Friends, great writers, from Aristotle to Shakespeare to Melville, put a lot into their opening line, which often sets the tone for the whole work. This week we have the privilege of hearing the very opening of the Gospel of Mark, which, by scholarly consensus, is the first of the Gospels written: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” In the manner of those great writers, this line matters a lot; in fact, every bit of it matters. And what sounds to us like familiar spiritual language was, in the first century, an edgy proclamation of the true Emperor to the powers that be.
Watch Confronting the Powers That Be - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon Here
GOSPEL
Second Sunday of Advent
Mark 1:1–8
Friends, today we hear the opening line of Mark’s Gospel: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” This can sound anodyne and harmlessly pious to us, but in the first century, those were fighting words.
Mark’s Greek term euangelion, which we render as “good news,” was a word that was typically used to describe an imperial victory. When the emperor won a battle or quelled a rebellion, he sent evangelists ahead with the good news.
Do you see now how subversive Mark’s words were? He was writing from Rome, from the belly of the beast, from the heart of the empire whose leaders had killed his friends Peter and Paul just a few years before, and he was declaring that the true victory didn’t have a thing to do with Caesar, but rather with someone whom Caesar had put to death and whom God raised up.
And just to rub it in, he refers to this resurrected Lord as “Son of God.” Ever since the time of Augustus, “Son of God” was a title claimed by the Roman emperor.
Not so, says Mark. The authentic Son of God is the one who is more powerful than Caesar. The opening line of the Gospel of Mark is a direct challenge to Rome: Jesus Christ, not Caesar nor any of his descendants, is Lord.