How To Read the Bible - ii. Where Do I Start? (Mark 1:1-11)

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I would suggest... begin at the beginning. This collection of 66 books tells one big story, something people sometimes call a metanarrative. It goes from eternity, through the history of humanity, and into eternity: our beginning and our destiny. As with any story, it makes sense to begin at the beginning. 

But which beginning? 

Page 1? Genesis chapter one, verse one?  

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters and God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. Genesis 1:1-3 

I can't get through reading those 3 verses without ending up with half a dozen questions. It's beautiful. It's poetic. It's descriptive. It's evocative. But these few verses present questions that people have been wrangling and wrestling with since... Well, since Genesis chapter 1. 

Everybody has questions in Genesis: Who was Cain's wife? What about Noah's ark? Where is that now? What about the tower of Babel? What was that all about?  

Everybody has questions in Genesis. Everybody stumbles over things in Exodus. Everybody is either bored or offended by Leviticus and Numbers. Everybody gets stuck in Deuteronomy. Absolutely everybody that's paying attention comes through the book of Judges either angry, or heartbroken, or both.  

Those first few books of the Old Testament are a hard read. They are challenging, and I'm not telling you don't read them. I'm just not sure it's the best place to start.  

You would do better to start with the other ‘page one.’  

Start with the gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. These four men wrote memoirs; biographical accounts of Jesus’ life: the things He said, the things He did, the places He went, the relationships He had. What people thought of Him, who He got mad at, and who got mad at Him. Within each of the gospels, there are lots and lots of allusions, lots and lots of connections, what some people call ‘hyperlinks.’ Those hyperlinks can help you start getting a handle on some of the difficult stuff in the Old Testament. Providing context, helping you to see where the story is going from the perspective of the people in Exodus and Numbers and Judges. It helps us see how the Old Testament fits together, and why the Old Testament matters. Because it does.  

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In particular I suggest starting with Mark's gospel. 

“This is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, (there’s one of those hyperlinks),... And in those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee.” 

We read that Jesus is baptised by John 'the Baptiser,' and He immediately goes alone into the wilderness to spend 40 days doing battle with our greatest enemy. He sends that enemy running away with its tail between its legs.  

Again, we have questions. (John was eating what? Grasshoppers?) 

The gospel writers wrote for their own community. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each had a particular audience in mind who they expected to be reading their book. Mark's gospel was written to a Roman audience.  

He probably wrote when he was living in Rome, about 3 decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. He wrote his gospel—his remembrances of Jesus—for fellow believers who were under the thumb of the infamous Emperor Nero. Mark’s brothers and sisters were being arrested and tortured and executed. He wrote for and to believers who were struggling to live their faith in a culture, in a city, in a time when the best that you could hope for was that your neighbours didn't care that you were a Christian; at worst, when they found out, they would want you to die in pain and humiliation. Mark wrote to people whose lives were at risk every time they had to choose between the politically expedient, and what they knew to be true. He writes to remind them about Jesus, to take them back to first principles, to “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” He writes to take them back to that moment... God's great surprise when this unexpected, out of nowhere, all of a sudden, ordinary Jewish man named Yehoshua shows up with His countrified accent, with His calloused, working-man's hands, with His clear eyes filled with surety and confidence.  

Mark does not for a moment suggest that Jesus is just the nicest guy ever. Well-intentioned, but maybe a bit naive. Mark writes about Jesus being: 

• Indignant at what the world does to people’s bodies and minds (1:41)  
• Angry and distressed at people’s stubborn hearts (3:5)  
• Sighing deeply at their capacity for denial (5:12)  
• Amazed at their lack of faith (6:6)  
• Distressed and troubled at the path he had chosen to follow: a path of arrest, torture, and execution. (14:32) 

Mark also writes about the range of responses that people had to Jesus. They were: 

• Amazed by His words (1:27)  
• Terrified at His power (4:41)  
• Trembling with fear at His greatness (5:33)  
• Astonished by His miracles (5:42)  
• Frightened and confused (9:6)  
• Overwhelmed with wonder (9:15)  
• Not understanding and afraid to ask (9:33)  
• Listening with delight (9:38)  
• Saddened at their inability to understand (14:19)  

Mark begins his message to his suffering, struggling brothers and sisters with a promise fulfilled: 

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “Behold, I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.”   “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”  Mark 1:2

That is a promise fulfilled the minute Jesus steps into the frame.  

Then, Mark concludes his message to his brothers and sisters with another promise kept, but this time with a twist. In what is generally and credibly held to be the final verse written by Mark himself in his gospel, it says this: 

So the women left the tomb and ran away, trembling and bewildered. And in their fear they did not say a word to anyone. Mark 16:8

This is a promise kept from all the way back in Genesis chapter 3. God has promised to bring victory over brokenness, victory over disenfranchisement, victory over estrangement, victory over death. Genesis chapter 3 is humanity's worst hour ever, and God says to the enemy come in the form of a serpent (to paraphrase), “You have made yourself an enemy in this woman. You have made yourself an enemy in her offspring. One day, you'll bite His heel, but He will crush your head.” (From Genesis 3:15-16) 

That image of victory is repeated by the apostle Paul: 

For [Christ] must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 

That is, like, The. Best. News. Ever. The most amazing news ever. These women are on the scene, they are witnesses to the fact that it has happened. The enemy is dead. Death has been destroyed. The grave is empty. But Mark tells us that they were terrified. Bewildered. Trembling.  

The way Mark tells his stories of Jesus, the way he reminds his brothers and sisters of Jesus’ story, I think that part of his intention in crafting this book was to tell his brothers and sisters this: 

Don't be afraid to be afraid. But don't be afraid of the wrong thing. I know your life is hard right now. There are genuine powers of evil stacked against us. But there is something that evil fears. There is life that death can't defeat. There is a power that the powers can't overpower. “Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee...” This is the beginning of the good news. 

Mark's gospel is a great place to start reading the Bible. It was the first one written of the four. Matthew and Luke borrowed from Mark as a source for some of their own work. It’s concise. It's the shortest gospel, quick paced, with clean, clear writing. It's very, very relatable. We meet people like us. 

But above all, Mark—in writing to encourage the Roman Christians, including himself, to remember where they came from—introduces them again to the Jesus who he himself met. 

Not a fictionalized Jesus of movies and memes. Not a cartoony Jesus of bumper stickers and tattoos. Not an abstract guru or a vague spiritual being. Not a romanticized victim.  

Mark introduces us again to the Jesus who chose to come looking for us. The Jesus who never lets us down. Who was anticipated and promised all the way back in the Old Testament. Who not only lives today, but conquers and rules over death in all of time. The Jesus who will—in the end—again send evil running away with its tail tucked between its legs, but this time... Forever. 

Mark's gospel is a great place to meet that Jesus again, or for the first time. If you read it honestly, with an open mind and an open heart, you will find yourself starting to ask questions. You will find yourself starting to feel the sharp edge of change begin in your own heart and mind. You will begin to hear the voice of the Spirit whispering.  

You will find yourself getting to know someone who becomes harder and harder to ignore. 

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