The Beginning of the Good News -- Mark 1:1-4, Matthew 1:1-7, Luke 1:1-4, John 1:1-5, 9-14 (3rd Sunday After Pentecost)

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Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is a structure to it. We learned that in high school. There’s exposition; things get stirred up; the plot builds to a climax; and then things get resolved (or not). By the end, the world of the story and the characters who dwell there are somehow changed. More often than not, we walk away remembering how the story ends. It’s what we’ve been waiting for – it’s the whole point.

This summer, we’re going to spend a few weeks thinking about

how stories begin– how the big stories in Scripture begin. Two weeks ago, we looked at the beginning of Genesis. We noticed that creation begins with a breath, and then there is a rhythm of creating and rest. That rhythm – there at the beginning – is a part of who we are.^[1]Today, we’re considering the beginning of the gospels. And over the next few weeks, we’ll look at the beginning of Exodus; and the prophets; and wisdom; and the Apostle Paul’s letters.

A lot happens right at the beginning of a story. The beginning sets the scene; it brings us into the world of the story. The beginning introduces us to the characters – and the themes. It hints at what will be important. It may start to unsettle things – to unsettle us. And then, it sets us out on a journey.

I’ve been asked if – while I’m reading – I ever peek to see how the story is going to end. Here’s an interesting question: When you finish a book, have you ever gone back to take a peek again at how it began?

I tried that out this week. I tried to think of a story we all know, and I went back and looked at beginning. I looked up how the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz begins.  Get that story in mind. We know that story and how it ends.  Here’s how it begins:

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor, and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy had a little bed in another corner.

That’s how L. Frank Baum begins the story that will end with Dorothy (and us) realizing that there is no place like home. Four walls, a floor, and a roof – Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. That is how the story begins.

The four gospels in the Bible are all headed in the same general direction.^[2] They are all headed toward the cross and the empty tomb. Along the way, the tell – each in their own way – the things Jesus did and taught – the people he healed and fed. And even so, how each of those four gospels begins the story // couldn’t be more different.

But maybe first, we should say something about gospels.^[3] Gospels are a very particular kind of story. They are their own genre. They are more than biography – the story of a life. The Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and as they tell that story, they are making meaning about what God is doing in the world in Jesus Christ. It’s not just any life, and it’s not just any story.

Now, we know that the stories we find in the gospels were told again and again for years before they were written down. The gospels were written about 40 to 70 years after Jesus was crucified. In the trauma of that crucifixion, the people who had followed Jesus tried to make sense of all they had experienced in Jesus’ life and death, and, then, in the experience of Resurrection. And so they remembered with each other: “Do you remember when Jesus said...” “Do you remember when Jesus healed...?”

And over time, different communities told the stories of Jesus... differently.^[4] They remembered different details; some things felt more important than others. There were core truths from shared experience that were told over the years in a bright array of voices. And then someone in the community wrote the stories down – in one community, and then another – making meaning together out of their experience of Jesus.

We don’t know for sure who the authors of our four gospels were – at some point they were attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Each one of those authors wrote out of the experiences of a particular community. Each wrote the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Each had particular priorities and emphases. And each began their telling of the story in a particular way.

The Gospel of Mark begins with a jolt. We’ve called it “the breathless gospel.” There’s no wind-up. It doesn’t even begin with a full sentence. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ” – and we’re off. In the first 15 verses of the Gospel of Mark: we meet John the Baptist, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, a voice from heaven, and Satan – Jesus is baptized, and tempted, and calls his disciples – and then Jesus announces: “The kingdom of God is at hand.” And from there, the breathless story that unfolds is a story of revolution – a reversal of the powers.

The Gospel of Mark begins with a jolt; the Gospel of Matthew begins with a list, a quite long list... a genealogy. Matthew begins with the begats. Abraham begat Isaac. Isaac begat Jacob and so on, down the generations.

It may not be the most interesting read for modern readers. But in Worship Team, Jessica shared a story she had heard of the Scripture being read in a traditional, tribal culture where everyone sat rapt with attention as the begats were read because there are few things as important as naming the ancestors and knowing from whence we came.

Matthew will tell 90% of the story Mark tells,^[5] but before Matthew gets to the action, it is vital that he ground the story in all that has gone before. Jesus is the descendant of Abraham. And of King David. What God is doing in Jesus Christ is what God has been doing all along.

The Gospel of Luke begins as a doctor or a lawyer might. The author describes their sources, their own investigation, and their thesis. Most excellent, Theophilus. Many have undertaken to explain all that has happened with regard to this Jesus. I’ve sifted through it all, and put it into this orderly account for you.

Luke’s gospel is just as radical as Mark’s. Jesus is turning the world rightside up. The mighty are being brought down, and the lowly lifted up. Good news for the poor, and the prisoner, and all who are oppressed. It is just as radical as Mark’s, but there is an order to it. It is an orderly account.

And that order is deliberately and progressively expansive. Good news for those in Israel, and also for those who are marginalized – women, Samaritans, sinners, tax collectors  And then, in Luke’s second volume, the Book of Acts: This is good news for the Gentiles, the Ethiopian Eunuch, the Greek, the Roman, the slave, the free. This radical good news is for the whole world.

And then there’s John – who begins with the swirl of creation and cosmos. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. In him was light – the light of all humankind... and the Word became flesh and dwelt in the midst of us – the Word dwelt IN us – full of grace and truth.” For John, this story is about incarnation. What God is doing in the world is coming to life in human flesh – in the body of Jesus, and in our bodies – full of grace and truth – abiding with us, and in us – light into more light, life into more life – abundant life.

Breathless action. A genealogy that grounds us in all that has gone before. An orderly movement of God’s liberating love out into the whole world. The Word from the creation of the cosmos coming to life in us. The good news of Jesus Christ coming to life in a bright array of voices.

I want to notice three things about all this.

The first thing: There is no single story. That is one of the wonders of Scripture. We call the Bible a book, but it is really 66 books – written in a variety of genres – some of those books written and re-written over hundreds of years. We have four gospels – each alive with particularity – the particularity of a community’s lived experience of Jesus Christ. The gospel is not confined to any single story – no one telling – that is part of its liberative power.

Nigerian novelist Chimimanda Nigozi Adichie warns of the danger of the single story.^[6]“Stories matter. Many stories matter” – as she puts it – because one of the ways that powers oppress is by creating and coercing one dominant single story that articulates the world and their power in it. ^[7]

As a means of control, the powers tell the story of other peoples and try to make it thedefinitive story. Colonial powers tell a single story of indigenous people as a way of taking their land. Our government tells a single story about immigrants – silencing their own individual, human stories – so that ICE can expel them with radical inhospitality.

In a more particular way, maybe we know the dangers of the single story in our own lives. Maybe at some point in your life someone tried to tell a single story about you. “You can’t do this because... You can’t be this because...”

Our many stories matter. The gospels show us that “people perceived and experienced Jesus differently.”^[8] We have the wealth of their stories. As womanist scholar Mitzi Smith puts it, they are “testimonies to the commonalities and diversity among early believers,” to be celebrated as much as our own.^[9] As Adichie puts it, stories can be used “to rob a people of their dignity,” but they can also be used to empower and humanize and repair.^[10]

What God is doing in Jesus Christ is not captive to any single story – God is alive in the world, and God is free. There is no single story about Jesus. There is no single story about any human being or any group of human beings. There is no single story about you. The gospels speak in vital, vibrant, varied voices.

Here’s the second thing: Every voice matters. It’s not just that there are a variety of voices. It’s that every voice is essential because of the particular word they bring out of their particular lived experience.  In Jesus Christ, Mark’s community experienced God’s active, breathless intervention in the world, setting the world free. Luke builds on that, telling of how God’s liberating love is bigger, broader, and more inclusive than we ever imagined. Matthewreminds us that all that is grounded in God’s loving, saving action from the beginning until now. John, takes us to the beginning of time, and then on out into forever – inviting us to come and see, and trust the good news, so that it might become alive – incarnate – in us. Every voice matters.

And here’s that’s the third thing: There aren’t just four gospels. But you already knew that. Yes, we know that there were other gospels written at the time that didn’t make it into the Bible. But more than that, every time we pick up one of these gospels and bring the good news to life in our world, for our day, we are beginning again.

You see, these gospels don’t really end – in their very nature, they are always beginning again. Substantively, the climax of their plot is a beginning again – Resurrection. These gospels – whose stories build to crucifixion – do not end in death – but begin again in life. Literarily, the endings of the gospels aren’t really endings. Mark ends in a gasp, with the women, frightened and bewildered at the empty tomb, with a promise that Jesus will meet them in Galilee. Matthew has the Risen Christ affirmatively sending the disciples into the world, into their new beginning. Luke has them looking up at the sky, and will then have them look back down as they experience the enlivening of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. And John issues forth in story upon story – “These are just some of the things that Jesus did. If all of them were written down, there would not be books enough to hold them” – with the implication that we are among the books yet to be written.

All four gospels end by beginning again.

That beginning again ripples forward down through time, and it includes us. Every time we pick up the gospel, and read it fresh in this new day, and bring it to life in our lives, we are beginning again.

I want to invite you to look at your bulletin. You’ve probably noticed, that we’ve brought back a cover photo or image for each Sunday. This bulletin is something you can take home – you can pray the prayers; you can read ahead to the Scripture for next week; and you can pray with the image on the front.

Here, with our theme “Always We Begin Again” – this image imagines the start of a brand new day – and a new blank page. For each new moment of this week:

What is the good news that you will write with the life you live – with the life we live together?

How will God’s love for the whole world in Jesus Christ come to life in us?

The gospel of Jesus Christ is always beginning again –

bringing to life, in each brand new day,

the good news of God’s love for us in Jesus Christ,

bringing the good news to life

in a bright array of voices –

including ours.

© 2026 Scott Clark

^[1] See https://www.togetherweserve.org/post/rev-and-restore-genesis-1-1-2-4-trinity-sunday

^[2] For excellent side-by-side commentaries on the 4 gospels, see Mitzi Smith and Yung Suk Kim, Toward Decentering the New Testament: A Reintroduction (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018); and gospel-specific commentaries by Michael Joseph Brown, Emerson B. Powery, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, and Allen Dwight Callahan, in in True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008).

^[3] For a basic, scholarly primer on the gospels and their literary form, see Christopher M. Tuckett, “Jesus and the Gospels,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol viii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp.71-86.

^[4] I am indebted to Professor Ann Wire for this understanding of gospels as a genre written out of an experience of a particular community, and as encompassing stories that were told orally long before they were written down.

^[5] See Brown, p.85.

^[6] See Smith & Kim, pp.75-82, applying Adichie’s “no single story” to gospels in particular. See also Adichie’s amazing TEDTalk at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg

^[7] See id.

^[8] See Smith & Kim, p.75.

^[9] Mitzi Smith & Kim, pp.75-82.

^[10] Id.