Mark's Gospel as Sequel: Understanding the Backstory, part VII (Isaiah)

 

     To fully understand Mark’s “sequel” to the Scriptures of Israel, we need to look at 7 previous “episodes”, 7 OT characters who shed light on what Mark is saying about John the Baptist and Jesus in chapter 1.  The seventh character from the “original story” is Isaiah.

     In our reflections on Jeremiah and Daniel, we have seen the importance of the exile in Babylon for our understanding of the New Testament Gospels.  Though the Babylonian exile had occurred during the 6^th-century B.C., there seems to have still been a lingering sense of a situation of “exile” even among those Jews living in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus.  Yes, they were back in the Land and there was a Temple in Jerusalem; however, their situation was fraught with ambiguity.  Take the Temple – the second National Shrine had originally paled in comparison with the one built by Solomon (cf. Ezra 3.12-13) and Herod the Great, the first-century Roman-backed Idumean warlord who styled himself the “King of the Jews”, had undertaken an ambitious project of renovation/expansion in an attempt to legitimate his rule over the descendants of Solomon and Zerubbabel (who had overseen the original construction of the Second Temple: Ez. 3.1-8).  The fact that it was a pretender to the throne of David who transformed the Second Temple into an architectural masterpiece of which Solomon would have been envious points up another element of ambiguity in Palestine at the time of John and Jesus – the absence of a (legitimate) “son of David”/“son of God” on the throne of Jerusalem.  The fact that the House of Yahweh was being “rebuilt” by a Gentile “King of the Jews” adds colour to the opening passage of Mark’s Gospel, which heralds the arrival of a Son of God (i.e. King, Messiah) who announces that the “kingdom of God” has arrived (Mk. 1.9-11; 15; indeed, Matthew’s Gospel sets Jesus up as a clear rival to Herod: Mt. 2.1-23).  There is a strong sense that Mark is heralding the end of the prolonged period of exile and that Jesus is the true Son of David who will restore the royal line which had been broken six centuries before…

     Let’s look at how the writings of the prophet Isaiah are put to use by Mark as he presents the preaching of John and the baptism of Jesus as marking the end of Israel’s “exile”.  Isaiah of Jerusalem was an 8^th century B.C. court prophet to several kings of Judah, most memorably Hezekiah (cf. Is. 1.1; chapters 36—39).  Isaiah counseled King Hezekiah during the Assyrian invasion/destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722 as well as the subsequent siege of Jerusalem and ravaging of the Southern Kingdom which occurred in the year 701.  Chapters 1—39 of the book of Isaiah reflect the situation of Jerusalem during the period of Assyrian hegemony over the Levant, while chapters 40—66 reflect the situation both during and after the Babylonian exile in the 6^th century.  Mark actually quotes Is. 40.3 in the third verse of his Gospel, as he presents John as being the “voice in the wilderness” that Isaiah had spoken of, the voice of the one who would “prepare the way for the Lord” to return through the desert to once again take up residence in his “house” in Jerusalem.  Of course, the “Lord” for whom John prepared the way was…Jesus of Nazareth (cf. Mk. 1.9).  It’s also fascinating to consider the content of Is. 40.1-2:

“Comfort, O comfort my people,
    says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
    and cry to her
that she has served her term,
    that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
    double for all her sins.”

Isaiah is saying that the reason the way of the Lord can be prepared (i.e., the exile can end and the captives can return to Zion, accompanied by Yahweh) is that the sins of the people of God have been expiated/forgiven.  Interestingly, this is precisely the content of John’s message – he announces a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (cf. Mk. 1.4-5).  The Scriptural allusions and echoes reverberate through the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel as he presents John as the living embodiment of Isaiah’s prophecy as well as one who summons the people of God to create the conditions in which Yahweh can return to his people (i.e., by repenting and receiving forgiveness: cf. Mk. 2.1-12).  So, Mark takes a passage from Isaiah which referred to the return of Yahweh/the exiles from Babylon to refer to the beginnings of Jesus’ public life.  As far as Mark is concerned, John and Jesus constitute the true return of Israel/Yahweh from a situation of “exile”/destitution to a new situation in which both Yahweh and his people will fulfill their destiny – that of bringing salvation to the world.

     Isaiah 40 is a classic text which has been forever immortalized by Georg Friedrich Handel when he chose the opening verses of Is. 40 to begin his famous Messiah oratorio.  However, there is another Isaianic passage which is extremely important for the New Testament: Is. 52.7:

“How beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
    who announces salvation,
    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

Again, we have here a passage referring to the end of the Babylonian exile, referring to a messenger who announces “good news” to Jerusalem; then again, this is not just any “good news” – this is the good news of the “arrival” of the reign of Yahweh, i.e., the “kingdom of God”.  Again, the connection to the preaching of Jesus in Mk. 1.14-15 could not be clearer.  The message of Isaiah was identical to that of Jesus.  Of course, when Yahweh delivered his people from Babylonian oppression through the edict of Cyrus the Persian (cf. Ez. 1.1-2), he showed himself to be the King of the nations, the One who directs the affairs of all human empires.  Daniel had longed for the coming of the kingdom of God (cf. Dn. 2).  Now, says Jesus, the moment has finally arrived.

     The overall impression one gets when one reads Mk. 1.1-15 in light of the Hebrew Scriptures is that of a prophetic figure (John) playing the typically prophetic role of anointing a king for the people of God (Jesus).  John plays Samuel to Jesus’ David.  As Samuel’s anointing of David the shepherd-boy had heralded Israel’s Golden Age, so John’s baptism of Jesus heralds the Messianic Age, the time when all the biblical promises will be fulfilled and the Scriptural dream will come true.  Mark’s Gospel was written to tell us that this indeed took place, but in a dark and disturbing way that no one could have anticipated.