Mark 1:2

It is said in the prophet Isaiah –

‘I am sending my messenger ahead of you;

he will prepare your way.


happenings don’t just happen

because

forerunners

have done and said enough

to have caused

or not stopped

a today in need of a new happening

we could talk of

beginnings or creatings

but we never can find

their imaginative energy

and are left with happenings

wherein stuff happens

when stuff pleases

a hallelujah is easy to sing

when stuff hurts

a prophet of old

disturbs our restlessness

murmuring

You are not stuck

we’ve been here before

stuff is not fate

happening stuff reshapes our vocation

so hallelujah any way you can


Isaiah stands for a whole prophetic tradition and leads to the prophetic nature of this Jesus.

This first quotation is from the Septuagint translation of Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1. Missing from this reference is an original sense of being guarded along a way toward a prepared place.

More to the point is whether a Messiah, Rabbi, Teacher is only a Messenger or something grander. Does Mark’s use of the prophets refer to Baptizer John or Jesus? These words could apply in either direction: a messenger before Jesus (i.e., John) or a messenger before the reader (i.e., Jesus).

The easiest reading is a set up for John, but it is difficult to avoid considering the artistry of Mark who will leave his whole tale on an unspoken question of how we see Jesus and what we will do about what we see.

My preference is to read this as a set up for a final echo about messengers and whether we will receive a call to be a prophet in the line of Moses, Isaiah, Malachi, John, and Jesus. Joel reminds us of the importance to remember prophetic daughters as well as sons: Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, Anna, and Phillip’s unnamed daughters.

From this beginning, we will see if we will learn, by the end, to be messengers?