Mark starts his actual presentation of the gospel with John the Baptist. Interestingly, this is also how Peter started in Acts 10:37. Mark sees John as the fulfillment of the prophecies he has just quoted, ie he is God's messenger and is preparing the way.
John preached a baptism of repentance. At the time Gentile converts to Judaism had to undergo baptism, but it was new for Jewish people. So John was proclaiming a new day in God's dealings with the world, starting with the Jews. It is significant that the Jews themselves needed to take a new step to become part of this new day. The step they had to take was repentance. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), so the Jews, along with everyone else, needed to repent.
However, this message itself was not new. The prophets had been preaching repentance for hundreds of years!
John preached in the wilderness. Now if we were starting a mission campaign this is not where we would go! Instead we would start in the city, but God does many of His key dealings with people in the desert. Despite the location and the call for baptism, many people went out to John. There had been a dearth of prophecy since the time of Malachi, so the news of a new prophet would have attracted people.
The camel hair and wild honey are reminiscent of Elijah. Malachi speaks of God sending Elijah (Mal 4:5,6).
John knew that he was pointing the way forward to one greater than himself. He also knew that a far greater baptism was coming, baptism with the Holy Spirit.
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