Dwell in the Word: Mark 1:1-13

As we start Dwell in the Word with Mark 1:1-13 consider these questions:

1. What three key elements are highlighted in the opening verse of Mark's gospel, and how do they set the stage for the narrative?

2. The concept of "immediately" is emphasized throughout the Gospel of Mark. How does this urgency impact the way the story of Jesus is told, and what does it suggest about the nature of His ministry?

3. In verse 10, we witness a significant moment in which the heavens open, the Spirit descends, and God the Father speaks directly about Jesus. How does this event serve as an ordination for Jesus' ministry, and what implications does it have for how we receive His message today?

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Transcript:

As we start out in Mark's gospel, we get a sense right away of what we're going to be looking at and how the story is going to be told. As we look at verse one, it says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So, we have three things here that I want us to really see before we move on to some other stuff in this reading.

First, the beginning, this is the start. This is the telling of the story of Jesus, very important thing to understand. Now, it isn't like some of the other gospels. You know, if we look at the Gospel of John, while that doesn't have the story of Jesus birth, it starts out in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, it goes all the way back to the beginning of Scripture, right? But then in Luke and Matthew, we get another beginning of the story, we get the beginning of the story of Jesus birth. Well, here we have the beginning of the gospel and gets right into it. But what the gospel writer here what Mark is trying to say is that this is the beginning of how God saved his people. And we see that in that word, gospel, it's good news. It's a declaration of something that has been done. And so that's the second thing I want us to see. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the good news of how he saves his people. This is not going to be another law. This is a gospel. It is the good news that God is rescuing his people. This is something that is being done for them. And it's Jesus that does it.

And finally, that phrase, the Son of God, we are used to that phrase. But what Mark is doing here is he is saying, this is Jesus, he is more than just a person. He is more than just a shaman wandering in the wilderness. He's more than just a guru. He is the Son of God, he is divinely gifted, he is divine himself. This is Mark making an outstanding claim about this one, this Jesus Christ.

And so as we begin to look at this, I want us to go down here to this phrase, specifically here in verse 10. And when he came up out of the water, then we see that the word is not a phrase, I guess, it's a word immediately. Right now, later on, I haven't highlighted another spot, verse 12, you can see here, if you're watching on video, the spirit immediately we're gonna see this word in the Gospel of Mark a lot immediately. There is an urgency here to what Jesus is doing. There's a the story is being told in such a way that it's exciting. Now, if you've ever watched a older movie, after you've watched modern movies, you may have noticed something, even though you found the movie to be rather exciting. When you watched it in the past, the pacing is just a little bit different. How is it we we have changed the way stories are told in the modern, modern times compared to movies even 2030 years ago, they just move faster? Well, we can kind of think about this. In the same way. This word immediately is moving the story on, you know how there's quick cuts in modern movies and TV shows. The Gospel of Mark is told with quick cuts in a similar way.

Now, you may have noticed this, just by looking at this, look how far we've gotten in the story of Jesus, we are being told that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, we hear about John the Baptist, Jesus baptizing two whole verses. And then his temptation is to hole verses. The whole story of Jesus here and mark is told with an immediacy, it uses the words immediately. Now before we talk about that a little bit more, and I use that as our application. I want us to look at this verse 10, one more time. And when he came up out of the water, I immediately saw the heavens being torn open, and the spirit is sending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven. You are My beloved Son, with you. I am well pleased. So we see more of who Jesus is here. He is the one who is fulfilling all this stuff, the stuff that John the Baptist spoke about him. And now we have the spirit present, we have the voice of the Father and heaven, saying, You are my beloved son with you, I am well pleased. Jesus is here to do a specific work. Jesus is ordained by God to do something.

And we know what that story is. We know that it is about Jesus coming to rescue his people from their sin, for him to bear the wrath of God in our place at the cross and to rise again that we might be saved. But here we see this beginning off of the ministry. The Gospel of Mark is saying, hey, the spirit is telling us that he is upon this Jesus and the voice of the Father is giving this essentially an ordination of Jesus He's ordaining him for the ministry, you are the beloved son with you. I am well pleased. You are here to do the mission.

And so, as we think about this, we need to remember that we need to take who this Jesus is seriously. That's the point that the gospel of Mark is making here. This is Jesus. He is the one we listened to and So, like I said, I want to come back to this word immediately, for our thoughts on how we apply this to our lives. And I might come back to this several times, in fact, when I preach through Mark and preach through Mark, but the lectionary had several, several passages from Mark a few years back, before we started preaching through books of the Bible, we use that those assigned text and we saw a lot of this word immediately. And you may remember me saying the point here is by saying immediately, all the time we're forced to deal with the immediacy of what Jesus is doing. He's doing it not only quickly, but he's doing it with purpose. And so the question we ask is, we look at this quick beginning story of Jesus, what are we going to do with Jesus? How are we going to react to him? As we read through this gospel, and we embrace it three times a week? How are we going to deal with what he has to say? Are we going to understand the necessary immediacy of the words of Jesus, how they apply to us? Are we going to let the word work in us through the Spirit? Are we going to push it aside? That's the challenge for us. So may we be open to the Spirit of God and the Word of God working in us, and convicting us of our sin and, and having us say, you know, I need to listen to Jesus here. I need to be willing to let the word work in me, so that I can change my life so that I can work in let God work in me to bring more glory to Him. So may we think about this today? The immediacy of the message of Jesus, trusting that God will be at work in us through His Word and Spirit, to bring glory to himself.