THE WORD 4 ev 1

Today’s Reading is Mark 1 (click here for link)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all had a great holiday week. Perhaps many of you won’t be reading this until a little later because of the late night spent waiting for the ball to drop. I, however, went to bed at 9:30 last night. I guess that is what having young kids does to you. Yet, despite going to bed early, I am up late this morning. It is almost 8:00 and I am first now writing this. But what else is a Holiday for?

This morning we began reading through the Gospel of Mark. This gospel is interesting particularly because of its “immediacy.” In other words, everywhere that Jesus goes and everything he does, he does it “immediately” or “at once” (depending on the translation). Just try counting the number of times this word is used in each chapter. Consequently, because Jesus does everything “immediately” and coupled with the fact that this gospel is only 16 chapters long, it would seem that according to Mark, Jesus’ ministry lasted not much more than a matter of a few months. Which, for example, is in sharp contrast to John’s recording of Jesus’ ministry which he indicates was at least 3 years long.

Of course, reading the Gospels this way (one after another) will tend to make the differences between them stand out. However, don’t worry about any so called “inconstancies.” Each of these gospels was written for future generations of Christians to record for them the amazing things that Jesus did and the amazing things he taught. Each writer had his own manner of doing this; each writer wrote with specific style and purpose; furthermore, none of the writers wrote with the expectation or knowledge that their gospel would be bound side-by-side with other gospels in the Bible. They simply wrote what was necessary to reveal that the man Jesus was truly the Christ—the Son of God. In this way, it is actually quite remarkable just how similar the four gospels really are. Each of them testifies 100%that Jesus is the Son of God, who died on the cross for atonement of our sins and was raised on the third day and seen by many witnesses.

Concerning Mark, specifically… We learn from ancient sources that he was a disciple of Peter. Mark followed Peter around later in Peter’s ministry. By this time, Peter was an old man. He would get up in front of a church to deliver his sermons, and no doubt the congregation would see the light his eyes as Peter recounted the amazing things he experienced as a disciple of Jesus. Peter would tell these stories about his days with Jesus and Mark would be sitting somewhere in the back writing them all down. Later, Mark would organize all these “sermon stories” into one orderly account, which we now know as the Gospel of Mark.

That is the story as we have it from the ancient Church… but who really knows? I believe the testimony of the ancient Church, but we may have to wait until kingdom come to know for sure. Until then, I think we can rely on what Mark records as his purpose for writing. He says in Mark 1:1—“The beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” He doesn’t mince any words, he tells us straight up: THIS IS ABOUT JESUS, THE SON OF GOD. Any book that makes this claim is undoubtedly one to which we should pay careful attention.

Enjoy!!!

Pastor Aaron