Second Sunday Of Advent
MARK 1:1-8 (Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11; Psalm 85:9-14; 2 Peter 3:8-14)
The opening verse of the Gospel of Mark: “The beginning of the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ, Son of God….” Some ancient manuscripts of Mark omit the title “Son of God,” thus a debate as to whether or not these words were part of Mark’s original text. In favor of this title being part of the original gospel is the fact that Mark likes “inclusions,” a kind of parentheses or enclosures of material which begins and ends in the same way. Thus Mark begins his gospel with a proclamation that Jesus is Son of God. No other human being uses this title of Jesus in the whole body of the Gospel of Mark. Only after the death of Jesus do we hear this title again in the mouth of a human being. It is spoken by a Roman officer in charge of the crucifixion of Jesus. He says, “Indeed this man was Son of God!”
If we recall that the Gospel of Mark was composed for the persecuted Christians of the city of Rome, we may conclude that the title Mark affirmed of Jesus at the beginning of the Good News, was intended to be confirmed at the end of his proclamation of the Good News. The title was not to be confirmed by just anybody, but only by a Roman. Thus the “inclusion” by which Mark in-tended to give hope to Christians at Rome in their struggle with the Roman government. In his own way Mark proclaimed, “We shall overcome!” Even an official of that persecuting Roman government is depicted acknowledging Jesus as Son of God.
Mark continues: “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet….” A problem: what Mark quotes first as coming from Isaiah the prophet is not from Isaiah the prophet. The quoted words: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way.” These words are a combina-tion of Exodus 23:20a and Malachy 3:1. Did Mark misquote? Yes! Even in the inspired text! In the year 393, the great interpreter of the Scriptures St. Jerome, reflects as follows. He pretends in a homily on the Gospel of Mark to be speaking to St. Peter, when he says, “O Apostle Peter, your son Mark, Son in the Spirit, not in the flesh, expert in spiritual matters, has made a mistake here!” Mark did not have some digital device he could pull out of his pocket to check on the accuracy of his quotes. He did not even have a Gideon Bible! Memory was one of the few tools available. Printing was fourteen hundred years in the future. Digitally available knowledge – close to two thousand years in the future. So let’s give Mark a break.
The next verse, “…the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths,’” is definitely a quote of Isaiah 40:3, even though Mark changes it a bit to suit his purpose. The original setting of this quote is as follows. About 540 B.C. the prophet hears a voice coming from the heavenly assembly. It promises that the Lord God will lead a new exodus through the desert, from exile in Babylon to the Promised Land. The prophet at the time was told to prepare a path through the desert for the Lord. Mark engages in considerable adaptation. For Mark the voice is the voice of John the Baptizer bellowing, “Prepare the way of the Lord….” The “Lord” is now no longer the Lord God of the new exodus in 540 B.C., but the Lord Jesus, whose way the Baptizer was sent to prepare. There is nothing wrong with such an adaptation, since the Holy Spirit must surely have intended from the beginning that the inspired words could be used in many ways. In biblical studies such an adaptation is called a “trajectory,” as in the trajectory of a missile propelled from its source into another setting.
The mission of John the Baptizer was considered so important to the establishment of Christianity that the four gospels, after a brief (Mark) or long introduction (Matthew, Luke, John), all begin with the mission of the Baptizer. John is clearly cast in the role of an Old Testament prophet bellowing his message. The Greek verb Mark uses to express this sound is used to describe the bellowing of an ox or bull or lion. Considering the complete lack of elect-ronic amplification of the human voice in those times, “bellowing” may have been the standard way to attract a hearing. The same verb is used of the prophet Isaiah in 20:11. It is still used at times by parents to get their children’s attention. A further indication that Mark presents John as an Old Testament prophet: John’s apparel – “clothed with camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist.” Thus the prophet Elijah is described in 2 Kings 1:8.
The Baptizer’s function is one of total service and total humility. Total service: he is in the wild-erness, not a comfort zone, “preaching a baptism for repentance.” If Mark intends accuracy about John’s audience, there must have been an overpowering longing for change, since he writes, “The whole country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him and were baptized in the River Jordan confessing their sins.” We who preach can only hope and pray for that kind of success. Perhaps more bellowing is needed. Now John’s humility: “After me comes one mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” By these words John makes himself a slave of Jesus. It was one duty of a slave to tend to his mast-er’s sandals. Mark adds an important note in the words of the Baptizer, “I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Thus Mark attempts to settle a dispute in his own time between the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John. Jesus was #1.
