Anyone who reads the Gospel of Mark attentively will notice the special role of the wilderness in the first few verses. But what is the theological significance of the wilderness, and why does Mark emphasize it so strongly?
The first 13 verses of the Gospel of Mark seem to differ from the rest of the book and form a kind of prologue, similar to John 1:1–18. As in the Gospel of John, this is marked, among other things, by the appearance of core theological terms that rarely recur in the remainder of the Gospel. In a way, the prologue serves as an interpretive framework for the rest of the book and introduces the central figures, set apart from the locations where the rest of the book takes place.[1]
In Mark, these terms are notably wilderness (ἔρημος) and Spirit (πνεῦμα). Even though they appear again later, they play a very special role in the prologue. The wilderness is introduced as the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3 (“A voice of one calling in the wilderness”), John preaches in the wilderness and baptizes Jesus there, and immediately afterward, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness, where he is confronted by Satan and the wild beasts.[2] France writes in this regard: “Given that the noun ἡ ἔρημος does not appear at all in the rest of the Gospel of Mark, Mark seems to be making considerable effort to ensure that the reader of his prologue notices this particular setting and draws the appropriate conclusions.”[3] The wilderness carries two distinct connotations here: new beginning and testing.
New Beginning
For Israel, the wilderness represented a special period after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Jeremiah writes about this time:
Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. 3 Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest. All who ate of it became guilty; disaster came upon them,” declares the Lord.
Here, through testing, the people were meant to learn from God, and this place remained for the prophets a location of potential restoration as well. In Isaiah, too, the cited passage serves as the introduction to coming visions of an eschatological restoration. The wilderness thus stands for a new beginning and is a uniquely theological place.[4] This also aligns with the picture that the Evangelist conveys elsewhere in the first chapter. For instance, he writes in the first verse: 📖 [Mark 1:1] The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Schnabel fittingly notes: “The Gospel of Mark reports the beginning of the good news about Jesus, the promised Messiah and unique Son of God. The appearance and ministry of both John the Baptist and Jesus are not merely another phase in God’s guided history of salvation: John and Jesus mark a new beginning—the start of the promised and long-awaited salvation for Israel and the world.”[5] The wilderness is therefore an image of hope and a new beginning, fitting for the appearance of Jesus, who proclaimed the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Testing The Old Testament also makes it clear that the wilderness was simultaneously a place of testing for Israel. Thus it is written:
2 And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
God tested Israel during this time in the wilderness, and the frequent unbelief of the people forms a recurring motif in the Books of Moses. In Mark, too, this motif of the wilderness as a place of testing seems to surface; as the Evangelist writes:
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted (/tested) by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
The explicit mention of forty days, combined with the motif of being tested or tempted (πειραζόμενος), makes it likely that Israel’s wilderness wanderings form the theological background against which these verses should be understood.[6] Thus it was fitting “that the one who comes to redeem Israel undergoes an analogous ‘testing’ himself.”[7] Cole comments: “The meaning is quite clear, especially in light of the narrative that follows: while Israel, God’s child, failed in the wilderness, Jesus, God’s Son, triumphed.”[8]
For us as Christians, this is a reason for worship and joy. The coming of Jesus created a new beginning whose magnitude we often underestimate. The fact that the Son of God came should bring us to wonder and make us freshly aware of his love. At the same time, it helps us, in our own failures, to look to the One who glorified God in all his trials and did not fail.
