Fr Peter Helman

“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1)
 
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Dear beloved of Christ,
 
If I could commend today one modest endeavor for us to undertake together, it would be to read the sixteen brief chapters of the Gospel of Saint Mark from beginning to end. It won’t take long, and we’ll be the better for it. And we make good headway in the Daily Office lectionary this morning with a portion of the first chapter of the gospel that, incidentally, we read in part yesterday on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, the account of the Baptism of Christ.
 
I’m struck this morning by how abruptly the Evangelist begins his project: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
 
From the outset, Mark assumes unapologetically the nature of who Jesus is. He is the Son of God, and the more we read the more we see that because Jesus is the Son of God, he remains present with the Christian community to whom Mark writes. He abides with them for all time, even after his death, resurrection, and ascension.
 
Mark begins his account of the good news of Jesus Christ the way he does to assure his audience that Jesus remains present with them in the most profoundly real way possible. As we read the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ amounts to more than an history of an auspicious religious figure’s life and even more than his influence upon the movement that followed in the wake of his death.
 
Mark tells the history of God’s involvement in and redemption of history—the fulfillment of God’s promises declared unto humankind from of old. We read of the good news of Jesus Christ that his life is not completed and cannot be completed. The gospel that Mark conveys is the beginning of the good news because the presence of Jesus lives on in the Church and in the world.
 
The gospel of Mark sets before us, as it did its original audience, the history of which we are integrally part. We are the living continuation of the gospel, of Jesus’ own life and ever-living presence, for Jesus the Son of God is present in and to and through the Church, sustaining and equipping it, performing miracles on its behalf, leading it through the present age, fraught as it is with present darkness, towards the approaching return of Christ.

Beloved, we are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, whose endless life lives in us for the sake of the world. And so perhaps you'll permit me to commend one more endeavor for us to undertake today: let us share this good news with someone we know or meet along the way, in word and in deed. Let us not shy from doing good and seek peace and pursue it.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. Peter