I. The Gospel has had three beginnings, yet it is right to speak of each as the beginning. (1) The beginning as seen in the Divine counsels, when the Gospel was but a thought. (2) The beginning as seen in the Incarnation, when the Gospel became a person. (3) The beginning as seen in its believers, when the Gospel becomes a new creation.
II. One beginning of the Gospel is always introductory to another. It is so in the highest human thinking. There is first the thought, then the agent or representative, then the result. From Mark's preface we learn that there was (a) a prophecy, (b) a pioneer, (c) an introductory rite. The importance of this view is shown by two considerations. (1) It indicates the consistency and progressiveness of Divine revelation. (2) It supplies a test of the genuineness of professed revelation.
III. No beginning of the Gospel can be true and effectual except as it leads to a spiritual consummation. The prophets pointed to John; John pointed to Jesus; Jesus pointed to the Holy Ghost. This fact shows, (1) the transitoriness of all mere ceremony; (2) the uselessness of all mere knowledge; (3) the possibility of the highest fellowship with God. The subject addresses a lesson (1) to students. You have to deal with a harmonious and progressive revelation. In order to be wise master-builders you must grasp the revelation as a whole. You must know it in its proportions, analogies and tendencies; otherwise you might be sacrificing a principle to an accident, or exaggerating the ceremonial to the neglect of the spiritual. (2) To pioneers. A man only works well in proportion as he knows the measure of his power and the limit of his mission. When the frame-maker mistakes himself for the painter, art is degraded. It does not follow that because a man knows the alphabet he can write a book. (3) To Churches. Have you received the Holy Ghost? (4) To enquirers. There is nothing more to come. You have had prophets, psalmists, lawgivers, Christ, and the dispensation of the Spirit. Why wait?
Parker, City Temple,1871, p. 10.
I. Consider the leading conception and object of St. Mark. Some notice of his main characteristics will throw some light upon these. (1) The main characteristic of this Evangelist is his vividness. (a) If St. Matthew loves to lead us back to the past, with St. Mark that past seems to become living. Hence he constantly uses the present tense in his narrative. (b) "Immediately" is his "catchword." It occurs not less than forty-two times in this short book. (c) Life life details drop from his pencil, until narratives for which there are parallels in the other synoptics seem to be pre-eminently his (Mark 15:29; Mark 1:24). (2) The influence of St. Peter upon this Gospel (attested by antiquity with one voice) may be repeatedly traced in its peculiarities; we can hear throughout the voice of the Apostle who wrote, "Marcus my son." (3) The leading ideas of this Gospel are (a) that Jesus is Lord, not only of nature and the world of spirits, not only of storms and diseases, but of the sick, stormy, guilty, sorrowing, passionate, yet yearning heart of man. (b) That the life of Jesus is a life of alternate rest and victory, withdrawal and working.
II. On the whole in St. Mark we have not so much as in St. Matthew, the point of convergence of the prophetic rays in the Messiah, the son of Abraham and David. Not so much as in St. Luke, the fairest of the children of men, Priest and Victim, the Teacher of grace and forgiveness. Not so much as in St. John, the Eternal Word made flesh, floating in a robe of heavenly light. It is the Gospel whose emblem is the Lion, whose Hero is full of Divine love and Divine strength. It is the Gospel which was addressed to the Romans, to free them from the misery of scepticism, from the grinding dominion of superhuman force unguided by a loving will. Here, brief as it is, we have, in its essential germs, all the theology of the Church. Had every other part of the New Testament perished, Christianity might have been developed from this.
Bishop Alexander, Leading Ideas of the Gospels,p. 36.
I. One of the great cravings of our human nature which the Gospel of Jesus supplies is our craving for light.
II. Another craving and want of our nature which the Gospel supplies is love.
III. The Gospel is adapted to our nature because it exhibits a pattern of perfectness among men.
IV. The Gospel points out the way to peace: to peace with God, and to peace and rest in the conscience and heart.
V. The Gospel of Christ supplies man with the power and the consolation he needs for times of duty and trial.
VI. The Gospel meets and satisfies our instinct after fellowship.
VII. It also meets and satisfies our longing for immortality.
J. M. Sloan, Christian Press,Dec. 13th, 1877.
References: Mark 1:1. G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 400; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man,p. 1; Homilist,new series, vol. iii., p. 424; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 395.Mark 1:1; Mark 1:2. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 39. Mark 1:1-8. W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth,p. 40. Mark 1:1-31. Ibid.,p. 144.Mark 1:2; Mark 1:3. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 398. Mark 1:3. Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 404.Mark 1:2-6. H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man,p. 6.