Mark in Review
Notes
Transcript
It is my habit when preaching through books of the Bible to begin with the background and overview of a book at the beginning, highlighting key themes, verse, and the overall flow of the book, and then circle back around to that at the end of the study to review what we’ve seen.
Usually I’m able to do that immediately after finishing a book. In this case I was out of town for two Sundays so Jim provided us with a brief journey through the book of Obadiah. Today we return to Mark to wrap everything up. This is not a typical sermon of mine. Usually we walk through a particular text. Today we walk through an entire book, reminding ourselves of the themes we’ve seen along the way.
We began looking at the Gospel of Mark and noting the probably historical background.
The Gospel of Mark was authored by John Mark, who was primarily discipled by Peter, and thus Peter was likely the primary source behind Mark’s account.
We noted how the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the Gospel accounts, it is punchy in terms of moving quickly from scene to scene and primarily focused on the actions of Christ rather than his discourses, and so many people also characterize it as abrupt.
It begins abruptly. There is no birth narrative. The accounts of the baptism and temptation are shorter than other Gospels, and Mark moves from scene to scene much faster than the other Gospels. And as we saw three Sundays ago, it ends abruptly with that challenge to the reader.
But as we move through the book, several themes became evident.
First
The Book of Mark is About Jesus Christ
The Book of Mark is About Jesus Christ
Shocker, right?
Each Gospel writer has a unique way to present and identify who Jesus is and what aspect of him they want to emphasize.
Matthew tends to elevate the Kingship and Messiahship of Christ.
Luke tends to present Christ in his true humanity come to save.
John’s has a his emphasis on the deity of Christ and the proper response of faith
Mark presents Jesus as the suffering servant. There is a juxtaposition in the book.
The book opens with this declaration:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
I remember in youth group a discussion about Jesus’ last name, to which another student chimed in “It’s Christ. First name, Jesus; last name, Christ”
which is not at all how it works. Christ is a title. He was the long promised Messiah. The one who was to come!
This title is critical to our understanding of who Jesus is!
Jesus isn’t just another prophet.
He isn’t just another teacher.
He isn’t just another rabbi.
He isn’t just a good man.
He isn’t a cult leader, politician, or charlatan.
He is the Messiah. The anointed one, the one who was to come. The one who brings light and life. The one who brings deliverance.
Jesus is the Christ.
And the first half of the book Mark paints Jesus as just that. He is the one who forgives sins chapter two, and calms the stormy sea in chapter 4
Such that the disciples ask the key question:
And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Over time the disciples begin to understand a little more about who Jesus is, and thus, accordingly, Peter makes his confession half way through the book:
And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”
And yet, it was evident, even then, that he did not understand the significance of those words.
Eventually we have this moment at the end of Jesus’ life when the Roman centurion makes the remarkable comment
And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
Which brings the concepts of the identity of Christ full circle back to Mark 1:1 “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
What makes Mark’s presentation so unique is the emphasis on the suffering and service in this Gospel.
Mark is very concerned about the identity of Jesus Christ, but this is juxtaposed with His mission.
He didn’t come conquering. He didn’t come with the rod of iron to crush his enemies.
He came with a mission. A mission to serve. A mission to save.
And so we have what many identify as the Key verse of Mark
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The disciples argue about which of them is the greatest. They ask Jesus for priviledged positions at his right and left hand.
And Jesus says, that’s not the way. I’m going to the cross. I’m going to suffer. I’m going to die. But then I will rise again.
And he began to teach them that 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.
for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.
And they will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.”
And everything occurs just as Jesus said it would. He was betrayed. He was handed over into the hands of lawless men.
He was crucified. Died. and was buried. But then three days later rose again!
Mark is about Jesus Christ. His identity as the Christ, the Son of God, but his mission as the suffering servant.
The Book of Mark is About Discipleship
The Book of Mark is About Discipleship
Dovetailing with the primary theme of the identity and mission of Jesus is the theme of discipleship.
What does it look like to follow Jesus Christ? We have implicit teachings and explicit commands that make this evident.
As Jesus begins his public ministry, the one of the very first thing he does after his baptism and temptation is to call his first disciples.
And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
And immediately they left their nets and followed him.
This begins a sub theme of the first several chapters that highlight the authority of Christ.
He teaches in the synagogue, with an authority that the Scribes were clearly not bringing to the table.
And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.
He commands the unclean spirits and they obey him!
And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.”
He exercised authority over illness, demons, leprosy, and the people are amazed.
In chapter two Jesus establishes his authority to forgive sins
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—
“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”
And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
At the end chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter three, Jesus demosntrates his authority over the Sabbath and then commissioned the 12 for ministry.
When other attempt to curtail him, Jesus issues one of the first discipleship lessons:
And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”
And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!
For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Who is a true follower of Christ? The one who does the will of God.
At the end of Chapter 4, we find Jesus exercising authority over the natural world itself by calming the seas. As we noted the disciples were awestruck
And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
In chapter five Jesus demonstrates that no case is too difficult for him. He heals even the most extreme of cases. A demoniac with a legion of demons. A woman with a bloody discharge of twelve years. A daughter who was ill and had died. And Jesus is powerful enough for it all! nothing is too difficult for him!
His authority is so vast, and his power is unmatched that no case is too difficult!
And yet. Not all are so impressed. His own hometown did not receive his authority.
Herod rejected Christ implicitly by rejecting the testimony and ministry of John the baptist.
It is at this point that things begin to shift in the gospel. Jesus works a pair of miracles feeding thousands. He has compassion on the masses as they come to him. And yet the Pharisees are there to oppose him, and he is received better by gentiles than many Jews.
Jesus has established his authority in grand fashion. He has demonstrated that he is the Christ.
If he has authority, will you listen? Will you follow?
As Mark shifts his attention away from establishing the authority of Christ to what it means to follow Him, we see Jesus ask Peter the all important question of Peter “who am I?” to which Peter correctly identifies Him as the Christ.
Now we come to where following Christ takes on greater clarity. We know that good soil produces fruit. We know that Christ’s brothers and sisters are those who do the will of God.
Here Jesus challenges those who would come after him:
Are you going to think the things of man, or God?
Jesus says “I’m going to die” Peter rebukes him. Jesus says
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
He then goes on to speak of the need for self-denial
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone 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, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
Jesus is going to surrender his own life. Are you willing to do the same?
Chapter nine has the mountain top experience of the transfiguration of Christ. What glory they beheld!
God spoke directly to them in a scene reminiscent of Moses on Mount Sinai. The command?
And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.”
As they continue on, Jesus once again teaches if his coming death, which is naturally followed by an argument about which of the disciples is the greatest.
Here is another lesson on discipleship. You want to be first? Try being last.
What’s amazing is that a very similar scene unfolds again in chapter ten.
After again predicting his death, James and John ask to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand.
Jesus warns again. You want to be the greatest? be the servant of all. Don’t be like the world and seek to lord over others.
This is the context of the great key verse we’ve already seen
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Mark is about discipleship. Following Jesus. Recognizing his authority, heeding his words, and doing the will of the Father.
Walking that path is the path of humility. Self Sacrifice. Service to others. Things that Jesus was commanding, but also leading by example on his way to the cross.
The final chapters of the book serve as challenge to the reader.
Jesus enters Jerusalem, clears the temple, curses the fig tree. He is approached and asked
and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”
We’ve already seen Jesus’ authority established. Sometimes going through this book its like “has anyone been paying attention here??”
Tension only builds from there as Jesus spars with the religious leaders who are clearly in rejection of him, his authority, and his mission.
Chapter thirteen is the extended discourse of what will come in the last days. Those who follow Christ will be persecuted. But stay the course! Christ is coming again!
In chapter 14 we see Judas who has rejected Christ. The agony in the garden. The betrayal and arrest.
Chapter 15 contains the trial, beatings, crucifixion, and burial.
Jesus has accomplished what he set out to do. The mission, from a worldly perspective a failure, and yet a success. Everything Jesus predicted happened, down to the last detail.
One of the most glorious aspects of Christ’s mission is that the story does not end with him in the tomb, but chapter sixteen brings hope which we saw three Sundays ago.
We saw great hope in the resurrection because not only does Christ rise from the dead, but we see the hints of Peter’s restoration from his biggest failing!
We saw great hope in the resurrection because everything that Jesus predicted came to pass, including the resurrection itself!
We saw great hope in the resurrection because Jesus invites the disciples to meet him in Galilee where everything began, and thus Mark in effect invites us all to go and learn from Jesus all over again.
And we saw a great challenge at the end. In a book about discipleship. The final command was go and tell. The act was fear and flight.
What will you and I do?
Will you sacrifice anything to follow Christ? Or will you run and hide?
Even if you run and hide, there is hope in the resurrection in the restoration of Peter, and the implicit testimony that these women did eventually go and tell, or else we wouldn’t know about what happened here.
But the challenge remains.
Mark is a book about Jesus. The Messiah. The Son of God. The suffering Servant.
Mark is a book about discipleship. We fail. A lot. But even through the failures Jesus is a faithful and patient teacher who shows us what it looks like by leading the way himself. Even when we fail there is opportunity for repentance and restoration.
Are you ready to follow him?
We’ve noted before how this begins with Faith in his atoning work on the cross.
From there we pursue a greater knowledge of him and his commands so that we may live and faithful disciples, knowing that we are dependent on his grace every step along the way.
Are you ready to follow?
That concludes the Gospel of According to Mark.
You may be wonderful a few things, such as where to from here?
For those of you who weren’t here when I preached Mark 16, you may also be wondering why the rest of the chapter hasn’t been part of the overview and wrap up. The answer is simple. I believe Mark ended his Gospel with verse 8. I mentioned briefly the reasons why at that time.
manuscripts that are widely considered the oldest and best do not contain the longer ending.
There have been at least three attempts to wrap up mark with different endings over the years. what we have in our modern bibles appears to happen to be the one that “stuck”
The longer endings are just as rough as having the Gospel end with Vs 8. The flow from 8 to 9 is confusing and unlikely.
There are a handful of words and phrases in the long ending that 1) don’t show up anywhere else in Mark, although we might expect them to, and 2) don’t show up anywhere else in the NT. It is almost certain that it was an addition from a later time period.
Finally, Mark has a particular writing style, and the rest of the chapter clashes significantly from the rest of the book.
There is so much more to this conversation, and whenever we run into issues like this the question naturally arises:
Can I trust my Bible?
How do I know if there haven't been more additions or subtractions from the Word of God?
How did we even end up with our modern Bibles in the first place?
How do we pick a bible translations?
The next book of the Bible we plan to walk through is the book of Daniel. However, because of the textual issues we face at the end of the Book of Mark, because of the prevalence of King James Only ideologies, and because of some translation issues that we will face in book of Daniel, I felt that this would be a good time to walk through a mini teaching series on the nature of the Scriptures and the process for how we got our Bibles and how we choose a translation.
So, for the next three weeks or so you can look forward to that. In August we can plan on beginning the book of Daniel where we will take delight in the reign of the Most High God over all the nations.
For now, Let’s thank the Lord for the Gospel of Mark and ask him to help us be faithful disciples.