“Gospel”, which in Greek means “Good News”, is the main theme for today’s liturgy. In the first reading the prophet Isaiah announces the Good News: “Console my people console them …Here is your God.” And the evangelist St. Mark begins his gospel: “The beginning of the Gospel [Good News] of Jesus Christ.” What is, then, this Good News all about?
It is the Good News about God’s compassion for His people.
It is the Good News of our salvation.
To the people who have kept alive their hopes of freedom from slavery in the Babylonian exile; to the people whose pride of being chosen by God is destroyed; to the people who thought that their God has forsaken them, the prophet proclaims the news of freedom. It is a call to get ready for the day of salvation.
After living in the Babylonian desert for more than 70 years as slaves, the people of Israel never imagined that they would be a nation again. The prophet’s call to build a straight way to Jerusalem through the desert is really Good News for them. He tells them that like the previous exodus from Egypt, they need not go roundabout skirting different kingdoms and lingering in the wilderness, but that God will provide them with the straight way, a highway, to their own land.
For St. Mark the story about Jesus is the “Good News”. How could be the story of Jesus with all His struggles; rejection by the people, suffering and death be the Good News? The answer, according to St. Mark, is that we need to wait patiently until the end of the story. It is only on Easter Sunday, at the time of Jesus’ resurrection that we understand the Good News. For now, it is only the beginning of the story of the Good News. It is the beginning of our salvation.
-Fr. Ranjan D’Sa OCD