Mark 1:1-8 · John the Baptist Prepares the Way
When Did This Start? — Part 1
Mark 1:1-8
Sermon
by Robert J. Elder

The four gospels each have very different ways of introducing the story about Jesus. Matthew begins his gospel with a long genealogy, tracing Jesus' lineage — "son of David, son of Abraham" (Matthew 1:1-16) from the time of Abraham through fourteen generations, through the line of Mary's husband, Joseph, all the way to Jesus.

Luke's gospel begins differently, first with stories of the foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus, the more familiar portions of what we think of as the Christmas story, but Luke also gets around to including an even longer genealogy of Jesus than Matthew, traced back in an opposite fashion to Matthew, starting instead of ending with Jesus, and moving back through the generations even further than Matthew, all the way back to Adam, the first human…

CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Sermons for Sundays in Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: Worth the Wait, by Robert J. Elder