Mark 1: He Begins by Walking Toward People

Mark wastes no time. There is no genealogy and no nativity — within a few verses Jesus is baptised, driven into the wilderness, and calling fishermen away from their nets.

Notice where he goes. Not to the temple courts first, but to a lakeside, a synagogue in a small town, and the house of a woman with a fever. The word that keeps returning in this chapter is immediately, and what it describes is a God who closes distance.

If you have been waiting to be more prepared before you approach him, this chapter reverses the direction: he is already walking toward the ordinary places where people work and are ill.