GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
MARK 1:5
Making a Change
Bruce Barton (1886-1967), writer and politician, the author of “The Man Nobody Knows: A Discovery of the Real Jesus,” says that, as a cub reporter, one of his first assignments was to follow and expose Billy Sunday (1862-1935), a baseball player turned Christian turned famous evangelist in the 1910s through the 30s. However, in every city Billy Sunday left, people talked about a major change: people paid their bills, family life improved, and the moral atmosphere changed. Barton’s article, commissioned to be a derogatory exposé, became a tribute to the power of Sunday’s Christian message.
St. Mark wrote, “John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and they were baptized in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.” (1:4-5) There’s no Barton-like report about the change in moral life in Judea, but the willingness of people to travel to the Judean wilderness to hear John’s message and to be baptized as they confessed their sins demonstrates the desire for a better life, a desire that still fills the human heart.
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