Mark 1:1-3 - Who Can Endure the Day of His Coming?

“The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, [the Son of God], as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way’ –  ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”’” (Mark 1:1-3)

In this surprising introduction to Mark’s Gospel, the writer begins by establishing that this work is about Jesus. The phrase “the Son of God” is here placed in brackets because the oldest and best manuscripts do not contain it. This phrase was some many centuries later by some scribe who correctly understood one of Mark’s primary themes: Jesus is the Son of God (1:11; 3:11; 5:7; 9:7; 12:6; 12:37; 13:32; 14:61; 15:39).

Mark launches his Gospel with two Old Testament quotes, one from Malachi 3:1 and another Isaiah 40:3, though oddly attributing both of them to Isaiah.

Both of these verses concern the coming of Yahweh back to his people after the long spiritual exile that began with the Babylonian Captivity of 588 BCE. Following the destruction of the Temple of Yahweh built by Solomon in Jerusalem, Yahweh was seen to have departed from it and abandoned his people to their sins. Even when the physical exile was over and the construction of a lesser, second Temple in Jerusalem began in 538 BCE, the Jewish people still believed that Yahweh had not properly returned to his Temple and had yet to properly forgive the sins of the people. They knew that Yahweh had saved them from the physical exile but that a further step was needed. In the first century CE, the Jews were still eagerly waiting for Yahweh to return and doing so under the rule of the conquering Roman Empire. When Mark cites these two verses he is specifically stating that Yahweh is returning in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah.

Ominously, the verse in Malachi is followed with the warning “But who can endure the day of his coming?” (3:2). The rest of the book of Malachi deals with the eventual return of Yahweh to his people … but states that this might not be a good thing for everyone, particularly for those who rob and thieve from God (vv. 8-9).

The second part of Malachi 3:1, notes that “Yahweh will suddenly come to his Temple.” This particular verse finds its fulfillment in Mark 11:15-17 when Jesus “cleanses” the Temple and cites Jeremiah 7:11 about the Temple becoming a “den of robbers”. In Jeremiah, this is a warning that if the people do not change their ways, exile is coming. Both the Greek version of Jeremiah 7:11 and in Mark 11:17, the word used for robbers is lestes (λῃστής).

This all comes together in Mark with the realization that Yahweh has returned to his people and to his Temple in the person and work of Jesus. However, though Jesus is offering the end of exile through repentance and the forgiveness of sins, he is also warning everyone that failure to follow his way would lead to another, permanent exile. Who can endure the day of his coming?

Now if we want to go even further down the rabbit hole, we have to ask what this exile was going to look like. What form was it going to take?

For the entirety of his ministry, Jesus had been enacting a grand prophetic parable of what it meant for Yahweh to return to his people, the “Cleansing” of the Temple being only a part. As he closes his so-called “earthly” ministry, Jesus has one more prophetic parable to enact.

In Mark 14:48, when the crowds come to arrest Jesus and take him to be crucified, Jesus says, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me, as you would against a robber (lestes)?”

In Mark 15:27, it is recorded that “They crucified two robbers (lestes) with him, one on his right and one on his left.”

The Romans put Jesus to death between two robbers or brigands, all deemed revolutionary by Roman authorities and deserving of a death reserved for those who went up against the Empire and were to be made an example to everyone else (Mark 15:7). This was the same death that Roman meted out to the Jews who revolted during the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE) when Roman soldiers were crucifying upwards of 500 Jews a day and when the Temple was permanently destroyed. It was general and future Caesar, Titus, who refused to accept the wreath of victory for winning the war, saying, “There is no merit in vanquishing a people forsaken by their own God."

In Jesus’ final parable, he showed what the final exile would look like. It was Rome destroying the Temple and the Jewish people as a nation and crucifying them like revolutionary robbers (lestes). It was Yahweh forsaking his people to their own devices. The people were waiting to be saved from the spiritual Exile but were making the same mistakes that caused the original physical exile. Yahweh was returning to his people and while some would be released from exile, others would find punishment via crucifixion by Rome. Yahweh is coming, who can endure the day of his coming?

It is interesting that it is one of the Roman soldiers crucifying Jesus that sees his death and remarks that “Truly this was a son of a god” (Mark 15:39).

The Satan in the Modern Setting

The Satan emerges in the Jewish religion sometime after the Exile of 587-538 BCE. Possibly of Persian influence, The Satan emerged as an angelic figure whose chief responsibility was the legal accusation of sinners before God. At some point, The Satan began to enjoy his role so much that he set himself against the purposes of God to accuse and conquer humanity for his own purposes. He began to create the problems by which he could accuse humanity before God.

In many ways, the Hebrew mind wrestled with the problem of evil and concluded that the coincidences that come with a close examination of the subject only point to a personal embodiment at work.

In this sense, the Jews and Christians could see The Satan and his daemonic cohorts at work in three areas:

First, The Satan could be at work in individuals.

Second, The Satan could be at work in whole communities.

Thirdly, and most diabolically, The Satan could be at work within the authorities and power structures that dominate a culture, society, nation, government, and local church,

Each of these three areas requires a greater difficulty of prayer and supplication. Yes, I’m afraid that I do not have an antidote for two and three yet apart from the continuing work of the work that God has called the average Christian to do.

Praying for Our Leaders

“First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men,  for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

Why do you think Paul tells the Church to pray for kings and those in authority – and, by logical extension, the nation a Christian finds himself or herself in?

One reason is that God desires that all men and women should be saved and that we should pray that our national leaders come to a saving relationship with God and under his authority.

I think another reason is more practical.

The Roman Empire that ruled the Mediterranean world at the time of Paul and the early Christians had unsuccessfully attempted to force the Jews to pray to Caesar. The monotheistic Jews refused and proved to the Romans that they were willing to die before they would pray to anyone other than Yahweh. The Romans, ever the practical conquerors, wisely decided to offer an exemption to the Jews from participation in Emperor Worship and only asked that they pray for Caesar and pray for Rome. The Jews agreed to this compromise and prayed to Yahweh for Caesar and Rome so that they could lead tranquil and quiet lives and avoid the wrath of Rome.

For quite a while, Roman authorities did not make a distinction between Jews that followed Christ and Jews that didn’t. They realized that there was some controversy among the Jews about a certain “Chrestus” but that it was all and intra-Jewish conflict.

It wasn’t until the Romans began to make that distinction between Jews and Christians that Christians lost the protective exemption from Emperor Worship that Jews enjoyed. That was when the persecution really began.

It’s quite possible that Paul is encouraging the Church to pray for the national authorities so we do not face the persecution that comes from being at odds against the national culture.

The Use of Zakar in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13

The use of zakar is important in both Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. By using it, the OT writers were not simply saying that it is wrong for men to have sexual relations with other men, but that it was wrong for men to sleep with anything male, including male children. That's explicit in Lev. 20:13 that uses both 'isyh and zakar. The OT writers were not just considering consensual male adults but any male-male sexual act. It was an overarching term forbidding all homosexual acts. This is how Paul and others in the first century CE understood these verses. The Greek translation of the OT uses arsenos koite for the translation of " sexual acts with male" in Leviticus 20:13. These two words eventually came together as arsenokoitai which refers to sex acts between males of any age. Paul uses it in 1 Corinthians 6:9 but it's used elsewhere outside of the NT.