, which ought to sound familiar.

Israel spent forty years in the wilderness and during those forty years, Israel was tested and repeatedly failed.

Now Jesus enters the wilderness, He’s there for forty days and Mark specifically tells us that Satan tempted or tested Him.

Do you see what Mark’s doing?

Israel passed through the water and entered into the wilderness; Jesus passes through the water and enters the wilderness.

Israel was called God’s Son in Exod 4:22, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son;” Jesus is identified as God’s beloved Son in Mark 1.

Israel was tested in the wilderness for forty years; Jesus is tested for forty days.

But the difference is that Israel failed repeatedly; and Jesus never fails.

The reality is that the wilderness motif isn’t an accident, and perhaps it might help to consider this in light of the Old Adam and the New Adam.

The First Adam was tempted and failed. Israel was tempted and failed.

Jesus stands where Adam and Israel stood—and He remains faithful.

And all this is tied together for the express purpose of showcasing exactly who Jesus is and why He is so important.

Jesus’ incarnation isn’t a random event in history.

It was something that was prophesied over and over again throughout the OT.

His baptism wasn’t for fun

It identifies Jesus as the true Son of God according to the Father and the Holy Spirit.

His short time in the wilderness wasn’t a meaningless excursion.

It shows us how Jesus, unlike those who foreshadowed Him, fulfills the very need mentioned first in Gen 3.

Transition: Essentially as Mark opens up his Gospel account, he reminds its readers of exactly what they were hoping in and for—they were hoping for the Messiah who was promised; the Messiah who would be someone more, and they were waiting for the Messiah that would do something that had been foreshadowed since the very beginning. And at the same time that Mark is reminding them of what they were hoping for he’s practically shouting—it’s Jesus, He’s the one.

He’s the one that the writings prophesied about; He’s the one that is someone more as affirmed by the Father and the Spirit; and He’s the one who was foreshadowed that fulfills their very need.

And that’s how Mark starts his account of Jesus’ good news.

Of course then, we need to consider exactly how we ought to apply a passage like this and I think the best way to do this is to consider again what Mark is trying to do in this Gospel account—he’s trying to answer the questions, who is Jesus and what type of Christ is He?

And he’s already answered both of those questions within the first thirteen verses—Jesus is the one who was prophesied about, He’s the one who fulfills the need that was foreshadowed about; and He is God Himself.

With those truths in mind, our application comes rather simply—if all this is true about Jesus, then your whole life needs to be ordered around Him; and that’s where our application comes into play.

Application

Starting first with those who are not believers yet. We’re not there yet, in the text, but next week, you’ll be introduced to your application because it builds on the truths that we know of Jesus from vv. 1-13 and Jesus actually gives you your application—look at vv. 14-15, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”

For those of us who are believers, our application is based on who Jesus is and what He did—consider the truths at hand in vv. 1-13. Jesus is the one who was prophesied about, He is the one who fulfills that which was foreshadowed, and He is very much God Himself. Thus, you need to trust Him, submit to Him, and hope in Him. Let’s talk about those three ideas:

Trust Him — first and foremost, we repeatedly talk about the need of trusting in the Lord. There’s a reason for that, it’s because often in life, we don’t trust the Lord even when we claim we trust the Lord.

But what we see in Mark 1, is that Jesus is indeed the promised Christ and the faithful Son—He is the same person who was prophesied about and foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament. In fact, Mark 1 is rather clear that Jesus is indeed God.

And when we consider the fact that Jesus’ first words recorded in Mark are to repent and believe because the Kingdom is coming—and then we consider how Jesus is the God whose Kingdom is at hand, it actually seems rather foolish to not trust Him—doesn’t it?

And I’m talking about more than just trusting Him for salvation—as if you’re a believer, you already do. I’m talking about just life in general.

Jesus is the one who was prophesied of, the one who was foreshadowed, the one who is very God.

And God has repeatedly shown Himself to be faithful to HIs people throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Mark’s gospel account just reiterates that Jesus is God and God is faithful—so trust Him.

Submit to Him — secondly, understanding that Jesus is God emphasizes the truth that God’s people need to submit to Him.

Of course, the reality is that all creation ultimately does submit to Him—it’s just whether or not that submission is done willingly or not.

Mark isn’t writing his Gospel account just for you to say, “yes, Jesus is the Messiah; that’s nice.”

In fact, consider how John responds to Jesus, it’s not a “He’s the Messiah; that’s interesting.” It’s “I’m not even worthy to untie His sandals.” That’s how highly John thinks of Jesus.

And if Jesus really is who John says He is—and really, who hte Father says He is—then submission to Jesus isn’t optional.

Additionally, remember, one of the overarching themes throughout the Gospel according to Mark is that Jesus is King of a Kingdom that is coming—in fact, it’s already been inaugurated.

And when you consider the fact that Jesus, in Mark 1 is shown in such a way that He clearly has power over creation itself—including Satan and the angels, the fact that Jesus is King isn’t hard to understand.

Mark’s gospel account has already shown us that Jesus is King—and the implication is that you ought to believe and submit to Him even in the first thirteen verses.

Hope in Him — lastly, keeping hoping in Jesus, who is the King.

One of the beauties of pretty much all the Gospel accounts is that each one highlights to some extent just how much the New Testament is a continuation of and not something completely different from the Old Testament.

This idea in hoping in Jesus is built on that truth—especially when you consider the fact that Jesus was prophesied about and foreshadowed throughout the Old Testament.

Just in our text for this morning, you get a clear understanding that Jesus doesn’t fail.

He reveals Himself as one who would fulfill what Israel couldn’t; and one who fulfills what Adam couldn’t.

Jesus never fails; thus, because He reigns now, we can trust that He won’t fail to finish what He has promised.

Just consider the fact that we’re still living in an era epitomized by the phrase already, but not yet—and then consider how much hope we can genuinely have because Jesus has revealed Himself in such a way that we can rest assured that He will do exactly what He intended to do exactly when He intends to do it.

And that includes what is to come.

The reality is that if Mark is right about Jesus, that He is the Christ—He’s the Son of God who has come to accomplish God’s salvation. Then repentance and belief is the only right response to Him—and then, of course, if you’ve repented and believed, ordering your life around Him is a necessary consequence that includes trusting Him, submitting to Him, and hoping in Him.

Pastoral Prayer