PREPARE THE
WAY OF THE LORD
1The beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2As it is
written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send
my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,
3the voice of
one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way
of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
4John appeared,
baptizing in the wilderness, and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins. 5And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going
out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their
sins.
6Now John was
clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate
locusts and wild honey.
7And he
preached, saying,
“After me comes
he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie.
8I have baptized
you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
MARK 1:1-8
COMMENTARY
Marks starts his
narrative of the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, by openly
declaring that He is the Son of God.
He starts his narrative
as a man of faith, someone who is convinced of the messianic claim of Lord
Jesus and is ready to share it with the world.
As part of the
justification of his faith, Mark presents a couple of prophesies, one from Malachi
3:1, and the other from Isaiah 40:3; where both prophets speak of the coming of
God suddenly to his Temple and that a messenger should go before Him to prepare
the people to receive Him.
The first quote
is cited freely and spoken towards Jesus but keeps the sense of the message.
Malachi’s version in the Masoretic and the Septuagint is YHWH who speaks about
Himself in first person.
The second quote
taken from Isaiah 40:3 and it is according to the Greek version but is
basically the same as in the Septuagint.
Mark is redundant
and only mentions the name of the last prophet. It’s important to know that certain
old manuscripts contain the verse 2, as saying ‘the prophets’ and not ‘Isaiah’;
but most version contain only the name of Isaiah as we commonly have it.
It is also worth
to note that Malachi’s prophecy is messianic, because even though verse one is
applied to John the Baptist as the messenger before YHWH; the last part of that
verse speaks of another messenger, ‘the messenger of the covenant in whom you
delight, behold, he is coming, says YHWH of hosts.’
Here God, who
gives the prophecy to Malachi, is not speaking of the first messenger, suddenly
He mentions another ‘messenger’ in ‘whom they delight’. The listeners are not
only delighting in the message of God coming to them, but also in the person of
this mysterious messenger, who is someone different to the first messenger.
Mark also speaks
that John the Baptist appeared, preaching a baptism of repentance.
Many have said
that this baptism is not the same as Christian baptism (Acts 19:3-5). Indeed,
it was not. Christian Baptism represents repentance, but also the New Birth in
Christ, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, who makes us Children of God.
John’s baptism represented the washing of sins, Jesus’s baptism represents our
new birth as Children of God, washed not by water, but by the blood of Christ
Jesus.
But also, it
says that John preached this baptism for the forgiveness of sins. Was it necessary
to attain forgiveness?
Of course, God
had prescribed temple offerings for the forgiveness of sins, and these were not
tied up to John’s particular unorthodox ritual. But the new covenant of Grace
was about to come, and those who truly repented of their sins and converted to
the message of the Baptist, needed to make a public confession of their guilt,
and accept the ritual to be formally forgiven by God. It was not the only way,
but it was a way, the way of the disciples of John, who awaited the Messiah.
The same way today, it is important to take water baptism to be forgiven of
sins. It is through this ritual that God commanded to be celebrated, that we
officially make a compromise with God to a new life, and God forgives us
officially and adopts us as his own.
Then the Baptist
starts proclaiming the Messiah’s coming.
Someone who is
higher than him in honor, and virtue, whom he (John) is not worthy to touch
even his feet. This shows the amount of respect that John had for the Messiah,
whom he did not know yet who was (Mt 11:3), but he knew that he was from God,
and the founder of a new covenant.
And more over,
John knew that the Messiah will baptize with the Spirit of God. Something no
human can do.
Omar Flores.
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