SERMON
MARK 1:1-13
March 30, 2008 - 7pm
LET’S PRAY…
God our Father, you have given us Your thoughts and Your heart and Your Word in the Bible. We pray that as we explore the words of Your servant, Mark, you will open our eyes and ears and minds; that you will help us in the renewing of our minds, so that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of Yours. Help me to speak clearly, to speak Your Truth clearly, and for us all to understand your good and perfect Word more clearly.
I love books. I hate the thought of throwing one away. And the only time when this is a disadvantage is when you move... I've unpacked 530 books so far, and that's about one-third of them. Hoo-boy, that's a job and a half. Fiona has quietly promised that the fete will have a couple of extra titles in the bookstall, and I may well die a slow, painful death if I bring any back from any fete whatsoever...[YOU WILL DIE OF BOOKING, SOMEWHAT LIKE STONING! - YOUR WIFE, FIONA]
Some books have been hiding for a very long time, and occasionally I've stumbled across one I haven't seen for a very long time. It's like a reunion and unless Fiona coughs discreetly behind me, I might just read a page. Maybe two... I found three old Agatha Christie novels, and they made me smile, because she was one of my grandmother's favourite writers. I used to read Agatha Christie novels a long time ago. There were always a lot of them on Mum and Dad's book-case, and if ever I found studying too much of a strain, I'd pull one down from the shelf, quietly shut my door as if I was studying... For the life of me, there was one thing that I couldn't understand. Poor Miss Marple. She just kept on stumbling upon all these bodies! I often wondered what I'd do if I was the local policeman. A sweet little lady talks to me, and a quick background check reveals that she'd been involved in over twenty homicides dotted all over the countryside... I would probably arrest her on-the-spot and charge her as Britain's most notorious female serial-killer.
After you've read a few Agatha Christie books, you realise that they fall into a pattern – there's a formula that they're set to. There's a quick introduction to the characters, one of them is found dead, police are called, a little old lady who just happens to be passing by gets under the local constabulary's feet, conversations with Miss Marple take place in which the vital piece of damning evidence is hiding, we hear lots of unpleasant things about everyone local, there's usually a clumsy attempt at another murder, Miss Marple asks nosy questions and discovers even more unpleasantness, and then... the Climax. Everyone is brought into the same room, and after explaining carefully and patiently why everyone in the room should have murdered the poor victim, she reveals that the Bishop was murdered because he'd asked someone to stop stealing his roses. Student ministers, eh? Can't trust 'em.
And, to a point, a lot of the stories we absorb (either by book, television or movie) follow set formulae. We read certain genres of books because, apart from content itself, their structure or pattern is one that we are both familiar and comfortable with. Even us wee first-years at Moore College are not immune to this – we present our essays in a certain format, and our thoughts are set to a certain accepted formula.
So what happens when we find the mould broken? Can we cope when the traditions – the accepted ways of telling a story – end up on their head? What if we went against all the norms of the genre? Would we read it? Will it sell? Publishers and editors agree – absolutely not. At least, not unless the author is incredibly skilful. And even then, probably not a good idea.
Welcome to a little book written by Mark. It's one of the most unusual narratives in the Bible. It presents us with a picture of Jesus, his disciples, his contemporaries and his enemies, but it does it very, very strangely. It tells us the “whodunit” in the first few verses, it ends with two scared women trembling with fear, fleeing from a graveyard. The story speeds up, stops, speeds up again in a way that we're not used to. It doesn't “read” easily. Look at the opening sentence... “The Beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ...” What an odd way to start a book. Would Agatha Christie write “The beginning of how the student minister killed the Bishop about his roses?”
So, if we're going to spend a few weeks studying a good chunk of a Gospel, why look at this odd little book? It's a good question. And the answer isn't “because Reg wants us to look at Mark.” Actually, that's not entirely true... Reg wants us to look at Mark. But it's a serious question. Why should we spend time in Mark, in particular? Because for most of the Church's history, Mark has been shunted off the stage. For many centuries, Matthew, Luke and John have formed the backbone of Gospel preaching, and Mark was put up on the shelf. And that's understandable.
Matthew gives us the Virgin Birth, the Wise Men, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, Peter The Rock.
Luke gave the Church (especially in the crucial Middle Ages) a grand picture of the great memorable events and parables; the birth of John the Baptist, the Christmas shepherds, the Good Samaritan, Martha and Mary, the lost sheep, the Prodigal Son, Zaccheus, the Pharisee and the tax collector, and the road to Emmaus.
John, so different from the others, explores the encounters between Jesus and other characters – Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, Mary and Martha and Lazarus – and John wrote with immense power. Look at the way he opens his account - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...”
In comparison, Mark feels short, incomplete, almost sketchy... it was written in Koine Greek. It's not the classical Greek of Aristotle or Plato. It's the rough, earthy Greek of tradesmen, fishermen, working-class men. Great works were written in classical or Attic Greek – receipts and instructions for tradesmen were written in Koine. As part of our learning Greek at Moore, we've been translating the first chapter of Mark, and it's really, really odd – the Greek switches tenses from past to present and back again. Greek is very specific about tenses – when things happened (were happening, are happening, happens, will happen... believe me on this!).
Example? Mark 1:29-31 – Simon's mother-in-law... the word-for-word rendering of the Greek text reads like this;
“And immediately coming out of the synagogue they went to the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with burning-fever,and immediately they say to him concerning her. And approaching, he raised her, taking hold of the hand. And the burning-fever left her, and she was serving to them.” Not exactly easy to follow. It's not Agatha Christie... And this is how Mark wrote. These swings and oddities are unlikely to be transcribed errors; misplaced letters would more likely result in a meaningless word altogether. Even for Koine Greek, Mark's writing style is recognised as pretty rough.
So it's understandable that it's been regularly ignored and left on the shelf. One writer, Francis Maloney, describes Mark as the Cinderella of the Gospels – “regularly left at home when it came to the major celebrations.” So why go there? What can we get out of this book that we can't see more clearly from the other three Gospels?
To read Mark is to see how so many people in the very early Church first encountered Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God. To read Mark is to see the hearts of the Apostles, to see who they preached and what they preached and why they preached. This was Gospel – the Good News – literally, the euaggelion – the Good Message – of Jesus Christ, according to a man named Mark. Mark saw the need to do something new. So he wrote a little book.
Why? Well, let's have a look. Churches were springing up all over the Roman world. The apostles traveled widely, preaching the Good News of Jesus the Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God. Where the apostles could not travel, they raised up others to go, and they sent letters – to teach, to confirm, to correct and rebuke where necessary, but specifically to reinforce the strange new teaching of a slain and risen Jesus, of grace and salvation to both Jew and Gentile. But as the Church expanded rapidly, it was clear that people were going to hear about Jesus at the second-, third- and fourth-hand. While some people in Jerusalem and Judea may have remembered something about Jesus – or even seen and heard Jesus – this was something that people beyond these regions could not have experienced. So as time and the church spread, there was clearly going to be a great need for people to hear what it was that Jesus did, and what he said, what people around him thought, and what happened to him.
And so Mark wrote his little book with these aims in mind. We don't know exactly when he sat down to write, or who he sat down with. We know from Acts that Mark traveled with Barnabus, and from 1 Peter that Mark worked with Peter (“He is like a son to me”). The early church historian Eusebius quotes from the writings of Bishop Papias, who showed that the disciple Peter sat down and dictated to Mark; “When Mark became Peter's translator,” says Papias, “he wrote down accurately as much as Peter remembered of the words and deeds of the Lord.”As far as we can tell, his writings first appeared several years after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
We do know that Mark's book was the first book about Jesus to be widely circulated and accepted. We do know with a certainty what his book was designed to tell its readers. Mark wants his readers in the very early church to know exactly who Jesus was – the Son of God. It wasn't designed to be a marvelous story with all the trappings and form of classical writing like Aeneid or Homer. And it wasn't designed to be an exhaustive A-Z, all-inclusive biography of Christ. This book was designed, simply and clearly, to tell people exactly who Jesus was – the Son of God.
And that's exactly where Mark begins. The opening sentence is absolutely explicit – we can almost hear Mark hammering a great big signpost. THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL ABOUT JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. Bang! Mark's set his first signpost.
Has anybody been driving in America? I remember as a kid seeing all those amazing spaghetti-junctions in Los Angeles, thinking how easy it would be to get utterly, utterly lost in that great tangle of roads and ramps. But if you drive over there, the amazing thing is that it's actually very easy. Everything is signposted very clearly. Big letters, big arrows – the only way you could actually take a wrong turn is to completely ignore the signposts. Mark is absolutely clear. He doesn't want anybody to get lost. He doesn't want anybody to miss the direction, or the destination. So he puts in a great big billboard.
Where does he go next? Where does this signpost point? Actually, despite what I said earlier about it being an odd way for a book to start, it makes a great deal of sense. It points back in time, back to a place that at least any Jewish readers would recognise instantly. And he highlights another signpost that was already well-known.
“It is written in Isaiah the prophet;
I will send my messenger ahead of you
[the Greek of Mark runs literally “I will send my messenger before your face” - just in case it wasn't clear enough]
Who will prepare your way.
A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the LORD, make straight paths for him.'”
Mark doesn't waste any time explaining why he uses this passage, or explains his selection. It's about to become very obvious – Isaiah's own signpost sends us forward in time again, straight to John the Baptist. And Mark rolls instantly into telling us about this extraordinary man. He's floodlit this signpost – that's enough – time to look at John the Baptist.
Again, Mark doesn't waste a word. His is the shortest glimpse of John the Baptist, and he shows his reader only what he needs to know. He tells us, briefly, what John was doing – preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark then notes the popularity of John's message, glances over John's appearance and diet, before telling us what his real message and purpose was.
Mark shows us what John wore, because this, too, was another signpost back in time to another great prophet, Elijah. Elijah was one of the most eminent of all the prophets. He did not die but was taken to Heaven in a chariot, and it has always been understood by the Jews that Elijah would come again to herald the coming of the Messiah. To this day a traditional Jewish passover will have one cup of wine set aside for his expected return – Elijah's cup. Elijah was instantly recognisable by his clothes – 2 Kings 1 gives a description of a man clothed in hair with a leather belt. Mark shows us what John the Baptist looks like because he wants us to see very clearly who John was – a messenger here to herald the coming of the Messiah. And, as everyone knew, the Messiah would bring the Kingdom of God. John wasn't just another messenger, but the final messenger. Bang! Another signpost.
And although John the Baptist said many things (which can be seen in all of the other Gospels) all Mark needs his readers to understand is that John's main importance in the story of Jesus Christ is that he was doing exactly what Isaiah's prophecy said – preparing a way for the Messiah, and making the path straight. He made the path straight with a message that people walked for days to hear. He made the path straight by preaching about the need for repentance before the coming of the Messiah. His preaching a baptism of repentance was what marked him as being so unusual. Baptism was not unknown; his listeners knew of baptism for Gentile converts, but it had been a very long time since anyone had preached that the Jews themselves needed to repent before God. The last great prophets (probably Malachi and Joel) were four hundred years in the past.
Again, what Mark is doing is drawing great big arrows from the prophets to John the Baptist, and then even bigger arrows leading from John's teaching, very simply, to somebody who is about to come, bringing the Kingdom. John's words marked out just how important the one following him would be. “And this was his message,” says Mark.
“' After me will come one who is more powerful that I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water. But he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'”
Today we have a similar thing. If you go to a concert (a rock concert, even!) today, you will see one or two bands playing before the main act – the support act. They might be good bands, but their main job is to get everybody in the mood for the important band – the one that people really want to see. John the Baptist was a like a rock star (and the way he dressed wouldn't be out of place in the world of rock stars today) – he was the equivalent of a huge rock star with a message, and people traveled enormous distances to hear him. But can you imagine if the biggest band on earth played a gig and then told everyone that... they were really the support act for someone else? That's exactly how Mark wants us to see John the Baptist. John the Baptist drew the attention of just about everyone in the region. “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.” People wanted to hear John the Baptist's message – but the message was, simply, Confess your sins! Repent! Be forgiven! Because someone is following me. Be ready for him.
“At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove. And a voice came from Heaven: 'You are My Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'”
Once again, Matthew and Luke provide pictures full of detail. John's Gospel gives us the picture from the point-of-view of John the Baptist. Mark just tells us that something happened. He's not overly concerned with the detail. He lets the reader see Jesus coming up out of the water, having been baptized by John. He lets the reader see Jesus coming up out of the water, heaven being torn open, the Holy Spirit coming down and the Lord proclaiming His Son.
John baptized Jesus. Just this once, we'll sneak a look at Matthew's gospel for a little explanation. John was reluctant to baptize Jesus – Jesus should baptize me, he suggests. How is it that a sinful, fallen man has the right to baptize the perfect Son of God? The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world must be without blemish or spot. Why should he need baptism?
Many people have suggested that this baptism was a turning-point in the life of Jesus. Leading up to the baptism, so the theory goes, Jesus becomes more aware of who he is and what he was sent to do. So before he commences, he goes to the Jordan to be baptized – purified. So he emerges from the water, ready to start his remarkable ministry. Sounds logical, doesn't it? Well, it's logical, but it's also a dangerous path to go down, because once you see Jesus as being purified like that, you then have to be confronted with the idea that Jesus had to be purified from... something... that, perhaps, Jesus was not free from sin. If that was the case, then Jesus was not good enough for what he came to do. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, must be without blemish or spot. The Old Testament laws made it absolutely clear that anything other than a perfect lamb was unacceptable. A lamb that was merely washed would still be blemished.
So if Jesus was free from sin, if he was perfect, why should he be baptized? In Matthew's account, Jesus explains why to John; “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Ritual washing was enormously important – not only were you to wash, you should be seen to be washed. At the wedding in Cana, the jars of water that Jesus miraculously turned into wine were huge – somewhere between 75-115 litres apiece. They were jars to store water for washing. You used a lot of water when you washed. It was important to be seen in this light. So – to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus is publicly washed in the Jordan River. Not to be cleansed, but to show being clean. He comes up out of the water. Heaven is torn open. And the Spirit descends.
Mark draws attention to “Heaven being torn open.” The Greek scizomevnoV – schizomenos – is a word of some violence (schizophrenia; a split mind). Heaven is split open! On the second day of Creation, earth and heaven were separated by “the expanse.” The expanse is split open – no barrier at all between the three parts of the One God. The significant act of the splitting open of that dividing distance between God and Man will be reinforced later on as Mark records the ripping of the great curtain in the Temple, separating the people from God's Presence. Heaven is torn open, the Spirit comes down, and God speaks to His Son.
A reader in the early church would almost certainly have been exposed to the idea of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit from the teaching of the Apostles; now they could see the three at work, confirming that Jesus the Man was the Son of God. Once again, Mark clearly sets his signposts. Jesus the son of Mary, the Son of Man, is the Son of God. God confirms this. The heavens are split apart, torn open, and there is no barrier as the three elements of the Trinity are in unity of purpose. And their purpose is for the Father to loudly proclaim His love for his Son, and for the Spirit to anoint the Son.
Publicly, in sight of the people, the Spirit anoints Jesus. The Greek word for anoint – crivw – chrioe – is exactly where the word Christ comes from. The One Anointed is, literally, cristovV christos. The Christ. The King of the awaited Kingdom. Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One, christed by the Holy Spirit, named by God the Father as His loved Son... is here.
Mark couldn't draw a bigger signpost if he tried. He is here! The One that the prophets had pointed to, the One that John the Baptist had announced, the One... is here. It has begun.
What's next?
“At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”
Now – here's a strange thing. Jesus is about to start his great ministry. He has been announced by John, confirmed by the voice of his Father, the Lord God, anointed by the Holy Spirit. There are sick people waiting to be healed – lepers, cripples, women bleeding for years, people who were possessed by demons. There's the people of Israel, indeed a whole world waiting to be saved. Where would logic say that Jesus should go? Roll up the sleeves, let's go to work? Fair enough, isn't it?
Mark shows the Spirit sending Jesus out – driving him out – literally throwing him out (ekballei – ekballei, another word with a great deal of force behind it) into the desert. Before Mark shows us the ministry of Jesus, he shows us Jesus obedient to the will of his Father. This is absolutely critical. If you read Mark over Easter, you'll remember him in Gethsemane, praying, in great distress and anguish, to his Abba, his Father, that the hour of his suffering and death might pass from him. “Not what I will, but what You will.” Jesus was not a madman determined to be made a martyr for some political cause. Utterly sane, he didn't want to undergo what was coming. But – in obedience as well as understanding – he went. And here we see the Son of God, after being announced, anointed and confirmed, going away from the people who he came to save. In utter obedience to the will of God the Father.
Once again, Mark gives us no details of what happens in the desert between Jesus and Satan. True to form, he shows that it happens. Once again, Matthew and Luke give more detail about Jesus' temptation. But Mark is content enough to stake his markers before he gets underway with his little book. He is absolutely determined to set his gospel within the framework of who Jesus really is, so that his readers understand immediately. And now – the story begins...
But that will have to wait until next week.
For us to see Jesus through the eyes of the very early Church is priceless. Keep this in mind. These people were under heavy persecution – their faith was not based on the same understanding of the Gospel writers that we have. Their faith was based on nothing more than what they heard, not read. They didn't have Bibles at home to study at their leisure – they would have heard preaching, and letters being read out publicly. And yet they believed. Jesus would later say to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.” But there would still be a need for people to know the Jesus that the Apostles knew, that the disciples of the Apostles had learned about, and were themselves teaching others about. Paul had told the believers in Philippi this about Jesus;
“Being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant being, made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.”
Mark's little book begins to show them God in action, and Jesus very much the man, as well as the Son of God.
There is a modern counterpart to the people who would soon make up the very early Church. The people who heard Mark's little book first read to them have a modern-day equivalent. They are outside the walls of this building. They change our oil, sell us fish, pay us, walk past us with a dog, sit next to us at Aromas or Cafe 12. They've heard a little about Jesus; they know that he's more than replacement for a swear-word. They might even know that we believe he's the Son of God. What else do they know? How will they find out about Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God?
Because that's really our job, isn't it? It's not just Reg's job, or Stu's or Matt's or Jai's, or Tim's or mine. True, it IS our job, but it's your job, too. We're looking about what we can do through Connect 09 – but part of that is getting you thinking about it, too. A really good place is to get to know one of the Gospels really well. And that's where that rough, earthy simplicity, that well-signposted simplicity of Mark's little book comes into its own. It's almost too simple – in an age where we've trained ourselves to expect Agatha Christie mysteries, the Gospel according to Mark is so simple that it's surprising.
Right now, before we see anything more, Mark stamps in our minds who Jesus really, truly is. In Chapter 8, Jesus will ask two fundamentally important questions to his disciples; “Who do men say that I am?” and then “But who do you say that I am?” And the second question is the most important question you or I will ever be asked. And it's the most important question we'll ever have to answer. Hasn't God blessed us so richly for giving us the answer?
Who do men say Jesus is? Who do you say Jesus is? While ever there is a difference in those two answers, we all have work to do. We all have a job at hand. We need the answers to match – actually, the people outside these bricks here need the answers to match. And the answer is right there at the start of Mark's little book – at the beginning of the good message, the gospel, of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.
March 30, 2008 - 7pm
LET’S PRAY…
God our Father, you have given us Your thoughts and Your heart and Your Word in the Bible. We pray that as we explore the words of Your servant, Mark, you will open our eyes and ears and minds; that you will help us in the renewing of our minds, so that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of Yours. Help me to speak clearly, to speak Your Truth clearly, and for us all to understand your good and perfect Word more clearly.
I love books. I hate the thought of throwing one away. And the only time when this is a disadvantage is when you move... I've unpacked 530 books so far, and that's about one-third of them. Hoo-boy, that's a job and a half. Fiona has quietly promised that the fete will have a couple of extra titles in the bookstall, and I may well die a slow, painful death if I bring any back from any fete whatsoever...[YOU WILL DIE OF BOOKING, SOMEWHAT LIKE STONING! - YOUR WIFE, FIONA]
Some books have been hiding for a very long time, and occasionally I've stumbled across one I haven't seen for a very long time. It's like a reunion and unless Fiona coughs discreetly behind me, I might just read a page. Maybe two... I found three old Agatha Christie novels, and they made me smile, because she was one of my grandmother's favourite writers. I used to read Agatha Christie novels a long time ago. There were always a lot of them on Mum and Dad's book-case, and if ever I found studying too much of a strain, I'd pull one down from the shelf, quietly shut my door as if I was studying... For the life of me, there was one thing that I couldn't understand. Poor Miss Marple. She just kept on stumbling upon all these bodies! I often wondered what I'd do if I was the local policeman. A sweet little lady talks to me, and a quick background check reveals that she'd been involved in over twenty homicides dotted all over the countryside... I would probably arrest her on-the-spot and charge her as Britain's most notorious female serial-killer.
After you've read a few Agatha Christie books, you realise that they fall into a pattern – there's a formula that they're set to. There's a quick introduction to the characters, one of them is found dead, police are called, a little old lady who just happens to be passing by gets under the local constabulary's feet, conversations with Miss Marple take place in which the vital piece of damning evidence is hiding, we hear lots of unpleasant things about everyone local, there's usually a clumsy attempt at another murder, Miss Marple asks nosy questions and discovers even more unpleasantness, and then... the Climax. Everyone is brought into the same room, and after explaining carefully and patiently why everyone in the room should have murdered the poor victim, she reveals that the Bishop was murdered because he'd asked someone to stop stealing his roses. Student ministers, eh? Can't trust 'em.
And, to a point, a lot of the stories we absorb (either by book, television or movie) follow set formulae. We read certain genres of books because, apart from content itself, their structure or pattern is one that we are both familiar and comfortable with. Even us wee first-years at Moore College are not immune to this – we present our essays in a certain format, and our thoughts are set to a certain accepted formula.
So what happens when we find the mould broken? Can we cope when the traditions – the accepted ways of telling a story – end up on their head? What if we went against all the norms of the genre? Would we read it? Will it sell? Publishers and editors agree – absolutely not. At least, not unless the author is incredibly skilful. And even then, probably not a good idea.
Welcome to a little book written by Mark. It's one of the most unusual narratives in the Bible. It presents us with a picture of Jesus, his disciples, his contemporaries and his enemies, but it does it very, very strangely. It tells us the “whodunit” in the first few verses, it ends with two scared women trembling with fear, fleeing from a graveyard. The story speeds up, stops, speeds up again in a way that we're not used to. It doesn't “read” easily. Look at the opening sentence... “The Beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ...” What an odd way to start a book. Would Agatha Christie write “The beginning of how the student minister killed the Bishop about his roses?”
So, if we're going to spend a few weeks studying a good chunk of a Gospel, why look at this odd little book? It's a good question. And the answer isn't “because Reg wants us to look at Mark.” Actually, that's not entirely true... Reg wants us to look at Mark. But it's a serious question. Why should we spend time in Mark, in particular? Because for most of the Church's history, Mark has been shunted off the stage. For many centuries, Matthew, Luke and John have formed the backbone of Gospel preaching, and Mark was put up on the shelf. And that's understandable.
Matthew gives us the Virgin Birth, the Wise Men, the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord's Prayer, Peter The Rock.
Luke gave the Church (especially in the crucial Middle Ages) a grand picture of the great memorable events and parables; the birth of John the Baptist, the Christmas shepherds, the Good Samaritan, Martha and Mary, the lost sheep, the Prodigal Son, Zaccheus, the Pharisee and the tax collector, and the road to Emmaus.
John, so different from the others, explores the encounters between Jesus and other characters – Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, Mary and Martha and Lazarus – and John wrote with immense power. Look at the way he opens his account - “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...”
In comparison, Mark feels short, incomplete, almost sketchy... it was written in Koine Greek. It's not the classical Greek of Aristotle or Plato. It's the rough, earthy Greek of tradesmen, fishermen, working-class men. Great works were written in classical or Attic Greek – receipts and instructions for tradesmen were written in Koine. As part of our learning Greek at Moore, we've been translating the first chapter of Mark, and it's really, really odd – the Greek switches tenses from past to present and back again. Greek is very specific about tenses – when things happened (were happening, are happening, happens, will happen... believe me on this!).
Example? Mark 1:29-31 – Simon's mother-in-law... the word-for-word rendering of the Greek text reads like this;
“And immediately coming out of the synagogue they went to the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. But Simon's mother-in-law was lying sick with burning-fever,and immediately they say to him concerning her. And approaching, he raised her, taking hold of the hand. And the burning-fever left her, and she was serving to them.” Not exactly easy to follow. It's not Agatha Christie... And this is how Mark wrote. These swings and oddities are unlikely to be transcribed errors; misplaced letters would more likely result in a meaningless word altogether. Even for Koine Greek, Mark's writing style is recognised as pretty rough.
So it's understandable that it's been regularly ignored and left on the shelf. One writer, Francis Maloney, describes Mark as the Cinderella of the Gospels – “regularly left at home when it came to the major celebrations.” So why go there? What can we get out of this book that we can't see more clearly from the other three Gospels?
To read Mark is to see how so many people in the very early Church first encountered Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of God. To read Mark is to see the hearts of the Apostles, to see who they preached and what they preached and why they preached. This was Gospel – the Good News – literally, the euaggelion – the Good Message – of Jesus Christ, according to a man named Mark. Mark saw the need to do something new. So he wrote a little book.
Why? Well, let's have a look. Churches were springing up all over the Roman world. The apostles traveled widely, preaching the Good News of Jesus the Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God. Where the apostles could not travel, they raised up others to go, and they sent letters – to teach, to confirm, to correct and rebuke where necessary, but specifically to reinforce the strange new teaching of a slain and risen Jesus, of grace and salvation to both Jew and Gentile. But as the Church expanded rapidly, it was clear that people were going to hear about Jesus at the second-, third- and fourth-hand. While some people in Jerusalem and Judea may have remembered something about Jesus – or even seen and heard Jesus – this was something that people beyond these regions could not have experienced. So as time and the church spread, there was clearly going to be a great need for people to hear what it was that Jesus did, and what he said, what people around him thought, and what happened to him.
And so Mark wrote his little book with these aims in mind. We don't know exactly when he sat down to write, or who he sat down with. We know from Acts that Mark traveled with Barnabus, and from 1 Peter that Mark worked with Peter (“He is like a son to me”). The early church historian Eusebius quotes from the writings of Bishop Papias, who showed that the disciple Peter sat down and dictated to Mark; “When Mark became Peter's translator,” says Papias, “he wrote down accurately as much as Peter remembered of the words and deeds of the Lord.”As far as we can tell, his writings first appeared several years after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
We do know that Mark's book was the first book about Jesus to be widely circulated and accepted. We do know with a certainty what his book was designed to tell its readers. Mark wants his readers in the very early church to know exactly who Jesus was – the Son of God. It wasn't designed to be a marvelous story with all the trappings and form of classical writing like Aeneid or Homer. And it wasn't designed to be an exhaustive A-Z, all-inclusive biography of Christ. This book was designed, simply and clearly, to tell people exactly who Jesus was – the Son of God.
And that's exactly where Mark begins. The opening sentence is absolutely explicit – we can almost hear Mark hammering a great big signpost. THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL ABOUT JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD. Bang! Mark's set his first signpost.
Has anybody been driving in America? I remember as a kid seeing all those amazing spaghetti-junctions in Los Angeles, thinking how easy it would be to get utterly, utterly lost in that great tangle of roads and ramps. But if you drive over there, the amazing thing is that it's actually very easy. Everything is signposted very clearly. Big letters, big arrows – the only way you could actually take a wrong turn is to completely ignore the signposts. Mark is absolutely clear. He doesn't want anybody to get lost. He doesn't want anybody to miss the direction, or the destination. So he puts in a great big billboard.
Where does he go next? Where does this signpost point? Actually, despite what I said earlier about it being an odd way for a book to start, it makes a great deal of sense. It points back in time, back to a place that at least any Jewish readers would recognise instantly. And he highlights another signpost that was already well-known.
“It is written in Isaiah the prophet;
I will send my messenger ahead of you
[the Greek of Mark runs literally “I will send my messenger before your face” - just in case it wasn't clear enough]
Who will prepare your way.
A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the LORD, make straight paths for him.'”
Mark doesn't waste any time explaining why he uses this passage, or explains his selection. It's about to become very obvious – Isaiah's own signpost sends us forward in time again, straight to John the Baptist. And Mark rolls instantly into telling us about this extraordinary man. He's floodlit this signpost – that's enough – time to look at John the Baptist.
Again, Mark doesn't waste a word. His is the shortest glimpse of John the Baptist, and he shows his reader only what he needs to know. He tells us, briefly, what John was doing – preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Mark then notes the popularity of John's message, glances over John's appearance and diet, before telling us what his real message and purpose was.
Mark shows us what John wore, because this, too, was another signpost back in time to another great prophet, Elijah. Elijah was one of the most eminent of all the prophets. He did not die but was taken to Heaven in a chariot, and it has always been understood by the Jews that Elijah would come again to herald the coming of the Messiah. To this day a traditional Jewish passover will have one cup of wine set aside for his expected return – Elijah's cup. Elijah was instantly recognisable by his clothes – 2 Kings 1 gives a description of a man clothed in hair with a leather belt. Mark shows us what John the Baptist looks like because he wants us to see very clearly who John was – a messenger here to herald the coming of the Messiah. And, as everyone knew, the Messiah would bring the Kingdom of God. John wasn't just another messenger, but the final messenger. Bang! Another signpost.
And although John the Baptist said many things (which can be seen in all of the other Gospels) all Mark needs his readers to understand is that John's main importance in the story of Jesus Christ is that he was doing exactly what Isaiah's prophecy said – preparing a way for the Messiah, and making the path straight. He made the path straight with a message that people walked for days to hear. He made the path straight by preaching about the need for repentance before the coming of the Messiah. His preaching a baptism of repentance was what marked him as being so unusual. Baptism was not unknown; his listeners knew of baptism for Gentile converts, but it had been a very long time since anyone had preached that the Jews themselves needed to repent before God. The last great prophets (probably Malachi and Joel) were four hundred years in the past.
Again, what Mark is doing is drawing great big arrows from the prophets to John the Baptist, and then even bigger arrows leading from John's teaching, very simply, to somebody who is about to come, bringing the Kingdom. John's words marked out just how important the one following him would be. “And this was his message,” says Mark.
“' After me will come one who is more powerful that I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water. But he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'”
Today we have a similar thing. If you go to a concert (a rock concert, even!) today, you will see one or two bands playing before the main act – the support act. They might be good bands, but their main job is to get everybody in the mood for the important band – the one that people really want to see. John the Baptist was a like a rock star (and the way he dressed wouldn't be out of place in the world of rock stars today) – he was the equivalent of a huge rock star with a message, and people traveled enormous distances to hear him. But can you imagine if the biggest band on earth played a gig and then told everyone that... they were really the support act for someone else? That's exactly how Mark wants us to see John the Baptist. John the Baptist drew the attention of just about everyone in the region. “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.” People wanted to hear John the Baptist's message – but the message was, simply, Confess your sins! Repent! Be forgiven! Because someone is following me. Be ready for him.
“At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove. And a voice came from Heaven: 'You are My Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.'”
Once again, Matthew and Luke provide pictures full of detail. John's Gospel gives us the picture from the point-of-view of John the Baptist. Mark just tells us that something happened. He's not overly concerned with the detail. He lets the reader see Jesus coming up out of the water, having been baptized by John. He lets the reader see Jesus coming up out of the water, heaven being torn open, the Holy Spirit coming down and the Lord proclaiming His Son.
John baptized Jesus. Just this once, we'll sneak a look at Matthew's gospel for a little explanation. John was reluctant to baptize Jesus – Jesus should baptize me, he suggests. How is it that a sinful, fallen man has the right to baptize the perfect Son of God? The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world must be without blemish or spot. Why should he need baptism?
Many people have suggested that this baptism was a turning-point in the life of Jesus. Leading up to the baptism, so the theory goes, Jesus becomes more aware of who he is and what he was sent to do. So before he commences, he goes to the Jordan to be baptized – purified. So he emerges from the water, ready to start his remarkable ministry. Sounds logical, doesn't it? Well, it's logical, but it's also a dangerous path to go down, because once you see Jesus as being purified like that, you then have to be confronted with the idea that Jesus had to be purified from... something... that, perhaps, Jesus was not free from sin. If that was the case, then Jesus was not good enough for what he came to do. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, must be without blemish or spot. The Old Testament laws made it absolutely clear that anything other than a perfect lamb was unacceptable. A lamb that was merely washed would still be blemished.
So if Jesus was free from sin, if he was perfect, why should he be baptized? In Matthew's account, Jesus explains why to John; “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Ritual washing was enormously important – not only were you to wash, you should be seen to be washed. At the wedding in Cana, the jars of water that Jesus miraculously turned into wine were huge – somewhere between 75-115 litres apiece. They were jars to store water for washing. You used a lot of water when you washed. It was important to be seen in this light. So – to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus is publicly washed in the Jordan River. Not to be cleansed, but to show being clean. He comes up out of the water. Heaven is torn open. And the Spirit descends.
Mark draws attention to “Heaven being torn open.” The Greek scizomevnoV – schizomenos – is a word of some violence (schizophrenia; a split mind). Heaven is split open! On the second day of Creation, earth and heaven were separated by “the expanse.” The expanse is split open – no barrier at all between the three parts of the One God. The significant act of the splitting open of that dividing distance between God and Man will be reinforced later on as Mark records the ripping of the great curtain in the Temple, separating the people from God's Presence. Heaven is torn open, the Spirit comes down, and God speaks to His Son.
A reader in the early church would almost certainly have been exposed to the idea of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit from the teaching of the Apostles; now they could see the three at work, confirming that Jesus the Man was the Son of God. Once again, Mark clearly sets his signposts. Jesus the son of Mary, the Son of Man, is the Son of God. God confirms this. The heavens are split apart, torn open, and there is no barrier as the three elements of the Trinity are in unity of purpose. And their purpose is for the Father to loudly proclaim His love for his Son, and for the Spirit to anoint the Son.
Publicly, in sight of the people, the Spirit anoints Jesus. The Greek word for anoint – crivw – chrioe – is exactly where the word Christ comes from. The One Anointed is, literally, cristovV christos. The Christ. The King of the awaited Kingdom. Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One, christed by the Holy Spirit, named by God the Father as His loved Son... is here.
Mark couldn't draw a bigger signpost if he tried. He is here! The One that the prophets had pointed to, the One that John the Baptist had announced, the One... is here. It has begun.
What's next?
“At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.”
Now – here's a strange thing. Jesus is about to start his great ministry. He has been announced by John, confirmed by the voice of his Father, the Lord God, anointed by the Holy Spirit. There are sick people waiting to be healed – lepers, cripples, women bleeding for years, people who were possessed by demons. There's the people of Israel, indeed a whole world waiting to be saved. Where would logic say that Jesus should go? Roll up the sleeves, let's go to work? Fair enough, isn't it?
Mark shows the Spirit sending Jesus out – driving him out – literally throwing him out (ekballei – ekballei, another word with a great deal of force behind it) into the desert. Before Mark shows us the ministry of Jesus, he shows us Jesus obedient to the will of his Father. This is absolutely critical. If you read Mark over Easter, you'll remember him in Gethsemane, praying, in great distress and anguish, to his Abba, his Father, that the hour of his suffering and death might pass from him. “Not what I will, but what You will.” Jesus was not a madman determined to be made a martyr for some political cause. Utterly sane, he didn't want to undergo what was coming. But – in obedience as well as understanding – he went. And here we see the Son of God, after being announced, anointed and confirmed, going away from the people who he came to save. In utter obedience to the will of God the Father.
Once again, Mark gives us no details of what happens in the desert between Jesus and Satan. True to form, he shows that it happens. Once again, Matthew and Luke give more detail about Jesus' temptation. But Mark is content enough to stake his markers before he gets underway with his little book. He is absolutely determined to set his gospel within the framework of who Jesus really is, so that his readers understand immediately. And now – the story begins...
But that will have to wait until next week.
For us to see Jesus through the eyes of the very early Church is priceless. Keep this in mind. These people were under heavy persecution – their faith was not based on the same understanding of the Gospel writers that we have. Their faith was based on nothing more than what they heard, not read. They didn't have Bibles at home to study at their leisure – they would have heard preaching, and letters being read out publicly. And yet they believed. Jesus would later say to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.” But there would still be a need for people to know the Jesus that the Apostles knew, that the disciples of the Apostles had learned about, and were themselves teaching others about. Paul had told the believers in Philippi this about Jesus;
“Being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant being, made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.”
Mark's little book begins to show them God in action, and Jesus very much the man, as well as the Son of God.
There is a modern counterpart to the people who would soon make up the very early Church. The people who heard Mark's little book first read to them have a modern-day equivalent. They are outside the walls of this building. They change our oil, sell us fish, pay us, walk past us with a dog, sit next to us at Aromas or Cafe 12. They've heard a little about Jesus; they know that he's more than replacement for a swear-word. They might even know that we believe he's the Son of God. What else do they know? How will they find out about Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of Man and the Son of God?
Because that's really our job, isn't it? It's not just Reg's job, or Stu's or Matt's or Jai's, or Tim's or mine. True, it IS our job, but it's your job, too. We're looking about what we can do through Connect 09 – but part of that is getting you thinking about it, too. A really good place is to get to know one of the Gospels really well. And that's where that rough, earthy simplicity, that well-signposted simplicity of Mark's little book comes into its own. It's almost too simple – in an age where we've trained ourselves to expect Agatha Christie mysteries, the Gospel according to Mark is so simple that it's surprising.
Right now, before we see anything more, Mark stamps in our minds who Jesus really, truly is. In Chapter 8, Jesus will ask two fundamentally important questions to his disciples; “Who do men say that I am?” and then “But who do you say that I am?” And the second question is the most important question you or I will ever be asked. And it's the most important question we'll ever have to answer. Hasn't God blessed us so richly for giving us the answer?
Who do men say Jesus is? Who do you say Jesus is? While ever there is a difference in those two answers, we all have work to do. We all have a job at hand. We need the answers to match – actually, the people outside these bricks here need the answers to match. And the answer is right there at the start of Mark's little book – at the beginning of the good message, the gospel, of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God.
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