Mark 1:1-20

Mark’s account of Jesus’ life starts off at a sprinter’s pace and never slows down. Watch for the word “immediately” as you read.

Mark skips the birth and childhood of Jesus and jumps right in with, “This is the Good News of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Right from the beginning, Mark grabs his readers’ attention with a shout about what’s coming. But strangely, even though Mark races ahead from event to event without a pause, the very first thing he does is look back hundreds of years to a promise made by Isaiah (one of the most well-known prophets of the Jewish people, and one of the longest books in the Old Testament).

Mark writes: “It began just as the prophet Isaiah said it would,” with a messenger shouting, “Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the road for him!” Back in the days when kings and queens reigned, this is just the kind of thing a herald would say when the king himself was approaching a town or village or neighboring kingdom.

And that’s exactly what John the Baptist does here: announces the arrival of a king, of the King. But it isn’t going to look the way people expected. This arrival and this King are going to change everything from that moment forward.

Mark is going to tell us and show us why.