An old dusty highway became an unexpected lens for understanding the ancient road running through Mark's Gospel. He opens by quoting Isaiah, and understanding why changes how you read the whole book.

Along the flat, dusty roads of Texas lies an obscure highway. Years ago, this ordinary road led me home. I traveled along this lonely stretch of Highway 84 to visit friends, go to church, cruise. In high school we called it the drag — a mile from Walmart to the courthouse square. We were a bunch of bored high schoolers and gas was cheap. Back then, it was just a road. 

Then I met my husband — a small-town boy from Alabama. The first time he took me home to meet his family, I noticed the road sign. Highway 84. All these years, we’d been traveling along the same highway, in two different states. Each of us living our own lives, not knowing about the other, but always on the same highway. 

I’d driven that road a thousand times without ever really seeing it. It took knowing the rest of the story — his half of it — to understand the significance. 

Why Mark Begins With Isaiah

Mark’s Gospel does the same thing to its readers, right from the first sentence. There’s a significance here that I never noticed. He calls it the beginning. But before Mark tells us anything more about Jesus, he sends us seven hundred years back, to Isaiah.

“Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!”  — Isaiah 40:3 

This highway takes on new meaning when I see it from my perspective. I know Jesus came. He was the Messiah the prophets promised, and for two thousand years, people have shouted this Good News from the mountaintops. “Your God is coming! And his name is Jesus!”

Missing the Signs

But the thing about this highway is that it wasn’t evident right at first. People didn’t see the significance of Jesus. The religious leaders studied prophecy for a lifetime and still missed the King walking past them. Even the disciples, watching Jesus heal and teach and feed thousands, kept asking each other who this man really was. They were standing in the middle of the highway and didn’t know it.

That’s not because they were careless readers. They’d studied the text. Just like me. They just didn’t recognize what they were seeing. But how often have I rushed through without really noticing? The ancient roads they walked were nothing like mine. I’ve only experienced beautiful concrete interstates leading from point A to point B. Their old, crooked highways were built of gravel and dirt, worn down through decades of use, shaped by hand over generations. Only a king had the authority and money to lay one. But a road like this doesn’t make sense unless you know where it goes.

The Road That Leads to Life

That’s the trouble with how we usually read Scripture. We want to know what a verse means for us today and skip past everything that came before it. We want the application without the seven hundred years. But a verse read in isolation is a stretch of road with no destination — you can stand there and never know it leads anywhere. Yet these roads traveled by prophets, kings, and ordinary people lead to one place — life.

Highway 84 isn’t just another road to me anymore. It’s the same road it always was. But something’s changed. Now I know the whole story it’s part of. And like that highway, the words of Mark take on new significance.

The disciples watched Jesus heal, teach, and feed thousands — and still asked each other who he was. Have you ever missed something obvious about who Jesus is until much later? Tell me about it in the comments.

Will you join me this month on a road trip through Mark?

If you subscribe you'll get a FREE 5-Day Bible Study in Mark 1. I’ll tell one story, uncover one truth, and ask one question. These are the mile markers you’ve driven past for years without ever knowing how they fit on the map. Let’s travel together and discover something new along the way.