Sermon Tone Analysis

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Jason Grissom / General

Mark: The Savior who was a Servant / Salvation; Gospel / Mark 1:1

The purpose of Mark's gospel is to proclaim that life has been won for us in Jesus.

Mark 1:1 ESV

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

AUTHOR

AUDIENCE

Mark, led by the Holy Spirit, writes his gospel account based on Peter’s recounting of his time with Christ.

He is writing to persecuted believers living in Rome.

The evidence points to the church at Rome, or at least to Gentile readers.

Mark explains Jewish customs (7:2–4; 15:42), translates Aramaic words (3:17; 5:41; 7:11,34; 15:22,34) and seems to have a special interest in persecution and martyrdom (8:34–38; 13:9–13)—subjects of special concern to Roman believers (and to Peter as well; cf. 1 Peter).

A Roman destination would explain the almost immediate acceptance of this Gospel and its rapid dissemination.

ATMOSPHERE

The emperor at this time was Nero.

After five years of responsible rule (A.D. 54–59) he had shown himself recklessly despotic in his relations with the aristocracy of Rome.

By heavy taxation on the estates of childless couples, false accusations followed by confiscation of wealth, invitations to suicide at public banquets, he had reduced the Senate to abject servility and made of life a reign of terror for men of wealth.

Relatively little attention, however, had been given by imperial authorities to the gatherings of Christians for worship.

Their assemblies undoubtedly appeared indistinguishable from the vast number of religious societies and guilds found throughout Rome.

Christians were occasionally accused of heinous offences by segments of the population. .

No evidence exists, however, that the authorities regarded these charges seriously, or that there had been police investigation of the Christian gatherings.

The situation was radically altered by the disastrous fire that swept Rome in the summer of A.D. 64.

Of the fourteen wards of the city, only four were spared.

Three wards were reduced to ash and rubble; in seven others many of the oldest buildings and monuments were destroyed or seriously damaged.

After the initial shock, popular resentment was fanned by widespread rumors that the fire had been officially ordered by Nero.

Nero did his utmost to aid the homeless and the injured, levying a tax for relief and lowering the price of grain to provide food for the impoverished.

In a program of urban renewal he cleared the slums, widened the streets, provided new parks, and insisted that all new construction consist of fireproof material such as brick or stone.

When none of these measures succeeded in allaying suspicion and resentment a scapegoat had to be found.

Blame for the fire was placed squarely upon the Christians.

Tacitus, writing a generation removed from these events, expressed himself with strong feeling:

Neither human resources, nor imperial charity, nor appeasement of the gods, eliminated sinister suspicions that the fire had been instigated.

To suppress this rumor, Nero fabricated scapegoats—and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called) … First, Nero had self-acknowledged Christians arrested.

Then, on their information, large numbers of others were condemned—not so much for incendiarism as for their anti-social tendencies.

Their deaths were made farcical.

Dressed in wild animals’ skins, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or made into torches to be ignited after dark as substitutes for daylight.

Nero provided his Gardens for the spectacle, and exhibited displays in the Circus, at which he mingled in the crowd—or stood in a chariot, dressed as a charioteer.

Despite their guilt as Christians, and the ruthless punishment it deserved, the victims were pitied.

For it was felt that they were being sacrificed to one man’s brutality rather than to the national interest.

Such erratic behavior by the central government meant that life became precarious for the Christians in Rome and Italy.

While mass arrests and capital punishment upon admission to membership in a Christian group were presumably short-lived and localized excesses, they introduced the Church to martyrdom.

The self-awareness of the Christian community in this critical situation is reflected in I Peter, with its message of trial by fire addressed to the Asian churches.

In

1 Peter 5:13 ESV

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

“Babylon” is a cryptogram for Rome, the city where the new Israel now found itself exiled and captive.

On this understanding, Mark’s task was the projection of Christian faith in a context of suffering and martyrdom.

If Christians were to be strengthened and the gospel effectively proclaimed it would be necessary to exhibit the similarity of situation faced by Jesus and the Christians of Rome.

The Gospel of Mark is a pastoral response to this critical demand.

When Roman believers received the Gospel of Mark they found that it spoke to the situation of the Christian community in Nero’s Rome.

Reduced to a catacomb existence, they read of the Lord who was driven deep into the wilderness (Ch.

1:12 f.).

The detail, recorded only by Mark, that in the wilderness Jesus was with the wild beasts (Ch.

1:13) was filled with special significance for those called to enter the arena where they stood helpless in the presence of wild beasts.

In Mark’s Gospel they found that nothing they could suffer from Nero was alien to the experience of Jesus.

Like them, he had been misrepresented to the people and falsely labelled (Ch.

3:21 f., 30).

And if they knew the experience of betrayal from within the circle of intimate friends it was sobering to recollect that one of the Twelve had been “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Ch.

3:19).

When Mark was read in Christian gatherings there were notes peculiarly appropriate to the Roman situation.

Jesus had spoken openly of the persecution that could be expected in the Christian life.

In the interpretation of a parable he had referred to “those who have no root in themselves, but endure for awhile; then, when affliction or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away” (Ch.

4:17).

He had foreseen that there would be others who had heard the word, “but the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things” would prevent the gospel from becoming effective in their lives (Ch.

4:19).

Mark recorded the fulfilment of these sober sayings in the experience of Jesus when a man of great wealth turned from him when he learned of the cost of discipleship (Ch.

10:17–22), and later Jesus’ own disciples fled from him (Ch.

14:41–52, 66–72).

In a critical situation unfaithfulness and denial always threaten the life of the community from within.

While Jesus promised his followers “houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands,” Mark noted that he had added the qualification, “with persecutions” (Ch.

10:30).

He had warned of the day when those who followed him would be handed over to councils to be beaten because of their association with him.

Jesus had not withheld the cruel truth that brother would betray to death brother, and the father his child, and children their parents, and that his followers would be hated by all men because they represented him.

Precisely in this situation they would bear their witness for him (Ch.

13:1–13).

In crucial statements on discipleship brought together by Mark, Jesus had made it clear that what he demanded was a radical abandonment of life in response to a call to martyrdom (Ch.

8:34–38).

He had spoken of cross-bearing, which Tacitus affirms was a literal reality for Mark’s readers in Rome.

It had been the literal experience of Jesus as well, preceded by trial before a Roman magistrate, scourging with the bone-tipped flagellum, and the cruel mockery of the Roman guard (Ch.

15:15–20).

It was the threat of such treatment that could move a man to deny Jesus, displaying shame for his association with the Lord.

In the pages of the Gospel he learned that he could save his life through denial only to experience rejection by Jesus when he returned at the last day as the sovereign Judge of all men (Ch.

8:38).

This kind of language was charged with relevance for men and women upon whom was heaped derision and humiliation because they bore the name of Jesus.

Now that we know our audience and the atmosphere in which they lived we will be able to see more vividly and clearly Mark’s aim and announcement.

AIM

His letter is intended to strengthen those who are suffering for righteousness sake by showing them a truly righteous man who suffered for their sake.

The word beginning points to his aim “the Son of God”.

Mark strategically uses this word to remind us of how history begin in Genesis and that history is not our story but His-story.

The word “beginning” possess two different meanings in Greek.

It can mean first as in order or fulfillment.

Our context dictates to us our choice of definition.

Mark follows his prologue with a prophecy and then a prophet.

Therefore, he is telling us that God is fulfilling His everlasting promises.

Matthew’s gospel confirms the fulfillment of prophetic utterances through the words of Jesus.

Matthew demonstrates Jesus is the Savior and King through his Jewish genealogy.

Matthew 1:1 ESV

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Mark’s gospel confirms the fulfillment of prophetic utterances through the works of Jesus.

Mark demonstrates Jesus is the the Savior and King through his Genesis-like opening.

Mark 1:1 ESV

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Gospel According to Mark is an inspired record that focuses on Christ’s works not His words.

If you are reading a red-lettered Bible you will not find much red in Mark.

Mark’s aim is to show a Gentile audience that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and he does this by recounting Jesus works not His words.

Mark 1:1 states that he is the Son of God.

Mark 8:27, the center verse of the book, addresses who Jesus is.

Peter responds;

Mark 8:27–29 ESV