The Gospel According to Mark
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Much of what we will do this morning is look at the individual whom God gave the task of penning what we now know to be the Gospel of Mark, his name is John Mark. John was his Jewish name, Mark was his Roman name. We know him as Mark because this Gospel, named after him, was written to the Romans. As we move forward this morning I think you will understand why this is so important. Also, please note, not everything I will tell you this morning is absolute fact, because we don’t know all of the facts, but most of it is widely accepted by the early church fathers.
To begin with I want us to travel back in time to what many believe to be the night we were first introduced to Mark, now please note, his name is not given here, but many Biblical historians believe this was Mark, partly because it is only recorded in this Gospel, and also because he would have been the only one to know the details.
It was an incredibly important night for the Jews because it was the night they celebrated the Passover. Jesus and His disciples were walking together and a couple of the disciples asked Jesus for direction on where they would be celebrating the Passover that evening. They were approaching Jerusalem and Jesus gave them some very specific and to be honest with you, very strange instructions. Now, I won’t give all the key details of this night, I will save that for when we get there in our study of this Gospel, but the short version was, Jesus told the 2 that they were to go ahead into the city and as they entered the city they’d see a man carrying a jar of water, they were to follow him and the home he went to was to be the place they would celebrate the Passover. I would imagine they kinda scratched their heads at His instructions, but they had learned to just do what He said, I mean He had given similar instructions less than a week earlier when they were headed to Jerusalem for the Triumphal Entry.
The home they went to is widely believed to be the home of one of the many women who’s name was Mary, this Mary was the mother of Mark. She was a wealthy lady, who was likely a widow. The disciples celebrated the Passover in the upper room of that large home. Mark was likely on the main floor beneath them. He was probably somewhere between 12-15 at the time. He wasn’t a close follower of Jesus yet, but he was certainly very familiar with this great Teacher. Now, I want you to picture this as if you were that young teenager.
The most widely sought after leader of the day is upstairs in your home with some of his key followers. It’s killing you not to be up there taking everything in, oh what you would give to be a fly on the wall in that upper room. You and your mother, Mary were in the middle of your own Passover celebration when you heard footsteps coming down the stairs. You both looked as the door swung open to see one of the 12 Disciples angrily leaving. He didn’t say a word to either of you and slammed the door as he left. After looking at each other wondering what that was all about, you went back to your Passover. Finally, after several hours you hear some more commotion from the upper room. You’d fallen asleep and to be honest had already changed into your sleep shirt. While your mom was distracted, you snuck out the back door and followed Jesus and his disciples as the left for the Garden of Gethsemane. You were packed with excitement as you followed from a safe distance only to find out it wasn’t at all what you had envisioned, I mean all they did was pray for like several hours. In fact you fell asleep again, as did all of the disciples! Jesus prayed, everyone else slept. He came back to the disciples, woke the them up and then went back and prayed again as the disciples all fell asleep again! You were suddenly woken up by some commotion. Jesus had returned to His disciples only to find them not praying, as He had instructed them to do, but sleeping. As he woke them from their sleep, a large crowd came into the garden, did I say crowd, it was more like a small army, they had clubs and swords and were led by the disciple who left the upper room in anger before the others. Here he was with a small army on his heels. He went up to Jesus and kissed him on the cheek, at that moment the small army grabbed a hold of Jesus. Your heart was racing so fast, all you could think of at that moment was, you had to get out of there! As you were fleeing, one of the crowd that had came to seize Jesus grabbed hold of you, well actually he didn’t get a good grip on you, just your night shirt. You pulled away, leaving your shirt, which by the way was the only thing you were wearing, behind. This was the first time you fled in fear rather than follow Jesus, unfortunately it wouldn’t be the last.
Fast forward approximately 14 years. Jesus was brutally hung on a cross the afternoon after you fled the garden in fear, but the story didn’t end with His death, 3 days later He rose from the dead and since that time many around Jerusalem committed to following the resurrected Jesus. Now they weren’t following Him physically, 50 days after He rose from the dead He ascended into heaven. They were, non-the-less following Him through the teachings of His Disciples, who were now referred to as Apostles. While many were now following Jesus, He still had many enemies, in fact those enemies were increasing in number and becoming more and more violent every day. That all came to a head today with the death by sword of James, one of the Apostles. Not only was James killed, but Peter, the man Jesus appointed to lead the others when he ascended into heaven had been seized and thrown into jail.
Ever since those early days, your mom’s home had become the designated meeting spot for many of the followers of Jesus. On this particular night, everyone had gathered there to pray, specifically to pray for Peter. Peter was to be put to death the next morning. By now all of Jesus followers had witnessed many miracles, so, tonight they were all gathered praying for yet another. Praying that somehow he would be rescued by an angel, or freed, or escape. To be honest, no one knew quite what to pray and with James dead and Peter in jail, there wasn’t a lot of confident praying taking place that night. Oh sure, most there that night knew God had the power to get Peter out of jail, but virtually no one there believed God would answer those prayers in that way. All of the sudden, there was a knock at the door. Rhoda, your mom’s servant girl, quietly went to the door to see who was there. Now, there was so much fear that night that she didn’t dare open the door. Instead she asked who was there through the closed door. She immediately recognized the voice as that of Peter. She was stunned and not thinking straight, and didn’t open the door, but instead ran in to interrupt the prayer meeting to announce that Peter was at the door! Of course no one believed her, actually, they told her she was crazy....Peter kept knocking…finally they let him in! Things like this, as well as the many other miracles and moves of God had an incredible impact on you. Enough that you had committed to following Jesus no matter what the consequences.
A little more than one year later you had the opportunity to make good on that commitment. Your cousin Barnabas, and Saul of Tarsus, the very Saul who had once persecuted the church but had since become a follower of Jesus, asked you to join them on a missionary journey. Overjoyed at the honor, you said yes without hesitation. Less than one year later came the second time you would flee in fear. There was constant opposition as you followed Barnabas and Paul, Paul was the name Saul of Tarsus went by as they traveled through the Roman provinces, it was his Roman name. In fear, you once again fled, back to your home in Jerusalem.
3 years later, Paul and Barnabas return to Jerusalem. While there, Barnabas approached Paul about including you on their next missionary journey. In the eyes of Paul, you were nothing more than a deserter, not once but twice, he had no interest in having you with him, knowing that the moment things got tough you would turn tail and run. While your cousin Barnabas had faith in you, he didn’t. They got so angry with each other, that they went their separate ways. You were deeply wounded, not because Paul was wrong, actually it was because Paul was right, history had proven that you were not to be depended on when things got tough. Thankfully, Barnabas took you under his wings. The 2 of you departed for the island of Cyprus, you were familiar with Cyprus as Paul and Barnabas established a church there before you fled. Barnabas patiently worked with you, in hind-site as you think back on those days, he spent about as much time building into you as he did establishing a church there in Cyprus. It was probably a lot easier for him to do that staying there in Cyprus than it would have been for Paul to do the same as he traveled from place to place, often in hostile environments. You spent 2 years with Barnabas in Cyprus before Barnabas left.
So, that is what we know up to that point in time of the individual God selected to write down the things we read in the Gospel According to Mark. We know he struggled deeply with fear, that he had deserted-well to be honest-his faith on at least 2 occasions, yet here he is selected by God to write one of the 4 Gospels.
There are a couple things I don’t want us to miss as we look at this man we know as Mark this morning. The first thing I want us to see is: Next Slides
The Power of Encouragement. Acts 4:36-37; 9:27; 11:22
If you were to ask me for my top 10 list of the most influential individuals, not named Jesus in the New Testament, number 4 on that list would be Barnabas. Over and over again we see him emerge as a man who was a constant source of encouragement. We have already seen how his encouragement played a pivotal role in the life of Mark, I will tell you more about him in a couple minutes. But let me give you 3 other times he played a huge role in encouragement. Next Slides
36 Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus,
37 sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
In this particular time in the history of the church, most who followed Jesus were abandoned by their friends and family. They clung to one another tightly. There was a lot of struggles financially, so what do we see Barnabas do? He proceeds to sell some land and bring the money and give it to the Apostles to provide for the needs of the church. Did you happen to notice what the Apostles did in verse 36? (They changed his name from Joseph to Barnabas-which means son of encouragement). From the very beginning they saw how powerful his encouragement was to others.
This brings us to the next time we see his encouragement emerge. Next Slide
27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.
In this instance Saul of Tarsus had recently trusted Jesus. For those of you who are not familiar with Scripture, before Saul became a Christian, he hated the followers of Jesus! So much so that he had many put into prison and even killed. That is until he met the risen Savior on the road to Damascus. Instantly he was changed, from a persecutor to a preacher. But when he arrived in Jerusalem after trusting in Jesus, the disciples there were afraid that this new found faith was not real, their fear was that this was just a ploy to get the names of all the believers so he could have them imprisoned and killed. Then along comes Barnabas, son of encouragement. Who knows what would have happened to Paul had he not received this encouragement from Barnabas?
This brings us to the next time we see his encouragement emerge. Next Slide
22 The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.
At this point in the history of the early church, most ignored any who were not Jews, otherwise knows as Gentiles. Oh there was a few instances, Phillip proclaimed Jesus in Samaria and later to the Ethiopian Eunuch, Peter went to a Roman Centurion named Cornelius, but only because the Spirit of God spoke to him specifically through a vision, but for the most part Gentiles were ignored. Here in chapter 11 of Acts we see some men from Cyprus and Cyrene began to tell the Gentiles in Antioch about Jesus and a revival broke out among these Gentiles. Well the church leaders in Jerulsalem were a little uneasy about Gentile believers so they sent Barnabas, the son of encouragement, to Antioch to investigate things. because “he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.”
Here again we see the power of encouragement displayed through Barnabas.
What we need to see in the life of Barnabas, his influence on Mark, his influence on Saul of Tarsus who became the Apostle Paul, through his influence on these Gentiles who had been largely ignored by the early church is, our words of encouragement, our coming alongside the downtrodden, the fearful, the weak, the ignored, can be a very powerful tool in the Hands of God. If you think about it, you could say that Barnabas player a role in 14 of the 27 New Testament books!
The next thing I want to make sure we don’t miss here this morning is the fact that God does not give up on us easily. Instead: Next Slides
God Transforms The Coward Into The Courageous. Col. 4:10; 2 Tim. 4:11
Most likely had any of us been in God’s shoes, Mark’s proven unreliability when things got tough would have caused us to never trust him again, but God never gave up on him and in the end picks him out of many to record the life of Jesus for all of history in the Gospel According to Mark. God transformed this Coward into a Courageous man of God. In fact, in the end we see that the Apostle Paul came to trust and even depend on Mark. In Col. 4:10 we read: Next Slide
10 Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him),
Paul is in prison here, and we see that Mark is his faithful companion even in the midst of hard times. We read later in 2 Timothy 4:11; Next Slide
11 Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry.
2 Timothy is the last letter the Apostle Paul wrote before he was beheaded by Nero. In this passage he had just gone through a list of those who had either deserted him or had left for other reasons. He knows he is about to be killed for his faith and he doesn’t want to leave this earth until he sees Timothy, his spiritual son, and Mark. God had transformed this Coward into a Courageous Man of God, and in the end, historians tell us that Mark stood strong for his faith in Jesus and as a result was drug through the streets of Alexandria until he died.
Now, luckily for you and me, we don’t have to worry about dying for our faith like Paul and Mark did, so perhaps for us when God transforms our tendency towards cowardice when it comes to telling others about Jesus it will look different than what we see in the story of Mark.
But what we learn in this man Mark is that God never gives up on us, and if we will just surrender to Him, He can literally transform us into courageous men and women who accomplish incredible things for His name.
My prayer is that as we go through this study in the Gospel According to Mark, God will do just that in our lives.
Let’s pray.