The "Good News" of a Victory

Author: Pastor Mike Gutzler

This week is an important time for us as we travel through the narrative lectionary. We make the large leap from the Hebrew scriptures into the Christian scriptures, marking the first reading from the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel we will spend our time with from now until Palm Sunday on the first weekend in April.

 Mark is an important Gospel for many reasons, the first of which is that Mark is the oldest of the gospels. Secondly, Mark’s gospel was used by Matthew and Luke to write their own gospels. Last, but not least, Mark’s gospel is missing some very important parts of the Jesus story that we tend to take for granted; like the Christmas story. Yes, in Mark there is no Mary, no Joseph, no angels, shepherds or wiseman. It starts with a simple prologue: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 Within this one sentence, there is a depth of meaning that is important to consider before moving on. The key in this first verse of Mark is “good news.” The word here translated as good news is the same word for Gospel, but there is a deeper meaning as well. This word for good news was most often used in its contemporary sense as the message of good news that comes from a messenger who just left a battlefield and brings to a higher general the good news of a victory.

 The awareness of this simple word orients our whole understanding of Mark’s gospel. Those hearing this first verse would be cued to hear of what victory was won and how they could celebrate.

 From the first verse onward we will hear story after story about how Jesus comes to radically change how we are oriented to the world. We will read how the message of a battle victory is, in reality, Christ’s defeat over the powers and pains that suppress life in this world. What we are about to hear next changes everything…

Watch the first chapter of Mark’s gospel on stage. As Jesus begins his ministry, he is baptized by John the Baptist calls on his first disciples (Andrew and Simon, then James and John), and performs his first miracles, healing the sick and demon-possessed.