Sermon Ideas For Mark 1:1-8 Part 1
Christology
Advent is a season of high expectations. Perhaps for many the expectations
extend only to the holiday festivities now custom plan revealed to Jesus. In
this plan, God is sending the divine messenger as the voice crying in the wilderness
who prepares the Lord's way. The parallelism of vv. 2-3 also reveals to us that
the Lord is none other than Jesus.
Hence before John even sets one foot on the story's stage we already know
that the gospel's beginning is in God's plan; that the focus of the gospel is
Jesus; that Jesus is Messiah, Lord, Son of God; that the divine messenger is
being sent by God before Jesus; and that this messenger's mission is to prepare
the way of the Lord Jesus.
Mark 1:4-8
John's specific appearance in the wilderness reveals him to be the divine
messenger. He is preparing the way of the Lord through the proclamation and administration
of a repentance-baptism. That, of course, is why all the people are confessing
their sins as they are being baptized by John in the Jordan River (1:5). John's
baptism and their confessions are the intertwined acts of repentance as preparation
for Jesus' advent. In Mark's gospel, however, John's baptism does not itself
grant forgiveness.
Rather, it points to or anticipates the coming of forgiveness which Jesus
grants according to God's authority (cf. 1:4b; 2:1-12). Repentance is part of
John's work of preparation; forgiveness will be manifested in the person and
authority of the stronger one who is coming, i.e., Jesus Messiah, God's royal
Son.
John's dress recalls that of Elijah (1 Kg 1:8). In Mark's story this is
the opening signal that not only will John prepare the way for Jesus through
his preaching and repentance-baptism, but he will also prepare for Jesus in that
he will be handed over (cf. paradidomi in 1:14; 3:19; 9:31; 10:33; 14:10-11,21,41-44;
15:1,10,15), repudiated by evil leadership and killed (6:14-29). Hence as they
do to this, the Elijah figure, so will they also do to Jesus, the Son (cf. 9:9-13;
12:1-12; 15:35:39). John prepares the way for Jesus in both his ministry and
his death.
Ultimately, then, the whole focus of Mark's opening is on Jesus, not on
John. The first line of this story heralds the object of the gospel as Jesus
Messiah, Son of God. In the conversation recorded in scripture, God tells Jesus
about the person and mission of the Lord's preparer. John, the preparer, is also
Elijah who preaches and baptizes as the way to make all of God's The declarations
of the Councils were responses to bitter disputes within the early church itself.
The inclination to stress the divinity of Jesus Christ at the expense of his
humanity as well as the contrary tendency of emphasizing his humanity at the
expense of his unity with God were both disavowed. Although the Councils did
not define the work of Christ, it too was of utmost concern to them. Precisely
because Jesus Christ brings God's salvation he is to be proclaimed "one" with
God and "truly human and truly divine." Controversies over the meaning
and adequacy of such key creedal terms as "essence" and "nature," borrowed
from Greek philosophy, have figured in virtually every Christology thereafter.
Technicalities aside, defenders and critics of classic Christology must address
the same serious, complex issues posed by the biblical record itself. Two are
of overriding concern: (1) The relationship of history and faith, and (2) the
relationship of the "good news" about Jesus Christ and the "good
news of God."
Mark's Christology, like those of other biblical books, is presented from
a standpoint of faith. This is not to say that scripture fails to record the
"facts" of history about Jesus, but that these "facts" as
well as everything else that is recorded are witnesses of and for the community
of faith. Jesus was variously identified by those who met or heard of him—as
prophet and pretender; wise man, madman; martyr, criminal. Apart from the faith
of the church, his "history" would have been all but lost to history.
And so it is that Christology is beholden to the faithful witness of apostles.
Yet their testimony is by no means a closed circle from faith for faith: It refers
to the Nazarene who lived as a public figure—and died a "public enemy"—in
the days of Pontius Pilate. Critical biblical and church-historical studies are
therefore resources for Christological reflection.
Regarding the second issue, Christians tell of the story of Jesus not merely
because like Mount Everest it is there, but because it is bound up with the story
of God's saving love for the world. That these stories are inseparable is a presupposition
for all Christology; explaining that relationship is Christology’s central
task. Precisely this is what the ecumenical creeds undertook by affirming the
oneness of God in three persons and the oneness of Christ in two natures.
Many modern theologians seek to address these issues anew by self-conscious
efforts to (re)construct Christology either "from below" or "from
above." The former approach takes as its starting point the fact that Jesus
was a human being whose "career"
is a matter of historical investigation. Faith-claims that set his story within
that of God's are then shown to be in keeping with the character, function, and
effects of his lifework. Christologies from above, on the other hand, begin with
the fact that the biblical (apostolic) witness to Jesus proclaims that his story
is the revelation of God. The goal is then to explicate the person and work of
Christ by detailing the peculiar content and form of that revelation as the Jesus-story
unfolds. The two approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive. By casting
light on otherwise hidden aspects of Jesus Christ, each contributes to an increased
understanding of Christianity's Advent expectations.
James O. Duke Texas Christian University
