The Gospel is news.  Old news.  But still news.  History, if you prefer.  As FOX News says, “Before it’s history, it’s news.”  The Gospel is news turned history.

Mark makes the topic of that news unmistakeably clear . . .

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God (Mark 1:1).

THE GOSPEL (Greek euangellion—“good news”) is the news “of Jesus Christ the Son of God”—who he was (is) and what he did and said.  This morning I read a story in the “Wall Street Journal” headlined, “Hillary Clinton Says It Would Have been ‘Smarter’ to Use Government Email”.  It tells who Hillary is and what she said at her news conference yesterday concerning what she did with her emails as Secretary of State.   The Gospel is news about who Jesus is and what he did and said.  It’s helpful, then, to read the Gospel according to Mark more as a “holy newspaper” than theological treatise.

Know who the Kurds are?  The WSJ refers to them today in another news report. Often when I don’t know a people’s identity (the Kurds) or a word’s meaning, I ignorantly skim over it.  Of course, I risk losing a significant fact, but it’s easier.  Mark uses a few terms in the Gospel’s “headline” which are easy to skim because the terms aren’t unfamiliar.  But like lazy me in my reading, we risk losing significant facts about the news if we’re not precise about what the terms mean.

JESUS was a common Hebrew name.  For example, the apostle Paul mentions a fellow worker in the Gospel, “Jesus who is called Justus”
(Colossians 4:11).  “Jesus” is a transliteration (look it up!) of the Hebrew name “Joshua” and means “the Lord (Yahweh) saves.”  At this point “Jesus” becomes a weighty name.  The angel told Joseph “[Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).  Arrested and interrogated by the Jewish court because they preached Jesus resurrected, Peter and John boldly answered, ” . . . there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).  And the apostle Paul declared, ” . . . God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).  The common name “Jesus”, then, refers to a uniquely uncommon person.  The Gospel Mark wrote is about him.

CHRIST is the Greek form of the Hebrew “Messiah.”  Both mean “the God-Anointed One”.  Surprisingly, the Hebrew Scriptures don’t contain that title.  But, as the ESV Study Bible says, “‘Messiah’ is a summary term that gathers up many strands of OT expectations about a coming ‘anointed one’ who would lead and teach and save God’s people.”  One “strand” is 2 Samuel 7:12, 13b)  where the LORD instructs the prophet Nathan to tell King David . . .

When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers,
I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
. . . and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

Another “strand” is Psalm 2:1-6 . . .

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cord from us.”
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
“As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill”

 A third “strand” is Isaiah’s familiar prophecy (9:6,7) . . .

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

“Christ”, then, is a term pregnant with significance because it pulls together the many strands of Old Testament expectation of the coming Savior-King for God’s people.

SON OF GOD doesn’t mean “male child” of God; it means “the one who shares the nature of his Father.”  Listen to Paul explain . . .

“[Christ Jesus] though he was in the form of God
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped . . . ” (Philippians 2:6).

Two works are key.   “Form” (Greek morphe).  Since God is spirit and, thus, without form, morphe must mean something like the embodiment of God.  “Equality” (Greek isos).  The word means “identical, same in essence.”  As “Son of God”, Jesus was the same in essence and the embodiment of God.

Peter, from whom Mark learned the Gospel, made it even plainer . . .

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours
by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:1).

Peter called Jesus God.  The writer to the Hebrews did the same when in Hebrews 1:8 he quoted Psalm 45:6,7 . . .

But of the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever . . . ”

“Son of God” correctly leads us to call Jesus the “God-Man” or “God-in-the-flesh.”  Now what is this all about?

THIS IS YOUR INVITATION to read with us the news about the most captivating person who ever walked this earth—Jesus Christ the Son of God.  Over the coming weeks, we’ll be reading the Gospel according to Mark.  Jesus, Mark writes, is where the Gospel starts.  And because of who he is, no matter how often we’ve read the news about him, reading won’t leave us unchanged.