The Messenger No One Would Have Chosen
Mark shows us that God’s salvation arrives in unexpected ways, shattering self-reliance and pointing us to Jesus’ death and resurrection as the true baptism.
1:4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
If you were in charge of rolling out the red carpet for the Messiah, would you pick John the Baptist? Not a chance. He’s the kind of man polite religion avoids introducing at dinner parties. Camel-hair coat, diet of bugs, living in the wilderness like some kind of holy vagrant. The religious establishment would have preferred someone with better grooming and fewer opinions about their hypocrisy. But Mark insists: this is the one God chose to prepare the way.
And here’s the kicker: John gives us a preview of Jesus. Just as John unsettles the respectable, so will Jesus. Just as John lives outside the temple system, so will Jesus refuse to be housebroken by religious institutions. If John looks rough around the edges, Jesus will look worse—challenging power structures, scandalizing the pious, and throwing open the doors to tax collectors, sinners, and outsiders. In John’s camel-hair shadow, you can already see the shape of the Messiah the world would never have chosen.
John’s ministry isn’t staged in Jerusalem’s courts or temple halls; it unfolds in the wilderness. That’s not just geography—it’s theology. The wilderness is Israel’s story: forty years of failure, grumbling, idolatry, and dashed hopes. It is the place where Israel’s best efforts at righteousness crumbled into dust.
And Mark wants us to see that nothing has changed. Israel couldn’t fix herself. Neither can we. The wilderness is a mirror, showing us the futility of trying to scrub ourselves clean enough for God. Which is why the Lord doesn’t show up with another round of religious self-help. He doesn’t arrive with fresh strategies for moral improvement. He arrives to announce that the fixing, forgiving, and saving have already been done—not by us, but in him. Grace doesn’t come at the end of our effort; it comes in spite of it, right in the wilderness of our collapse.
7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And then John makes his most startling confession: “After me comes one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.” Think about that. To unstrap sandals was the lowest slave’s work, and John says he’s not even fit for that job. John—the fiery prophet, the one everyone is flocking to—is nothing compared to the one on his heels.
John’s baptism in water is just a signpost, a shadow pointing forward. The real baptism is still coming, and it will not be a splash in the Jordan. It will be Jesus plunging into death itself, sinking beneath the flood of sin and judgment, and then rising again—dragging us gasping and dripping onto the far shore of resurrection. John’s river could get people wet. Jesus’ cross will get the whole world clean.
So Mark’s opening continues to subvert expectations. The messenger is not who anyone would have chosen. The stage is not where anyone would have set it. And the promise is not what anyone would have imagined. Which means we are right where we should be: on the edge of our seats, ready to meet a Messiah who will never play by our rules.
Reflection Question
Where are you still trying to make yourself—or your faith—presentable, instead of trusting that God meets you precisely in the wilderness where your efforts fall apart?
