The Beginning of the Good News
An invitation into a story still unfolding.
Today is the 9th day of the Christmas season. Most forget this and it’s likely that the stronger cultural push is the new beginning that comes with a new year. In this time, people often expect change, particularly toward a new orderliness or some other kind of life change for the better. This isn’t far off from the gospel of Mark’s thrust.
Mark is going to move fast on us. There’s really no way around it. It’s simply the nature of his gospel. Narrative details are brief. What may be a drawn-out story in Matthew, Luke, or John is often compressed and urgent in Mark. That doesn’t mean Mark is careless or uninterested in detail. When Mark does slow down to include a particular detail, we should pay close attention. If he chose to include it, it likely carries significant meaning.
It is not overdone to notice the language Mark uses in his very first verse: The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ…
There is a strong implication here that what Mark is about to tell us is not the whole story, but only the beginning. This is more than a literary opening. It is an invitation. “Come and listen,” yes, but also, “Join in.” You are being welcomed into a story that is still unfolding.
That phrase, good news, would not have sounded abstract or sentimental to Mark’s first readers. It was politically and socially charged language used for royal announcements and imperial victories. Mark dares to use it not for Caesar, but for Jesus. And not merely for ideas about Jesus, but for Jesus himself.
The good news Jesus announces, here and throughout Mark, is the arrival of God’s kingdom. This announcement demands attention and it demands change. It is not simply information to be absorbed, but a reality that confronts how life is lived. God’s kingdom arrives with a power that heals bodies, restores communities, confronts evil, and reorders loyalties.
James, writing to scattered Christian communities, echoes this same posture at the outset of his letter. He does not promise ease or clarity, but formation. Trials, he says, are not interruptions to faith but the very means by which faith is shaped, producing endurance and maturity. In other words, the journey matters as much as the destination.
From the very beginning, Mark makes it clear that this story will not remain safely on the page. And James reminds us that it will not leave us unchanged, but will necessarily result in actions (what he often calls “works”). If this truly is good news, then it will require something of us. Listening will lead to following. Belief will move toward action. And the beginning Mark offers will press us toward what comes next.
Mark 1:1-14
The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God’s Son, happened just as it was written about in the prophecy of Isaiah:
Look, I am sending my messenger before you.
He will prepare your way,
a voice shouting in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way for the Lord;
make his paths straight.”
John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins. John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
At once the Spirit forced Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.
After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee announcing God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!”
James 1:1-4
From James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
To the twelve tribes who are scattered outside the land of Israel.
Greetings!
My brothers and sisters, think of the various tests you encounter as occasions for joy. After all, you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let this endurance complete its work so that you may be fully mature, complete, and lacking in nothing.
Prayer
God,
As we begin again, not just a new year, but a new telling of the good news, give us ears to hear and hearts willing to be shaped. Slow us enough to notice what matters - where your kingdom presses in, where our loyalties are challenged, where following Jesus will require change.
Form us through the journey ahead. But do it for today. This day. When it is difficult, give us endurance. When it is unclear, give us wisdom. When belief feels easy but action feels costly, draw us forward anyway.
Let this story not remain safely on the page, but let it take flesh in how we live, in what we choose, in the love we offer and the justice we pursue.
Holy Father of all creation, we see your loving justice in Jesus of Nazareth. By your Spirit, make us more like him.
Amen.