Good Morning All,
Mark 1:1; “The
beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
It is always interesting how different
writers start out their books. The first
sentence usually gives you a good idea about whether you want to keep reading
or not. How a book starts has even led
to a contest. It is called the
Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest. It is
designed to have the worst introducing sentence possible. It is named after Edward Bulwer-Lytton who
wrote the infamous beginning,” It was a dark and stormy night-except at
occasional intervals, when it was checked by violent gusts…” You get the picture. This first sentence went down in history as
one of, if not the, worst opening lines in all of literature. Yet most of us can recite the opening lines
to many famous poems and stories because of the impact of these lines. “Listen my children and you shall hear…” or
“Call me Ishmael.” Or “It was the best
of times it was the worst of times…”
The Books of the Bible have interesting
opening lines as well. Unfortunately, we
don’t always read them, but some are really quite fascinating. Our verse for today is one of those
verses. “The beginning of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Short,
concise and to the point, this is about as plain as it gets. There is a certain amount of irony in that
beginning. Even though it calls Jesus
the “Son of God,” that rarely happens in the Book of Mark. Peter calls him that, the centurion at the
crucifixion does, the demons do but most people are left asking the question,”
Who is this man?” He is Jesus Christ,
the Son of God. Every time the question
is asked, it has already been answered.
The other thing to notice is that it is
the beginning of the gospel. The Gospel
of Jesus is not over in any way or anyhow.
So, if the Gospel of Mark is only the beginning; then that means that
the story continues, and it does. Mark
weaves the story of Jesus through the use of miracles and the people ask,” Who
is this man?” It occurs so often; you
almost want to scream at the Bible “IT IS JESUS” get a clue. Yet Mark answered the question before it was
even asked.
So as this Gospel is just the beginning,
it continues today through us. We know
the answer to the question; it is Jesus.
We can have confidence in God’s amazing love because that love is
revealed in the Scriptures, especially here in Mark. Jesus shows his power over the weather, the
demons, sickness, and then his power over death itself. The Book of Mark reveals Jesus as the
powerful God who loved his creation so much that He took on the form of
man. Jesus enters our dirty, infested
lives because He loves us, and this is only the beginning.
We are only beginning to experience
God’s love. We get just a little taste
of that great banquet when we join in the Lord’s Supper. We get just a little taste of it through
God’s grace. We live within the Church,
which is grace, as God molds us into His disciples until we are given the gift
of heaven; when grace is completed, and glory is ours.
Father of grace, your
mercies are new to us each day. We give
you thanks that this is only the beginning of the love that you have for
us. The peace which you give keeps us
safe within your arms. You guard and
protect us from all of the devil’s ways.
Keep us safe this day and use us as your hands to carry your grace
throughout the world. In Jesus’ name we
pray, amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
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