“As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way…’” (Mark 1:2)
Mark describes how God made a new beginning for this world by sending His Son. But this new beginning had been announced long before. Generations of believers had eagerly waited for it and had seen glimpses of it through promises made by the Lord God. Many of those promises were written down in the Old Testament prophetic books. That helped people hold on to the hope that God would intervene. These ancient prophecies also helped people in Jesus’ day make sense of what was happening. That is exactly what Mark does here: he refers back to familiar words and says: these promises are now being fulfilled.
In Mark’s book, as well as in the books of Matthew, Luke and John, we find many such references. Again and again, events in Jesus’ life are shown to connect seamlessly with words that God had spoken before. That gives His actions and teachings credibility. This also supports the claim that Jesus Christ is the promised Savior, the Messiah.
Can you name any other prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus? Does that strengthen your conviction that He is indeed who Mark says He is?