Advent and The Hope of the Nations Mark 1:1

Advent and The Hope of the Nations

Mark 1:1

Introduction: This time of the year we hear some stories about people’s actions around Christmas, you might like this one…

A story… about a man who worked for the Post Office. This man’s job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses that the computer scanning system could not decipher.

One day, a letter came to his desk addressed in shaky handwriting to God. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. He opened it and read these words:

“Dear God, I am a 91-year-old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me? Sincerely, Edna.”

The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to his fellow workers. Each of them dug into their pockets and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which was put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow for the kind thing that they [had] done.

Christmas came and went. A few days later another letter came from the old lady addressed to God. All of the workers gathered around while the letter was opened. It read:

“Dear God, How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it must have been those thieves at the Post Office. Sincerely, Edna.”

Oh well! The Post Office never gets good press! There is a lot of confusion about Christmas, what a blessing it is that the children in our church hear the truth! Even well taught kids can get a little mixed up though. Did you hear about the ten-year-old, who was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible because of her grandmother’s teaching. She asked her grandmother: "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"

       I thought we would begin our Advent celebration looking back to the first verse of the Gospel we have been studying for most of this year. For the Jews, the opening words of the Biblical books were memorized, since they also served as the “title” of the book. We’ll see that Mark’s opening may intentionally evoke the opening line/title of the first book of Scripture, the book of Genesis, in order to clue the reader to the significance of the story that he is about to relate...

“The Beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Genesis began with the phrase “In the beginning…” and Mark echoes that in his opening verse. It is a new beginning, the beginning of the ministry that would make possible a New Creation. It was an awesome moment in God’s unfolding story, the history of redemption.  We’ve seen over the months that Mark’s Gospel is a book of action, and Mark points immediately to the pinnacle of God’s plan of reconciliation which is found in the sending of the Son, by starting His narrative at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. We don’t have the details of the incarnation, no angels or wise men here! Jesus suddenly explodes onto the scene of human history.

       We’ll look at the three synoptic gospels this month… (next week, the Christmas program will focus on Mark and Luke) but we’ll also touch on some verses from the Fourth Gospel. God gave us four gospels telling the story of Jesus, each from their own perspective. Each one is true, all present history, but each writer is inspired by God to tell the story of Jesus with different emphases. And each is essential to our understanding. God, in His sovereignty, gave us four accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus. None of them is a complete biography, but each one brings a message with unique emphases and urges the reader to believe in Jesus and to follow Him.   

       By the way, let me remind you that the writer of Mark is John Mark, perhaps the young man who fled naked when Jesus was arrested, and clearly the one who abandoned Paul and Barnabas under unknown circumstances on the first missionary journey (and who so became the cause of Paul and Barnabas having a “sharp dispute” and going their separate ways!). From that beginning, this man became the writer of one of the four accounts of the life of Jesus! What Grace!  Our God is the God of second chances. Whatever we have done, whatever we struggle with, God’s grace is bigger than our sin. And He will use us, if we are available and willing. Our Advent theme today is “Hope,” and we have “Hope” because God so loved the world that He gave His only Son… recognize that God’s grace is bigger than your sin. In fact, your sin, and my sin, is exactly why He came! Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That is where this gospel starts, with a summary statement alluding to who Jesus is, and what He came to do...

The Maine* Idea: Advent means Hope because Jesus, the Son of God, came just as God promised, to save us from sin and reconcile us to God. 

I. The Purpose for the incarnation: To reconcile sinners to God. “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus...”  The word “beginning” invites the reader to be thinking in terms of the Old Testament Scriptures… This “beginning” is not the creation referred to in Gen 1:1 and John 1:1, but rather the start of the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, that would ultimately accomplish God’s plan to redeem a people for Himself. That redemption is the foundation of the Hope of Advent.

       The Gospel. Mark begins by making reference to “the Gospel.” The word itself means “good news” and, in a sense, it refers to the story of Jesus that he is about to relate. What makes the gospel good news? God sent the Son into the world for a purpose, to address the problem of sin. That is not a popular notion today. We don’t like to admit that we are guilty, and that left to ourselves we would be lost sinners, without God and without hope.  People are basically good, right? We all believe in the same god, whatever we happen to call him, don’t we?  Well, no, we don’t. One summary of the liberal version of the “gospel” is that “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross...” The truth is much harder to face. The Gospel is good news precisely because of our sin problem. You don’t have to spend much time reading about current events or listening to the evening news before you are reminded that we live in a fallen, sinful, depraved world. The effects of the fall are all around us! Most importantly, sin separated humanity from God. By birth and by choice we all sin and come short of the glory of God—there is none righteous, no not one! Jesus came to pay the penalty for our sins, to offer forgiveness and life to all who will believe.  Paul points to the work of Christ when he explains in Galatians 4:3-5 that we

…were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.  ⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons… (Galatians 4:3-5).

Notice what he says, this is the gospel, the message that saves: Christ died for our sins. He was without sin, and yet he willingly came to be our substitute. The wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23) but He was sinless. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isa 53:6). He died and was buried, but, hallelujah, the grave couldn’t hold Him. The resurrection proved beyond any question that He is who He claimed to be, and that he did for us what we could not do for ourselves. Notice that Mark relates the name of the savior, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus...” His name was given to his earthly parents before he was born. We sometimes think about the “meaning” of a name these days, but usually we like the sound of it, or maybe it is chosen to honor someone in the family. In the biblical narrative, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins..." (Matthew 1:21). The name is the Greek form of the name “Joshua” and literally means “Yahweh saves.” His name reflects his purpose in coming, to be our substitute, to pay the price for our redemption, and to call sinners to repentance and faith. He came to make a way for fallen humans to restored to fellowship with God. Remember the angel’s word to the shepherds, “Unto you is born this day a Savior, Christ the Lord.” He came to save. That’s the Maine* Idea, and it is Good News! Jesus, the Son of God, came just as God promised, to save us from sin and reconcile us to God!

II. The Promise of the Incarnation: The Plan of God was prophesied - “...the Gospel of Jesus Christ...” Scholars tell us that there are over 300 references to 61 specific Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus in his first coming.

       The title most used by the Gospel writers invites us to think in terms of the Old Testament Scriptures. This detail is one of those things that we could miss as New Testament believers in the 21^st century.  All of our lives we’ve heard the full expression of the Lord’s name, “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” In fact, other than someone sinfully taking the Lord’s name in vain, the only time we hear the word “Christ” is in reference to Jesus. It was however a word very well known to Jews in the Greco-Roman world of Jesus’ day. Literally it meant “The Anointed One” and it was used to translate the Hebrew word, meshiach, or “Messiah.”  There was an anticipation of a coming one, a deliverer, throughout the Old Testament.

       The first hints of a coming deliverer are found in the passage that is called the proto-evangelium, the “first good news,” in Genesis 3:15, in the context of the fall, as God is spelling out the consequences of sin, he speaks of a “seed” who would crush the serpent's head. That idea is repeated and developed throughout the Scriptures, in the Law, the Prophets, and the writings (see Luke 24:44).

       In the centuries before Christ the messianic expectation was growing.  For the most part, the people hoped in a human deliverer, someone like David or Solomon who could unite the people and lead them to victory over their oppressors, establishing peace and security in the land.  Very few seemed to wrestle with the Rescuer’s role in addressing our sin problem. Much less did they understand that the messiah himself would suffer, and even die for the sins of His people! The sacrificial system pointed to the seriousness of sin and the need for atonement. They should have understood the words of Isaiah the prophet which spoke of a suffering servant, one who would bear our sins. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the LORD has laid on Him [on the Servant, Jesus] the iniquity of us all...” (Isa 53:6). They should have thought about the “Righteous Sufferer” in the Psalms, who seemed to be a king, innocent, yet rejected and suffering. Could this be God’s Messiah?  It could only be the Promised One! And then in the fullness of time, God sent forth the Son! That is the Maine* Idea... And that is Good News! Jesus, the Son of God, came just as God promised, to save us from sin and reconcile us to God. 

III. The Person of the Incarnation: The Identity of Jesus is revealed in His Sonship. He is “...the Son of God...”

       One of the titles related to the king, and by extension to the promised son of David, was “Son of God.” We sometimes think that Scriptures like Psalm 2:7 were purely prophetic of the coming messiah. They were prophetic, but they were also applied to the king, who, in his leadership of Israel, served as God’s vice-regent, as the representative of his rule before the people. So at the anointing of the king the second psalm would be read, including the oracle, “You are my son, today I have begotten you...” (Ps 2:7). The background to this was the promise that God had made to David in 2 Sam 7:14 when he said that David’s son would be called the son of God. 

       What was true in type for the merely human kings of Israel, was true ontologically for Jesus. He is eternally the Son in relation to the Father, it is His nature. The Son existed from eternity in a face to face relationship with the Father and the Spirit. It was also true with respect to His human nature, because Jesus had no biological, human father. As the Son of God He would be born miraculously to a virgin (cf. Isa 7:14). The angel’s announcement to Mary alludes to this extended meaning of the title,

³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.  ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,  ³³ and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  ³⁴ And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?" ³⁵ And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy- the Son of God... (Luke 1:31-35).

Jesus would be fully man, and fully God: two natures, one person. The theological term that is used to describe that paradox is the “hypostatic union.” The eternal divine Son, the Logos who was with God and was God, took upon himself a human nature. There was not (and is not) a human Jesus and a divine Christ, but one person with two natures. I believe Paul refers to this in Philippians 2:6,7,

“...though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  ⁷ but made himself nothing, [by] taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Jesus took upon himself a human nature. God the Son became the God-Man. To undo the sin of Adam, to bridge the chasm that separated sinful humans from Holy God. He came to open a pathway to reconciliation, and that pathway is the way of the cross.

What is God saying to me in this passage? Have you heard the Good News? Jesus, the Son of God, came according to promise to make a way for sinful humans to be reconciled to holy God. 

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Have you trusted Jesus as your only hope of salvation? Have you acknowledged Him as the Lord of your life? The Gospel is a message of Grace, of God’s intervention in history, of the supreme demonstration of unconditional love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” His plan for getting that message to the world is US – you and me!  He chose to include us in His story! Think about the people around you, your family, your neighbors, your co-workers... you are God’s ambassador, his missionary, sent to them to share the Good News of Jesus.  After all He has done for us, will we be found faithful in fulfilling that calling? Recall what Jesus said to the healed man, “Go, return to your house (oikos) and tell them what the Lord has done for you.”

       As we embrace that mission, we hope that all of our teaching in this church is equipping you to follow Jesus and to be His witness. We want also want to give you opportunities to invite the people around you to come and hear the truth. Next week you will have at least three opportunities to invite your friends and neighbors to our Journey to Bethlehem event... Saturday night, then Sunday morning a “modified” program, and then again Sunday night. Don’t miss this opportunity to be a blessing to someone you love, and start praying now that God would open their heart to the message.

       Even now, as we prepare our hearts to share in the table that commemorates the sacrifice that bought our redemption, let us repent of the sin of complacency, and determine in our hearts to love our friends, relatives, and neighbors, the people that God has sovereignly and strategically placed in our lives, let us commit to praying for them, and to asking God for the opportunity to give a reason for the hope that we have in Jesus. The Lord’s Table invites us to look back on His sacrifice, and also remember that we celebrate this ordinance “until He returns.” We don’t know the time, but now is the day of salvation!      AMEN.