Members:
Death can no longer be a concern of the Christian. Whatever our views about the afterlife, death is either an anticipated transition, a triumph of life, an utter non-issue — or perhaps even a welcome relief. Long before Jesus, Isaiah talks about swallowing death forever. Daniel makes the first clear reference to the resurrection of those who already have died. For the human Jesus there may be anguish in death, but there is also resolve.
The good news of Jesus Christ begins not with Jesus but with a strange man who may or may not have been his cousin. In Mark’s gospel he hatches full-grown from the desert, simply “appearing” to fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah (and Malachai; he conflates the two into one). Unlike the prophets of old, who stood at the gates of the city or the steps of the temple, John roams in the wilderness, preaching his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. He is the voice crying out in the wilderness, the manifestation of Elijah, the forerunner of the messiah whose whole purpose, it seems, is to prepare the way of the Lord.
