I want to spend some time soaking in the Gospel of Mark. I need to spend some time with Jesus and I know of no better way than to read his story and listen to his words in the Gospels and then to carry on a conversation with him about what I’ve just read. So, over the next couple months, I invite you to join me in a long and thorough immersion in Mark.
The Gospel of Mark has long been held to be the first of the four canonical Gospels. Modern scholarship debates all kinds of things about Mark, but few would claim that any of the others were written first. (Though there is a fascinating theory about how the Gospel of Luke might have been the first.) Because Mark is the shortest of the Gospels and because it looks like both Matthew and Luke quoted from it extensively in their own accounts of Jesus, I lean toward agreeing with the majority.
Tradition points to the apostle Peter as the main source behind Mark’s account. The two had a close relationship, as we can see in 1 Peter 5:13 — “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.” Not only does this verse highlight their “father-son” relationship, it gives us a clue as to why tradition tells us that the Gospel of Mark was written in Rome and for the church there. “Babylon” was an early Christian code name for Rome, enabling these Jesus followers to make pointed statements about the Roman Empire, its rulers, and its destructive culture without seeming to be treasonous. Rome was quick to kill anyone suspected of treason or rebellion, as the quick trial and crucifixion of Jesus proves.
I’d like to pause for a bit on this point and consider this idea of taking from someone else and making it my own.
Mark took Peter’s stories about Jesus and wrote them in his Gospel. Luke and Matthew took Mark’s stories about Jesus and incorporated them into their Gospels, adding to it material unique to each of them.
It reminds me of any good sports team that passes around a ball or puck before putting it in the net for a score. There’s a freedom here and a beauty. The Gospel gets passed between each person, none of whom owns it. It is more important than any of the players/writers. They protect it. They share it. They constantly press toward the goal.
The Gospel is first and foremost. If we lose it, we lose Jesus.
We know so little about Mark as a person. (The same is true of Matthew and Luke.) History pretty much ignores him. But it’s his relationship with the Gospel — this proclamation of the kingdom of God and that Jesus himself is the King who has conquered the world by saving it — that makes insignificant Mark so significant. He was a good and reliable ball handler and history remembers him because of that.
ENGAGE
I often wonder about my own significance in the world. What is my purpose? What am I accomplishing? Will anything I do be of lasting value? What will be my legacy, if anything? Take some time with those questions.
Mark is known because of his relationship with the Gospel, with the Jesus story. How well do I know the Jesus story? How much of my imagination/understanding of Jesus comes from the Gospels and how much from what I’ve heard about him elsewhere? How much have I simply invented to match what I’d like Jesus to be?
How often do I tell stories about Jesus myself? (As we work our way through the Gospel of Mark, I will be encouraging us, myself included, to find ways to tell the story for that day to at least one other person that day.) Who am I passing the ball to? And who passed the ball to me?
PRAY
Thank you, Lord, for the gift of the Gospels. Thank you that I am not left to my own faulty imagination of who Jesus was, but that I am the glad recipient of these faithful accounts.
Cause me to truly encounter Jesus in the reading of the Gospel. I don’t want to know about you, my Lord. I want to know you.
Thank you for those who have told the Jesus story to me. Give me the care and courage and creativity to share each Jesus story with others, making it more my own as I give it away.
LIVE
Take some time to skim through the Gospel of Mark. You don’t need to read the whole book. Just reacquaint yourself with the stories that will be coming. Consider what you would like to take place in you as we immerse ourselves in the Jesus story, encountering him in the process. How do you think this might change you?