Pastor Steve’s Blog July 29, 2019 This coming Sunday, we will be finishing up with Mark Chapter 1 with the story of Jesus healing the leper. As good review of Mark Chapter 1 is found in the “Basic Bible Commentary.” I thought I would share it with you in preparation for concluding the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark. “Mark’s story is not simply a human biography. Certainly Jesus had a human life, but Mark’s message is a form of proclamation, a ‘gospel’ (good news). Even the introduction of John the Baptist serves this proclamation…to advance the coming good news in Jesus. There is something surprising in that role. John is hardly the first choice of the respectable. He is a scruffy figure, preaching repentance and demanding baptism. That people go out in response to him is no measure of his personal popularity but of God’s purpose in history. Also surprising is the presentation of Jesus. The first thing the messianic king does is to submit himself to the humbling experience of a baptism for sinners. And though he is acclaimed as the messianic king, no one else sees it. He then proceeds to call unlikely disciples, and to astonish with his messianic deeds of healing and exorcism. In such ways is the kingdom of God ‘at hand.’ We can sum up the insights in the following way: --What constitutes the gospel is not, for Mark, the life of Jesus, but the proclamation-with-passion of Jesus. Yet also for Mark the gospel is a story. --God’s saving activity on our behalf is never predictable, but always surprises us. --What we often consider good news is not necessarily the ‘gospel of God.’ --The Kingdom is present wherever messianic deeds of healing occur. --There are powers of evil in the world to be combatted in the name of the Kingdom.”