Active preparation unites today's readings. In Isaiah a road is to be prepared for the king. In Mark, John the Baptist declares the need for repentance before the King comes.
Old Testament The original context for the prophecy of Isaiah 40.1-11 was exile in Babylon about 540 BC and the hope of return to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2) but as a reading for Advent, Isaiah's hope of salvation looks to the Christ. The original unspecified “voice” of verse 3 becomes in Mark's Gospel, John the Baptist.
The first image in Isaiah’s prophecy is of the land being smoothed for God's pathway, when 'the glory of the Lord will be revealed' – a line that always draws the musically inclined to the first part of Handel's Messiah. The prophet then reminds us of our mortality (Brahms' German Requiem according to my sources) but while we wither like grass, 'the word of our God will stand for ever'. Advent is perhaps a difficult time for some, especially if they have been bereaved this past year, and are dreading the first Christmas without their loved one; these verses can offer hope – things in our lives may change, but God’s word is always the same. And by the way that doesn’t mean that all my sermons are going to be the same as last Christmas.
The word here is the 'good tidings', the evangelion, which we translate as 'gospel'. Who is this word for? Well, for Isaiah it is to Zion – i.e. Jerusalem, but standing for the whole nation longing to return from exile.
And what is the message - that 'here is your God' (v. 9). This is the kind of God they were to expect; God comes as a warrior in verse 10 but Isaiah then uses conventional pastoral imagery to portray God's future care for his people (v. 11). So the Lord will come in power, but not without the gentleness and care of a shepherd.
For Mark, the message is also for Jerusalem, and the surrounding countryside, so perhaps not quite so wide in its scope at first glance, but really Mark’s point is that John’s words focus the coming of the Lord in power and with love as prophesied by Isaiah, on the coming of his cousin, Jesus as the Christ.
Mark 1.1-8 is about preparation too. The opening sentence tells us first what kind of literature we are about to read: gospel, good news. Although it takes the form of a narrative, it will not be an objective, chronological biography. While the book is about a historical figure and will be full of historical information, it is a news broadcast and the news is about a victory – euangelion is the word Rome used to announce an imperial victory.
Jesus is introduced in Mark 1 verse 1 as the Christ, which means 'anointed one' (messiah in Hebrew) and this places him in the context of Jewish messianic expectations. That verse also makes a bit of a nonsense the idea that Mark was trying to hide Jesus’ true identity. If he wanted to conceal it, why put it in the first sentence of your work?
The messiah is the anointed king of Israel. These expectations of a new, divinely appointed king frame many of our readings for this period before Christmas. 'Son of God' was an expression used of the Jewish king and could indeed be used of any of God's people. It does not necessarily at this point in the narrative refer directly to the divine son as in the second person of a trinity, but it would be wrong if we never read that sense back into these words. After the introductory sentence, there is no mention of Jesus, but because we have read the story before we know who John means when he speaks of “one more powerful than I”.
Before John is named, he is placed in the context of a divine plan. In Malachi 3.1 God announces that he is sending his messenger to prepare your, i.e. the people's, way. Mark combines this with Isaiah 40.3 prophesying that one from the wilderness will come to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Clearly Mark understands John to be the messenger and Jesus now to be the Lord, kurios, the word used of God in the Greek Old Testament. Such a high christology shows that 'son of God' in verse 1 does imply divinity.
John appears in the Jordan valley, which is only just 'the wilderness' and it is certainly an exaggeration to say that all of Judea and Jerusalem went to hear him, but that exaggeration is perhaps justified in showing the impact of the message that John fore ran and foretold.
I do find the slightly different punctuation between the two passages intriguing. Isaiah’s sense is that the way for the Lord will be prepared in the desert, and so in Mark we have John – the voice – calling in the desert, but the way itself is not just in the desert by the time we get to Jesus. So John is himself (by being in the wilderness) fulfilling not just the voice role but the preparation too.
The dress and diet of John (v. 6) show him to be an Elijah figure (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2). This is important because Elijah is said not to have died but to have been taken straight to heaven, so the belief grew that Elijah would return to earth to announce the beginning of the messianic age.
John is not Elijah, but he carries out Elijah's role. In order to prepare for this new event in Israel, indeed to prepare for a new Israel, John began a movement of national repentance with a ritual of mass baptism (literally a 'washing') in which people confessed their sins in anticipation of their forgiveness. This then is the heart of the preparation that Mark, in the mouth of John, calls his readers to.
But the one who is coming will wash them in the Holy Spirit, reflecting what we read about Christian baptism elsewhere in the New Testament. So the great story begins, although, in the spirit of Advent, we have to wait until after Christmas to resume Mark's narrative.
(using material from Rootsontheweb by Geoffrey Turner)
