This week's gospel text begins with a crucial "hinge" statement that moves the reader from Mark's prologue which includes and introduces the central people and events that together prepare Jesus for his public ministry. Verses 14 and 15 form the threshold of Jesus' entrance into the Galilean ministry, by far the most extensive portion of Mark's gospel. Verse 14 firmly closes the door on John the Baptist's active role by revealing his arrest. John's time is past; now it is time to focus in on the one he had come to proclaim: Jesus.

At first hearing, however, Jesus' mission does not appear all that different from John the Baptist's. The message he proclaims sounds remarkably similar: "Repent." Yet this call to repentance is now being sounded by one who also claims that all the anxious waitin…