The Messiah Has Arrived
Mark 1:1-11
I. Introduction:
In 1996, the staff at the Bridger Wilderness Area in the in Wyoming received the following responses on comment cards from hikers on their trails.
Trails need to be wider so people can walk while holding hands.
Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
Too many bugs and leeches and spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the areas of these pests.
A small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed?
A MacDonald’s would be nice at the trailhead.
The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.
Too many rocks in the mountains. (Mike Neifert, Light and Life, February 1997, p. 27; www.PreachingToday.com)
For many we forget that life is hard, marked with struggles and difficulties.
The Christian life is no different, Jesus did not live an easy life, instead a life that was often marked with struggles.
Mark is writing this gospel to a group of Roman Christians who are experiencing in many ways the persecution of the Roman Empire.
This fits very well with the call that is on all our lives as believers, that Jesus gives us later in the gospel:
Mark 8:34 “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Mark’s gospel is very unique because He presents Jesus as the awesome powerful Savior over all nature, Satan and man.
Mark focuses:
1. Focuses on more of the actions of Jesus than His teachings
2. Focuses in on how Jesus prepares disciples for ministry
3. Focuses in on a high view of Jesus. Many throughout the gospel of Mark will testify that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of God.
So this morning when we come to Chapter 1 we see immediate action, we see Christ coming on the scene and His ministry is set forth on the loose.
We come to verse 1 and we read these words:
Read v.1
Mark is showing his readers that a new beginning is here, that God is revealing the good news of Jesus Christ.
Now notice the title that Mark uses for Jesus:
Jesus = from the Hebrew name Joshua which means The Lord is salvation
Christ = anointed one
Son of God = shows the deity of Christ, that Christ is fully God and fully man.
Already Mark is showing us that in his gospel, will be the good news of the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.
When we move into the next few verses we see a man by the name of John the Baptist doing something unusual:
II. Questions of the Text:
A: Who is this John the Baptist?
Read v.2-8
Well we see that Mark unlike Luke and Matthew is not concerned with John’s parents, birth, or the ethics of his teaching.
Instead what we see very early is John is a prophet of God with a mission to prepare people for the coming Christ.
His message is a message that is very radical for the day and time.
Read v.4-5
In the history of the Jews no one has ever called them to be baptized.
For baptism was seen as something for Gentiles who converted to Judaism.
The Jews believed that Gentiles were defiled and needed to be immersed in baptism order to be cleansed from their impurities.
So this act was startling because the Jews were admitting, that they needed to repent and place their faith in God.
But John is calling all of Israel to be baptized, he is preaching, heralding, proclaiming a need for all to repent and be baptized.
Just as today our gospel is to go out to the nations.
Notice in verse 5 that droves of people were showing up to hear this message, they have never heard.
B: What does his baptism mean?
We see John is calling others to be baptized, a baptism of repentance.
v. 4 “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins”
v.4 “repentance” = means to return to God and change one’s course of life.
Repentance includes a change of mind, will and action
v.4 “remission of sins” = forgiveness, it means to send your sins away.
It is amazing that when you ask God to forgive you and you repent of your sin, God sends your sins away.
Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
Micah 7:19, “He will again have compassion on us, you will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea.”
When you repent, and ask for forgiveness then God forgives you of the sin in your life, and guilt is something that you no longer bear.
It is often a struggle is it not, that God cast our sins to the depth of the sea, but yet we fish them back up.
God removes our transgressions as far as the east is to the west, yet we often set out on an expedition to find them again.
What a faithful God we have who says, I will never throw those sins back up in your face, I will never fish them back up or call them back to your attention, instead I will cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
John is baptizing folks who have repented of their sin.
We see in verse 9 a shift in action.
III. Question 2: What does the baptism of Jesus mean?
Read v.9-11
v.9 “It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee,”
Notice there is nothing special that Mark does to introduce Jesus.
There is no birth account, no baby shower being thrown by the wise men, no shepherds out with their flock, no angel announcement of the birth of the Messiah, no plot by a King to kill all the babies born under the age of 2.
Nothing, Mark just basically says, Jesus showed up on the scene.
Jesus appears as un-powerful as one could get. The Messiah, appears on the scene as one who at this point is just like the crowd.
But something is about to happen that will distinguish Jesus from the others who have been baptized.
Read v.9-11 again
Why was Jesus baptized?
Christ was baptized not because there was anything He needing to repent of.
1. Christ was baptized to identify Himself with sinners.
Jesus was proclaiming His identity with human nature, identifying with our weaknesses, with our temptations, with our struggles.
2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to but sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit.”
2. Christ was baptized to give a picture of His death and resurrection.
Luke 12:50, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished!”
3. Christ was baptized as a public affirmation of being the Messiah, the one who has come to seek and save that which is lost.
The one who comes to restore sinful man back to a Holy God.
Notice in verse 10 when Jesus is coming up out of the water, what happens next.
When you come to verse 10 notice three significant events that take place:
Read v.10
1.Heavens being torn open
v.10 “heavens parting” or NIV “heaven being torn open”
Now this is huge because God hasn’t spoken in 400 years.
For the first time in over 400 years you have a public proclamation from God, no prophets for four hundred years until now.
Now none of those were not public events. The heavens have been closed for 400 years until now.
Now they split, this is huge, this is dramatic and this fulfills what many have been waiting for.
Listen to Isaiah 64:1, “Oh, that you would burst from the heavens! That You would come down!”
Isaiah 64 is a cry for God to break into history.
The Jews saw this text as evidence the Messiah would come and heaven would split open and down would come God.
This is a sign of our access to God through Jesus Christ, it is showing that access to a relationship with the Father is now possible because of the Son.
Also it is showing that God has access to us whether we welcome Him or not.
This is showing that God is invading time, He is breaking forth into human time and space in order to redeem His creation, in order to redeem sinful man.
2. Spirit descends upon Him like a dove
Now it is not saying that the Holy Spirit is a dove but the spirit descending like a dove.
The importance of this is that we see that Jesus ministry will be empowered by the Holy Spirit.
3. Voice from heaven
The Father is leaving no doubt that this is His Son, the Father is approving of the Son’s coming and His mission to redeem man!
VI. Conclusion
Notice immediately after His baptism you see Jesus going head on with Satan in the wilderness.
Notice something very unique about this encounter.
It does not say that Jesus won the fight, it does not say that Jesus drove Satan away like the other gospels.
Instead what Mark is doing is showing that His ministry is one continuous encounter with Satan, it is not just limited to this forty day span.
Instead what you see Mark doing is showing that the battle is not over, the decisive victory will come at the death and resurrection.
VII. Application:
So why is this text important?
What is the application for you today?
Some people might think:
1.I need to be baptized by immersion, that is what the text is teaching me
2.Some may think, in order to meet with God, I need to go out into the wilderness
3.Some may think I need to be baptized in order to fight off Satan.
Mark is not telling us to do anything of those things because the main person in the text is not us but it is Jesus.
Mark is pointing us to Jesus, the one who has come:
1.The Jesus who is more powerful and greater than John.
2.The Jesus who is announced from heaven by God Father as the one in whom He is well pleased.
3.The Jesus who is tested by Satan in the desert.
4.The Jesus who is the Messiah the Son of God, the bearer of the Holy Sprit and the victor over Satan, sin, sickness, and the grave
This is the one Mark is telling us to be well pleased in because this Jesus came once and this Jesus is coming again.
So in the words of the old hymn:
“O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s a light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
Over us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conquerors we are!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things on earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.
Let us pray!
