"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Michael Card gives new meaning to these familiar words of Jesus in a new collection of songs inspired by the Gospel of Mark. Rendering the urgency of Mark's account into music, Card confronts us with the passionate appeal of God to humanity through the voice of Jesus.Flowing with the rich, melodic sound and thoughtful lyrics you've come to expect from Card, this album also features the vocals of Out of the Grey's Christine Dente, including her unforgettable solo track, "It's All Over Now." Produced by Scott Dente and including orchestral accompaniment, "Mark: The Beginning of the Gospel" offers a vibrant, full musical experience of Mark's Gospel that will resonate with the heart.
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1The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
When we listen to the text of Scripture with our heart and mind fully engaged, we should almost hear the tone of the author’s voice. When I listen to the opening verse of Mark, I hear an enthusiastic young man who is almost out of breath.
He is speaking to us from the midst of a crisis in Rome, which is reason enough for the sense of immediacy and haste that permeates his Gospel. He is recording for us the living memories of Simon Peter, known to be exceedingly emotional himself. As we strive to listen together to Mark’s voice, to his concentrated telling of the miracle that is Jesus of Nazareth, we will constantly be reminded of his urgency by his frequent use of the historical present tense (over a hundred and fifty instances), by his repeated use of the word “immediately” (eutheos) and by his frenetic use of “and” (kai) to string together his ideas.
His literary voice is simple and urgent. He has no time for personal or theological agendas, no inclination toward prosaic language. From the outset, let’s tune our ears to the earnest urgency of Mark.
Some have wondered if Mark intended verse 1 to be a title for the book. He would have known that the phrase “the beginning” would remind his few Jewish readers in Rome of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning . . . ,” and the opening of the Old Testament. As the first words of Genesis spoke of the promise of a new beginning, a new creation, so Mark begins his Gospel with the same hope. His story is about everything made new.
In referring to the story of Jesus as a “gospel,” Mark would have caught the attention of his Roman listeners. The word “gospel” or “evangel” was a thoroughly Roman term connected to pagan festivals and the cult of the emperor. It means “good news.” An inscription celebrating the birth of Octavian reads, “The birthday of the god was for the world the beginning of ‘joyful tidings.’”[1] Mark’s first hearers would have immediately understood that he was referring to good news that was a cause for celebration, a historical event that would introduce a radically new situation to the world.
The use of the word “gospel” in association with the life of Jesus was nothing new. Paul, whom Mark had accompanied on his first missionary journey, used the word more than eighty times in his letters. Yet the word is being reborn in Mark’s Gospel. He is the only evangelist to refer to his work by that term. Though Matthew and Luke both use “gospel” in the body of their writings, never do they refer to their books as such. In fact, Paul, Matthew and Luke always use the phrase “the gospel.” Mark is the first person to present “a Gospel.” In verse 1 we are witnessing the birth of a new literary form, the telling of the story of a life, which is at the same time a testimony. It is one of the most extraordinary sentences in the New Testament.
More than a title, verse 1 also presents Mark’s broad outline. His account is simple and straightforward, comprising only two parts. Both sections establish the twofold identity of Jesus as Christ and God’s Son.
The first section, from Mark 1:1 to 8:30, presents Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. With Jesus’ baptism, Mark begins to tell the story of the first disciples and Jesus’ early ministry. A common thread throughout is the disciples’ confusion over who Jesus is. It comes to a finale when Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah. Being the faithful Jew he was, Mark lived in the hope and expectation of the appearance of the Messiah. He would have heard such rabbinic teachings as “He who, when he prays, does not pray for the coming of the Messiah, has not prayed at all.” The appearing of Jesus promised to fulfill his spiritual, political and economic hopes. It would be the solution to every problem, the answer to every question. At least that is what Mark and his contemporaries believed.
The second section begins with Mark 8:31 and comes to a dramatic conclusion with the confession of the centurion at the crucifixion, who declared in Mark 15:39, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (asv). In the course of Mark’s narrative, we will gradually discover that Jesus is truly the Messiah and uniquely the Son of God. Mark takes us on a long, disturbing journey. If we listen with fully engaged imaginations, we will find ourselves at the end of his Gospel with the women outside the empty tomb. There we will be forced to make our own personal decision about who Jesus truly is.
The Overwhelming Significance of John
2As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Look, I am sending My messenger ahead of You,
who will prepare Your way.
3A voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make His paths straight!”
4John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were flocking to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. 6John wore a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7He was preaching: “Someone more powerful than I will come after me. I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of His sandals. 8I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
The first voice we hear in Mark’s Gospel is not Jesus’ voice but Malachi’s. Mark quotes the prophet’s veiled prediction of the ministry of John the Baptist, a promise found in the closing words of Malachi (Mal 3:1; 4:5-6). In a single breath, we have both the final promise of God in the Old Testament and its fulfillment in the opening of the New.
When we meet him in Mark, John is standing in the Jordan with his camel-hair coat, preaching repentance. Repentance—it is the only way the people would be prepared to meet the one who was coming to forgive their sins. That is how John “prepares the way” for Jesus. In the course of the story we will meet men and women who have come to Jesus with repentant hearts because they had, no doubt, heard the preaching of John.
The prophetic voice abruptly shifts. Now it is Isaiah’s voice we hear in the wilderness. It is crying out in the Baptist’s hoarse words that the path, which was crooked, will be made straight. It will no longer be a meandering passage that twists and turns; from now on the way will lead straight to Jesus, the Messiah.
John is all that is old and everything that is new. He stands with one foot in the Old Testament and the other firmly planted in the New. It is impossible to overstate his significance. He was so famous in his time that he merited mention in the writings of Josephus (see appendix C). In every Gospel the story of Jesus’ ministry begins with that of John. When Peter and Paul present their accounts of the life of Jesus, they will begin with John as well (Acts 1:22; 10:37; 13:24-25). The prophetic voice of God, silent for four hundred years, has begun to speak once more in him. He will become the focus of Herod Antipas. Mark, so known for his brevity, will give a peculiarly lengthy account of John’s death (Mk 6:14-29).
John is the “Elijah who is to come” (Mt 11:14). From the wilderness, clothed in camel hair, eating locusts and honey and screaming Elijah’s message (2 Kings 1:8; Mk 9:9-13), he enters the scene with a tremendous following, attracting the attention of a king. Years later Paul will still encounter John’s disciples in far-off Ephesus (Acts 19:4). Each of the Gospels provides its own unique tribute to John. Matthew’s is the lengthiest (Mt 11:7-19). In it Jesus praises his cousin, saying, “Among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared” (Mt 11:11). Luke honors John by telling of his miraculous birth in parallel with Jesus’ (Lk 1:5-80). In the Gospel of John, in a lengthy passage concerning the prophet (Jn 5:31-38), Jesus proclaims that he was a “burning and shining lamp” (v. 35).
The object of prophecy, the product of a miraculous birth, the focus of both the great and lowly, John has every reason to be prideful. But such is not the case. His message, says Mark in 1:7, is clothed with radical humility. Jesus is more powerful, John preaches. While he merely baptizes with water, Jesus will immerse his followers in the Holy Spirit. (Mark omits “and fire”—see Matthew 3:11—in light of the situation; his readers were suffering in the wake of the conflagration that destroyed Rome.) The task of loosening the sandals was performed by the lowliest of slaves, but John is not worthy to do even that for Jesus. Yet Jesus will exceed John even in his humility. Jesus will go beyond the lowly task of loosening the sandal. He will wash his disciples’ feet (Jn 13:5-17).
In the Wilderness
9In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. 10As soon as He came up out of the water, He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending to Him like a dove. 11And a voice came from heaven:
You are My beloved Son;
I take delight in You!
12Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness. 13He was in the wilderness 40 days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and the angels began to serve Him.
The journey from Nazareth to the Jordan River, where tradition says Jesus was baptized, would have taken ten days to two weeks on foot. As Jesus made his lonely way south along the shaded path that lay beside the river, he could at any moment have turned back from all that was awaiting him and returned to the safety of home. He had had a lifetime to ponder his decision, and for these final solitary ten days it would have loomed large in his heart and mind.
All at once, with Markan abruptness, Jesus has arrived. There is no mention of John’s confusion at being asked to baptize his cousin (see Mt 3:13). In a flash it is done. Jesus has submitted to a baptism of repentance though he has nothing of which to repent. The deep desire of his heart is to embrace those of us who need to repent. His baptism speaks of his choice of solidarity with us.
We find Mark’s favorite word for the first time in Mark 1:10: eutheos, often translated “immediately.” He will use it eleven times in this chapter alone. It is the verbal razor blade he uses for the quick cuts of his fast-paced portrayal of Jesus’ life. “Immediately” Jesus comes out of the water and sees a vision. He has traveled far, both physically and emotionally, to come to this place. He is exhausted and needy. The vision and the voice will provide all that he needs and more.
Heaven opens and the Spirit John just referred to descends “like a dove” (Mk 1:10). Mark refers to the Spirit only five times in his Gospel, and three of those references are here. (The remaining two are in chapters 12 and 13.) The baptism of Jesus is the only place in the Bible where the image of a dove describes the Holy Spirit. We must decide for ourselves what “like” means. Does it literally mean that a white bird landed on Jesus’ shoulder? Or does it mean that the Spirit somehow fluttered, as with wings, and came to rest on him? (Acts 2 describes the Spirit as a flickering flame.) In Mark 1:11, the voice of God completes the appearance of the Trinity: the voice of the Father, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, the Son.
The Father’s first words, “You are my Son,” are from Psalm 2:7. “I take delight in you” is a paraphrase from Isaiah 42:1, which begins a passage directed at the suffering servant of chapters 42 through 55. In Isaiah these are ominous words, spoken to one who would suffer for our sin and God’s sake. But at the same time they are the words every son and daughter longs to hear from their father. Above all others, these are the words Jesus needs to hear from his Father at the outset of his ministry. (If you have never heard these words from your earthly father, hear them now, spoken by your heavenly Father.)
Baptism and wilderness—they are connected. One prepares us for the other. To be set apart by baptism means that a wilderness lies ahead of us. The Spirit that has descended now drives. In the original, Mark 1:12 opens with “And immediately,” a double dose of Markan literary haste. Jesus is literally “thrown” or “cast” by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Without providing a single detail of the threefold temptation of Jesus, Mark characteristically abbreviates the story. Instead he adds a meaningful detail found in none of the other Gospels. Jesus, he says, was “with the wild animals.” For Mark’s first readers, wild animals would have been waiting in their own personal wilderness as well. With the persecution under Nero after the fire in Rome, the prospect of being thrown to the wild beasts in the arena became very real (see appendix C). Their baptism and experience of wilderness were as intertwined as was Jesus’ experience.
John cries out in the desert. He comes baptizing in the desert. Jesus is driven to and tempted in the desert. Again and again in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus will return to the desert. In Mark 1:35 he will retreat there to pray in solitude. In verse 45 he will be forced there by the crush of the crowds. In chapter 6 he will invite the disciples there to rest. And there, though he himself will be exhausted from ministry, he will feed five thousand.
His First Words
14After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee, preaching the good news of God: 15“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news!”
