The beginning of the good news about Jesus

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.

This first sentence tells us so much, but we come to it with a lot of later christian doctrine that can obscure what it might have meant to the original listeners.  Who was this original audience? If this early christian community is like those described in Acts, then I can imagine a tight knit group of people who had turned their backs on the conventions of society to live as part of what was essentially a commune where they had surrendered all their personal property to share all in common with the group, turned their backs on family, and defied social boundaries by joining Jews and gentiles, men and women, free and slave, the formally privileged and the  social outcast together.  This document codifies the communities' reasons for joining together and living in this radical way.  This is their mission statement and the topic given is the good news about Jesus.

I am struck by the fact that the book begins by saying that this is just the beginning of the good news about Jesus.  Whatever it is about Jesus that is important to them isn't finished.  The community sees this as something that's still occurring, or yet more to occur.  What that important message might involve is suggested by the title given to Jesus in this opening sentence.  He is called, the Messiah, literally, "the anointed one".  This title comes with a lot of baggage to the modern reader.  What did it mean to this group? In Jewish scripture the anointed one who had been set apart or chosen by God for a special purpose, specifically to be king of the Jewish nation.  Both Saul and David were anointed by the prophet Saul to announce that they had been chosen by God to be king.  It comes to mind that in the case of David, there is quite a period of time between when he is anointed and when he is recognized by the people as king.  So the Markian community is not only calling him king they are claiming that he is God's chosen king.  Another reason they may have used this title rather than directly calling him king, maybe a nod to the fact that most of his people do not recognize him as such like David when he was first anointed.

The title, "Messiah", would have come with some other associations to a listener of the time.  There was a popular belief in the Jewish community that God would send an " anointed one" who would free them from their oppression from the Romans and give Israel it's independence ushering in a new age of fidelity with God, the messianic age.  I don't know a lot about first century messiahism, but Jesus didn't exactly live up to the military leader expectation. Did the community see Jesus as fulfilling this hope?  Perhaps some still hoped for this kind of action; that Jesus would return and drive out the Romans.  Maybe that was why they called this record the beginning of the good news.  I don't think this is the case however. As we get further into this story the authors have Jesus less than enthusiastic about the title and prevaricating whenever asked if he is "the Messiah".  He also shows no interest in condemning the Romans or enciting any resistance against them. It would seem that this group makes use of the popular image of Messiah in some ways, but not in others.  Yet this was a dangerous title to use.  The Romans did not look kindly on those who claimed a king other than Caeser or one of the client kings under his authority.  There were several examples in Jesus time of rebels in Palestine who had countered Roman authority and had been ruthlessly been eliminated such as Simeon of Peraea C 4BCE, a former slave of Herod the Great, who had himself crowned.

The thought comes to me that the title may be a teaching device in line with those that Jesus uses in his wisdom teaching.  The authors often have Jesus use sayings and parables where the expected is contrasted with the unexpected to make the listener rethink their perspectives on the world.  The poor and meek are blessed, a father welcomes a son who has disgraced him, a woman spends all day searching for a coin of little value.  Likewise, in the macro story of Jesus, the whole idea of kingship and leadership is turned on its head.