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The Gospel according to Mark is printed in every Christian Bible, but, even so, it has managed to remain (in many ways) like the pearl of great price buried in a field, waiting to be discovered and able to enrich spiritual treasure seekers with unexpected rewards.
Those who would harvest this fortune must approach it with awareness, prayer, and determination.
Christians in the first century already esteemed Mark’s Gospel, which proclaims itself in its opening line as “The Good News of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1). More like a pamphlet than a book, it set a pattern for the way in which many would tell the story of Jesus’ life. Succeeding generations continued to copy it carefully in order to make its message available to the ever-expanding number of those who (like the Roman Centurion in 15:39) recognized that Jesus truly was the Son of God. Compared to the other three gospels, however, Mark received much less exposure in the public liturgical prayer of the church for many centuries. Writers during the whole first millennium were much slower to produce commentaries on Mark like those that were being prepared on Matthew, Luke, and John.
In fact, it was only during relatively recent times that modern readers and scholars have rediscovered this shortest, and probably oldest, narrative in the New Testament. Given the eager interest in the Gospel of Mark today (e.g., its important place in the Lectionary and in many recent books and articles), its low profile in the past may strike us as somewhat puzzling.
This delayed popular reaction was certainly not based on doubts about the apostolic foundations of Mark’s account. Fathers of the Church like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria all handed on the tradition that the author was the same John Mark who had served with the missionaries Paul and Barnabas and who later worked with Peter in Rome. Most modern experts still agree that what we sometimes call “the second gospel” (because it stands between Matthew and Luke in modern Bibles) was completed and starting to circulate among communities of believers within thirty to forty years after Jesus’ ascension from the dead.
Its first readers lived in turbulent times. The Good News was spreading quickly, but the apostolic generation was growing older and encountering violent persecution, even as it was seeing numerous conversions. Both outside and inside the church, curiosity and excitement were high, but so were distortions and rumors about who Jesus really was. Individuals who had developed a positive attitude toward him, and even those who had recently embraced Christianity, needed to deepen and strengthen their new religious bearings. The Gospel of Mark addressed these needs in poignant but unpretentious prose that first-time readers still find quite engaging today.
All through history, those who are called by the Father to unite themselves with his Son must examine and re-examine Jesus’ identity. Who is Jesus for all of us; who is Jesus for me? Somehow, our response to these questions and the growth of our life in Christ are linked together. One of the special characteristics of the second gospel is the way it describes the insistent but gradual way in which Jesus revealed himself to his followers—the struggle they went through to grasp and accept what he was preparing them to understand. As we read and pray about the Gospel of Mark, it is often possible to identify with the episodes described. We can take consolation in the fact that faith and understanding have always been hard-won prizes, even for those who enjoyed the visible presence of the Lord.
The Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John record more of the spoken words of Jesus, including practical instruction about living out our faith commitment after we have received his call to new life. Without these longer teachings, our attention is naturally drawn more in the Gospel of Mark to the actions of Jesus. We see his power dominating the forces of evil and sickness, but we also see the strength of will that enables our Lord to accomplish the mission preordained for him by his Heavenly Father.
Our modern translations of the Marcan gospel are divided into sixteen chapters. In the first half of these accounts, Jesus moves through a life of public teaching and service, marked by the performance of many prodigious signs. He calms a storm at sea and walks upon the waves. He feeds two huge groups of hungry people. He cures many—a man with a withered hand, a woman with recurrent bleeding, a blind beggar, a paralytic. He relieves Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever and heals a deaf man with a speech impediment. At times, great crowds bring their sick to Jesus and he cures them immediately. He even brings a little girl back to life.
As we observe and listen to Jesus through Mark’s words, we are reminded that what the first disciples learned about their Master involved some challenging truths. Paradoxically, they also needed to unlearn some presuppositions that they had already formed. After witnessing all these things, when Jesus asks the disciples who they think that he is, Peter responds: “You are the Christ” (Mark 8:29). Since the prophet Isaiah had spoken about a “Servant of the Lord” who would work wonders for the people, a group of observant Jewish men could well begin to wonder if someone like Jesus was the fulfillment of such predictions. Why couldn’t he be the long-awaited “Christ,” the heir apparent to the royal house of Judah? What startles us is that Jesus immediately warns the apostles not to tell anyone about him!
His followers had arrived at the correct “title”—the anointed descendant of King David. But Jesus knew that they were not ready to share their primary conclusions about him. They still needed to grasp other truths that would set in proper context any incomplete or incorrect images of the Messiah they had already formed. The missing element that they needed to learn was the mystery of the cross. Three separate times after the high point of Peter’s declaration, Jesus insisted that his future will be more tragic and more wonderful than they could imagine:
The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. )(Mark 8:31; see also 9:31, 10:33-34
Anyone who was personally involved with the Messiah could not remain simply a passive observer. To share in the mission of the Son of Man is to share in his destiny. When Peter tried to take issue with Jesus’ prediction of his own fate, the Master summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them:
If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forefeit his life? (Mark 8:34-36)
This is the heart of what has been dubbed “the Marcan paradox.” As we are able to enter into the experience of the first followers of Christ (through the gospel narrative and our prayerful union with it), we watch the evidence mount. Jesus has power over life and death; Jesus can forgive sinners; Jesus is the Son of man who will return upon the clouds as cosmic judge. It is easy to understand the bewilderment of the disciples when this glorious picture was joined with a forecast of betrayal by the highest religious authorities and a brutal murder by crucifixion.
Deepening the enigma even more, Mark pointed to the mysterious encounter of the divine and the human in the person of the Galilean Rabbi. He reports the awe-inspiring revelations that took place at Jesus’ baptism and at the transfiguration (Mark 1:11, 9:7), his post-resurrection appearances to witnesses who could hardly believe their eyes and ears, and his glorious ascension into heaven (16:1-20). We also learn of episodes where even the diabolical opponents of Jesus blurt out acknowledgments of his special relationship with the Most High God (1:24, 5:7).
With an eye for details not always recorded by the other gospels, Mark shows fascinating aspects of the human side of the Messiah as well: That Jesus liked to eat with his friends, that he used a little pillow to sleep on in the boat, that he hugged little children and enjoyed being with them, that he did not always hide strong emotions, that he used mud in the performance of a miracle, that he listened carefully to the parents of a little girl who had died, and that he was fearful before he himself died. Individually, many of these observations may not catch our attention, but collectively they deepen our understanding of what it meant for the Son of God to take on our human nature and share our everyday life.
The book you hold in your hands is a helpful companion for the modern reader of the Gospel according to Mark. Although its pages are tempered by solid Biblical scholarship, this commentary is not designed to supply anyone with a new dimension of archaeological or historical data. Rather, it is an invitation to join with the chosen band of Jesus’ followers, to walk among them, to listen, to talk to, and to be with the Master. Like the disciples, we can expand our religious vision beyond the limits of our earlier horizons.
Perhaps the larger history of Christianity’s reaction to this particular gospel has some wisdom to offer us about the way we may best approach it on an individual level. One major reason that modern writers offer for why interest in Mark was slow to develop during the early centuries is that many simply presumed they already knew its “story line” from having read the other gospels—especially Matthew and Luke. Like children, it is always more likely that we will miss the most important and interesting parts of high-quality literature when we think we know the plot. In truth, that is often the point at which in-depth understanding really begins!
A new spiritual experience with this gospel usually requires three conditions. First, we need to come to it humbly, acknowledging that there is still much we need to know. We start out with what our faith has taught us about what Jesus means for everyone. But this is incomplete until we understand why each of us needs the Messiah now. Second, we must come to the inspired text with the trust that God will continue to use it as a place where we can encounter Jesus as his first followers did. Third, we need the grace to see the gospel as a vehicle of prayer. On this foundation, our careful reading about what Jesus did and how he suffered for us can move beyond being simply about him into reflections undertaken with him.
We read most books to be entertained or educated. The Gospel of Mark was written to change our minds as well as our hearts—if we have the courage to open them to its hidden treasures. It is not just a “good read”; it is an opportunity for discovery. As we bring to it our desire to know more about Jesus and more about ourselves, we can claim for our own the words of the opening prayer from the feast of Mark the Evangelist:
Father, you gave St. Mark the privilege of proclaiming your gospel. May we profit by his wisdom and follow Christ more faithfully.
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