Part 2: The Gospel of Mark

1. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • The symbol for the Gospel of Mark is that of a lion, a desert animal with a loud roar because the Gospel of Mark begins with the quote from Isaiah, “A voice of one crying out in the desert, referring to John the Baptist preaching about Jesus Christ. • From the very first line of the Gospel of Mark, the account calls itself “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” • The Gospel of Mark was written to give hope to persecuted Christians around 65 to 70 AD, portraying an energetic man of Jesus, who heals, cares, teaches, and accepts persecution to the point of death to follow God’s will.

2. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Of all the16 chapters in the Gospel of Mark, the first 10 contain one or more miracles Jesus performed. • The Greek word Mark and the other Evangelists used to describe these miracles is dynameis, our root word for the word “dynamite.” • These “acts of power,” which dynameis is usually translated as, exposed people to the Jesus demonstrated He had over illness, evil spirits, forces of nature, and even death itself. • Jesus gave authority and validity to His teachings about the coming Kingdom of God by displaying such miracles and calling people to repent and believe in the gospel.

3. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • For some people, Jesus’ miracles were more important than this message about the coming Kingdom of God since all they wanted was to be healed. • To Jesus, however, preaching about God’s Kingdom was more important that healings and miracles. • That is why after Jesus healed many people, he told them not to tell anyone who they were healed by, since massive crowds would follow Him so they too could be healed, essentially preventing Him from teaching about this powerful and loving Kingdom of God. • Thus Jesus’ reputation as a miracle worker could have interfered with His opportunity to teach about the Kingdom of God, which is why Jesus did not go about healing everyone.

4. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus performed miracles as part of the announcement of the coming Kingdom of God, not the sole announcement alone that His teachings brought to the table. • The Gospels use Jesus’ miracles to help people focus on the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, meaning “anointed one” in Hebrew, the Son of the true God, giving Him such an identity to help the persecuted Christians sustain their faith that Mark was writing to. • Jesus is the Son of Man, a messianic title from the Book of Daniel, used to describe a figure who receives authority over other nations from God. • It is the only messianic title in the Gospels Jesus used to describe Himself.

5. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is asked to cure a paralyzed man. • There are so many people crowded around Jesus that the paralyzed man has to be lowered through the roof of the building where Jesus is. • Jesus says to the paralyzed man, “Child, your sins are forgiven.” • The scribes, or people associated with the elite of Jewish society and interpreters of the Law, asked why Jesus says such things, since only God can forgive sins. • The scribes inadvertently place focus on who Jesus is: either Jesus IS God and can forgive sins, or Jesus is only claiming to forgive sins and blaspheming.

6. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus responds to the scribe asking what is easier to say, ‘Your sins or forgiven,” or “Rise, pick up your mat and walk.” • The question Jesus asks is not about what truly is easier to say, but whether one’s words have such power. • Jesus then proves He has authority to forgive sins by saying to the paralyzed man, “Rise, pick up your mat and walk.” • The paralyzed man rises and walks, astonishing the crowd completely. • Jesus proves his spiritual authority to forgive sins by displaying his authority over nature through miracles. (Video)

7. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Of the three Synoptic Gospels, Mark has the fewest number of parables. • The parables that Mark does give focus on the conflict Jesus had with the Pharisees, answering the question, “Why did Jesus have to die?” • A Parable is a story intended to call a particular audience to self-knowledge and conversion through an implicit comparison of the audience to someone or something else. • Jesus used parables as invitations for people to chose the Kingdom of God He preached about, making parables central to His teaching ministry. • Jesus always told parables in the middle of conversations with people so they could be lead to conversion.

8. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus told a parable to a large crowd about a sower who throws his seeds on different types of soil; this is known as the Parable of the Sower. • In this parable, Jesus is speaking and teaching a large crowd of people who have come to follow Him on His missionary journey to spread the news about the Kingdom of God. (Video)

9. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • In the parable, the soil is compared to the crowd and their different degrees of receptivity of Jesus’ teachings, which is symbolized by the seeds, challenging the crowd to decide which “soil” they want to be: • The rocky soil is of those people who first accept the Word of God, yet fall away when persecuted • The thorny soil is of those people who want other things more than the Word of God • The rich soil is of those people who receive the Word of God as a seed and lets it grow within them, just as a seed in rich soil bears life and food • This view of the parable is known as an Allegory, or a literary form in which something is said to be like something else, in an attempt to communicate a hidden or symbolic meaning. • More than one level of meaning must be grasped to understand the entire message, i.e. the different types of soil are different levels of receptivity of Jesus’ message by the crowd.

10. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Many parables lend themselves to allegorical interpretation, as we just did with the Parable of the Sower, but not all parables are meant to be allegorically interpreted. • The Parable of the Tenants in the Vineyard is such a parable that does not have an allegorical meaning. • Jesus tells this parable to the chief priests, scribes, and elders who are questioning Jesus’ authority.

11. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • In this parable, a vineyard owner sends out servants to care for his vineyard. • However, the tenants of the vineyard kill the servants when they come. • The vineyard owner, still worried about his vineyard, sends his own son, thinking the tenants will respect his son more than the servants. • However, the tenants do not respect the owner’s son, and they kill the son too, like they did the other servants. • Jesus asks his audience, what will the vineyard owner do? • He says the owner will put the tenants to death and give the vineyard to other tenants instead. (Video)

12. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • This parable must be seen as a warning to the specific audience Jesus is speaking to about the consequences of not listening to God’s Son. • It would be wrong to look at this parable as allegorical because some would compare God to the vineyard owner, who kills those who killed his son, which is not what God would do or did to those who reject Jesus. • We do not need to use allegorical symbolism in this parable to understand the above message Jesus was trying to teach His audience.

13. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus loved all people, even those who challenged Him, since we see Him telling parables and calling them to conversion of heart to God; it is ultimately up to us to choose what actions we take. • The different between an allegorical parable and a normal parable is based on our need to either understand symbolism to find out what Jesus is saying (allegory) or if we can understand the message without searching for the meaning of symbols and the message is straightforward. • Shall we be like the rich soil, which lets Christ’s teachings grow in us, or shall we be like the murderous tenants, who reject God’s Son and His salvation?

14. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark

15. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Many of those persecuted Christians Mark was writing to felt denying Jesus by word and not by heart was okay since it was their faith that mattered, not their actions. • They also felt it was easy for Jesus to suffer and die since He was God. • Both beliefs, as Mark points out, are wrong and he clearly does so in his account of Jesus’ Passion and death. • Mark portrays Jesus as being abandoned by all people throughout His Passion and death, including: • Judas • The Apostles • The Sanhedrin • Pontius Pilate • Roman Soldiers • Jewish Crowds

16. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • The abandonment and betrayal by these different groups of people was a clear indication by Mark that abandoning Christ, whether in word or deed, was a sin by anyone, including the early persecuted Christians. • Jesus was betrayed first by Judas, one of Jesus’ followers, who told the Jewish leaders where they could find Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. • Jesus is then abandoned by His Apostles, who when asked to stay awake and pray with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, fail to do so, and all of whom run away as Jesus is arrested. • One apostles is so afraid that as he runs away, his clothes become undone and he runs away naked. • Jesus is then taken and put on various trials before different peoples.

17. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus is put on trial first before the Sanhedrin, an assembly of Jewish religious leaders, who functioned as the supreme council and tribunal during Jesus’ time. • The Sanhedrin abandon Jesus by listening to false testimony against Him and condemning Him to die based on that. • Peter was right outside where this trial was taking place, and when asked 3 times by the gathering crowd if He followed Jesus, He denied doing so. • This parallels early persecuted Christians denying Christ by their words and how such an action was sinful. (Video)

18. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus is then taken before Pontius Pilate, since he is the only person who can condemn a person to die. • Pontius Pilate, at first, does not believe Jesus is guilty of sedition or treason (i.e. trying to other throw the Roman Empire by being the Messiah). • But, to please the crowds’ want of Jesus’ execution, Pilate abandons Jesus and hands Him over for crucifixion (a parallel of early persecuted Christians abandoning their beliefs about Christ and how that was a sin). • The crowds, as Jesus carries His cross, make fun of Him and challenge Him to save Himself from death as He saved so many other people by His miracles.

19. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus finds this total abandonment extremely painful, to the point of crying out the beginning of a psalm, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken (abandoned) me?” • Jesus says this beginning line of the psalm because later on in it, it recounts how God does not abandon, but rather glorifies the one who suffers, as He does His Son in the form of the Resurrection. • It isn’t until after Jesus dies that Mark shows some people having faith, such as in the Roman centurion who stands by Jesus’ cross, watching Him die, and says, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” • Women who followed Jesus throughout His ministry look on from a long distance away and a man named Joseph of Arimathea asks for Jesus’ body so it can be buried.

20. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Even though some people show faith at the end of Mark’s Passion and death account of Christ, it is only after Jesus has died with a feeling of deep abandonment by the people around Him. • Mark, in describing the Passion this way, shows that the persecuted Christians must remain faithful to Christ, even unto death, as Jesus was faithful to His mission. • This is so because, as Jesus shows us, death is not the end; it is just a necessary step toward the Resurrection.

21. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Mark emphasizes the meaning of suffering in his Gospel and how suffering can lead to salvation by way of uniting our sufferings with that of Christ’s. • Mark gives purpose to suffering by showing how the innocent Jesus, abandoned by His friends and society, suffered as a criminal, yet His suffering did not end in death, but rather in eternal life. • Mark is calling the persecuted Christians he is writing to to endure suffering and even death so they too could share in eternal life. • Jesus took on human nature fully, in both its sorrows and joys. • By Jesus teaching about the Kingdom of God, things contradictory to the ways of society, Jesus opened Himself up to be a target of His enemies and even sometimes be misunderstood by His own friends. • Yet Jesus did this so all humanity could be changed and saved, even if it meant enduring suffering and death and being rejected by others.

22. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Mark stresses that Jesus was both divine (calling Jesus from the first line of his Gospel the “Son of God,” telling of Jesus’ miracles, etc.) and human. • Jesus showed His human nature in Mark’s Gospel by the showing of feelings, such as compassion for those He healed; love for children, who he blessed and embraced; anger, when he flipped over tables of money changers in the Temple; even exasperation over the fact that a fig tree had no fruit on it, even though it was not the season for fruit to grow. • Jesus experienced everything we experience as human beings since He was fully divine and fully human at the same time. • At the same time, as Jesus expresses His humanity, Mark also shows that Jesus manifests His other true nature, that of divinity.

23. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus asks His Apostles on the road to Caesarea Philippi, “Who do people say that I am?” • The Apostles say: • Some people think you are John the Baptist (who had been killed by King Herod) • Some people think you are Elijah (the prophet who is to come announce the Messiah) • Some people say other prophets • Jesus then asks His Apostles, “But who do YOU say that I am?” • Peter answers, “You are the Messiah.”

24. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Jesus then tells the Apostles that He will be the Messiah who suffers; the Suffering Servant Messiah the Prophet Isaiah told of who would come. • Jesus shows that He accepts His humanity, even unto death, and does not cling to His divine nature and the privileges that come with it. • Jesus tells His Apostles that the Son of Man will be “rejected,” suffer, die, and rise after three days. • Jesus uses the title for Himself “Son of Man,” which was a title in the Book of Daniel for the Messiah, who God would give authority to over all the nations. • Yet here in Jesus, calling Himself the Son of Man, yet He is also saying He would die by the hands of the nations, nations He is to control somehow. • The Apostles were confused greatly and did not understand all this until after the Resurrection.

25. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Peter did not like this idea of a “Suffering Messiah,” and pulled Jesus off to the side and began to rebuke Jesus. • Jesus responds to Peter with a now famous line, “Get behind me Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” • The root word Satan is the Greek word for obstacle. • Jesus was afraid to die and did not want to suffer and die since He was fully human, yet He accepted this as part of His mission to proclaim the Good News and save humanity from sin and death; this is why Jesus had to die. • Jesus understood for all His actions of preaching and healings, there would be consequences to face, especially that of death, but He continued to do so anyway for love of God and love of us all.

26. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Mark then blatantly tells his persecuted Christian audience words of Christ that speak right to their problems of being persecuted. • Jesus tells His Apostles after rebuking Peter, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny themselves, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” • This is Mark’s core message to his persecuted audience: in their persecution, they must take up their cross and follow Christ, not run from their cross. • The Apostles still do not completely understand what Jesus is saying, and Jesus warns them several times again about His future suffering.

27. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • After Jesus again tells the Apostles about His suffering to come, they get into an argument about who will sit closest to Jesus when He is in all His glory. • Jesus, exasperated (human nature) tells them that whoever wants to be first among the 12 Apostles must be a servant. • Why does Mark emphasize the Apostles’ inability to understand Jesus’ teachings, even though they are His followers?

28. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Mark wants his persecuted Christian audience to identify with Christ in both their suffering and in their being misunderstood about why they would give up their life for their faith, just as Jesus was misunderstood. • The persecuted Christians, like Jesus, faced death every day and even faced rejection by others for giving their life up for the Kingdom of God. • Mark also wants his audience to see that if they do as Christ did, bear their suffering and accept it, their reward will be the same as Christ’s: that of the Resurrection and eternal life. • Mark wants his audience to believe in Christ and now, finally, to understand Him as well; Jesus too endured what the persecuted Christians were enduring at that moment in their life.

29. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • We too, have difficulty understanding how death can lead to eternal life; that is part of our human nature. • Even so, we are called to imitate Christ, just as Mark called his audience to imitate Christ, by placing our complete trust in God and His love for us. • If we take up our crosses, both large and small, and bear them, and put our trust in God as Jesus did, then we too will be awarded eternal life. • Mark’s Gospel originally ended with Mary Magdalene and her companions finding Jesus’ empty tomb, being told by angels about the Resurrection, instructed to tell Peter and the Apostles to go to Galilee to see Jesus themselves, and then deciding not to, at first, out of fear for their lives. • A longer ending was added before the year 100 based on accounts found in the Gospels of Luke and John, which tells how Mary did tell the Apostles eventually of what she saw, the Apostles encountering Christ, and the Ascension.

30. Part 2: The Gospel of Mark • Why would Mark end his Gospel so abruptly with the finding of an empty tomb and Mary Magdalene and her companions being told to tell the Apostles what they saw, yet saying, at first, they didn’t tell anyone out of fear for their own lives? • Mark was challenging His audience to proclaim the Good News of Christ, to not be afraid for their life like Mary Magdalene, and follow Jesus from death to life. • Mark shows us that in our suffering, just as in Christ's suffering, we can gain eternal life; however, we must first accept and bear our crosses. (Video)