This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Isaiah 40:25–31; Ephesians 1:15–23; Mark 1:14–28

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Isaiah’s promise of comfort (Isaiah 40:1) includes a call to look for help coming from “the wilderness”: 

A voice cries out:
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
    and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
    and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
    and all people shall see it together,
    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Isaiah 40:3–5). 

The way in the wilderness evokes memory of the exodus, when Yahweh revealed his glory by providing his people a highway through the desert out of Egyptian slavery. Just so, Yahweh will once again provide a freedom trail out of exile in Babylon. Yahweh is, says today’s passage, “great in strength, mighty in power … the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:26,28). Therefore, people who have been enervated and deflated, depressed and demoralized—hardly up for an arduous journey—will find new strength for themselves in him: 

He gives power to the faint,
    and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
    and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
    they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:29–31). 

Which brings us to Mark. Yesterday, we began reading Mark’s Gospel. It begins with Isaiah’s voice in the wilderness, calling, once again: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” The assumption is that once again God’s people are enslaved, in need of rescue and of strength for a journey. That journey begins with “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). 

Because Mark’s gospel begins in the wilderness, early Christians associated his gospel with the “lion,” the powerful king, so it was thought, of the wild places. Accordingly, it only takes a little imagination to appreciate why C. S. Lewis would cast his Christ-figure as a lion—“Aslan,” who is “not safe, but good.” 

That is Mark’s Christ. Skipping right over Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives and John’s soaring prologue, Mark takes us directly to Jesus’s baptism and temptation, and then to the launch of Christ’s mission. Jesus begins his ministry by gathering disciples—Simon and Andrew, James and John—to witness his power to deliver (Mark 1:16–19). Then, he begins his powerful acts of deliverance, as he frees from physical and psychic oppression a man in the thrall of demonic forces (Mark 1:21–26). Ultimately, Jesus will also deliver from dullness of spirit and mind (like the disciples he has chosen) those who are slow to recognize him as Son of God. Jesus will lead them to understand that he has come for a singular act of rescue: “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). 

The redeeming Lion is on the loose. As the people at his first miracle in Mark recognize, “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee” (Mark 1:27–28). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+