At the beginning of this chapter, John was preaching a baptism of redemption. Now, Jesus is preaching the “good news” of God. And just what is that good news?
Based on the operating theory that all of this was in service to the Flavian emperors and described the situation immediately prior to the Judean campaign, we can easily guess that “kingdom of God” meant the Roman Empire. The order to repent is again asking for a change of mind about not liking the Roman Empire, and to really believe that this is going to happen.
These are the first words of Jesus in Mark, and they are words of prophecy. It’s also probably the first clear indication that this missive was written sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem. “Believe in the gospel” comes from the assurance that this event has already taken place.
These verses appear to be circular nonsense, as there isn’t an explicit verse stating, the Gospel is “X”. But if we can go with the poetry of the moment, perhaps this is the explicit “good news” – the Roman Empire is at hand. This is challenging to accept because it’s hard to understand how this was good news to the Jews.
But Christianity wasn’t created for the Jews, it was created for the Romans. The Judean rebellions had been an enormous thorn in their side, and the elimination of that problem would have, indeed, been good news. But the presentation of this, as if the Judeans at the time would have thought it was good news, is some harsh, dark humor.