Mark 1:1-3 - Are You Ready?
Word of the Week: Prepare
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
— Mark 1:1-3
Mini-Message
Are you ready for what this week?
On one hand, probably not—how can you be when you don’t know what’s going to happen?
But you can adopt an attitude of readiness: a confidence, joy, and peace knowing that whatever happens today will either be a) good, or b) something God can turn into good.
One benefit of having a regular morning Scripture routine is that it helps you be ready for life. When you study God’s word, you prepare yourself for whatever comes.
Readiness creates calm.
Don’t do a morning routine just to fix yesterday’s problems.
Do it so you can be ready to face whatever today brings with wisdom and joy.
The Five-Minute Version
High school band started early every morning.
Like most students, I hated early mornings.
My senior year, I was drum major, which meant extra responsibilities and an even earlier arrival. I couldn’t be late.
As summer turned to fall, the days got shorter. My alarm clock started going off before the sun came up, and I had to get ready in the dark.
One very dark morning, I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, got dressed, grabbed some cereal, and went to my car. I turned the key and saw the time: 2 AM.
What?!
I was so worried about being on time that I had woken up way too early!
Have you ever been so worried about being ready that you got up too soon? The worst thing is oversleeping and rushing out the door. To this day, I still love a good morning routine. It helps me start the day right. Things go better when you’re prepared.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a student before class, an athlete before a game, or a worker heading to a meeting.
How do you get ready for your day?
Mark’s gospel begins with a similar message. He writes about John the Baptist saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Mark is saying, get ready! So, how do you “get ready” for Jesus?
Being ready means being able to respond.
There’s an old commercial I love. It shows a man swinging his young son at a park. The boy flies up in the air, and when he swings back down, he’s a grown man, knocking the dad over.
The slogan appears: “Life moves at you fast.”
Does it ever.
You may have heard that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond.
When my kids were small, if they knocked over a cup, they would just stare at it instead of grabbing it quickly. My wife and I would shout, “Pick it up!” One time, one of our kids spilled an entire 2-liter bottle of red juice.
Wow, we had a big mess to clean up.
As I wiped it up, I wondered how a spill could freeze my usually fast kids in place. We may be grown now, but life’s “spills” can still make us freeze.
So, how do we respond?
Lord Robert Baden-Powell was an officer in the British army who specialized in reconnaissance. His job was to check out the enemy and the land so his team was prepared. He later wrote a book on scouting and, after he returned home from war, found that his book had been adopted by school teachers everywhere.
One of his main ideas was, “Be prepared.” Prepared for what? For anything! Baden-Powell later founded the Boy Scouts—not as a military group, but as a service group. He believed that the more prepared you are, the more you can bring joy to other people.
Thirty years later, during World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill marveled at how calm 12 to 14-year-old boys were when they warned their neighbors about falling bombs.
A whole generation of boys had been taught to be ready.
Are you ready for your day? Ready for life? Sometimes it feels like the “bombs” are falling. If not, they will eventually. Life moves fast. Are you frozen, like my kids staring at spilled juice? Or do you have the peace of mind to know what to do?
If you have an attitude of readiness, you’re able to stop the mess before it spreads.
Pray
Lord, fill us with the wisdom and joy of your Holy Spirit so that we may respond today and each day with wisdom, joy, and peace, in a way that glorifies you. Amen.
Live It
What bomb threats do you face in your life right now?
How can you become more prepared for the coming week?