So we are starting a 6 month series in the Gospel of Mark… and we are actually only going to cover the first half!
- And then next year we will do the second half…
- Well why are we doing Mark for the next 6 months?
- I am a Christian because I got to know Jesus… and I continue to be a Christian because I am still following and getting to know Jesus!
- And I hope to the day I die I will echo Paul in Philippians who said “I want to know Christ!”
But what do you know about him?
- Headline stuff… died on a cross for our sins… rose from the dead.
- Maybe you know some of the famous stories like walking on water or feeding the thousands…
- Or some of his famous parables like the sower or the prodigal son…
And then maybe beyond that, how would you answer the question he poses to his disciples in Mark 8:28; “who do you say I am?”
- It is great to get to know him…
- But it is our response and allegiance to him that we believe dictates our eternal destiny
- Right? I could tell you things about Victoria my wife… height, what she likes to eat, what she got up to this last week…
- But what is important is that she has a title in my life – wife…
- And we have a relationship together…
- The point of Jesus is not to be able to answer questions about him in a quiz… but to have him as saviour of your life and a relationship with him!
I was really fortunate last year to have 2 months long service leave… part of that was I did a week intensive course at Regent College in Vancouver …
- I remember in anticipation I was looking for a course…
- I didn’t want fluff… I didn’t want anything particularly practical…
- I wanted someone who knew Jesus better than I did… especially the account of Jesus in our bibles better…
- Saw the course on the Gospel of Mark… that was attractive because it was probably my least understood gospel…
I wanted to learn… and I had the privilege of having Elizabeth Shively as my lecturer… she is brilliant – was with NT Wright at St Andrews in Scotland for years and now at Baylor in Texas…
- This is how it went: She taught… and we took notes… for 3 hours basically straight a day…
- So with Bibles open… pre-readings done… she taught and we listened and took notes…
- And Mark became so much more understandable to me while having its incredible depth opened up…
- Anyone can read Mark and get to know and respond to Jesus…
- But if you want to go deep… it is a brilliant text with layers, structure, allusions and citations to the Old Testament and echoes of their great stories…
So during this series, I want us to engage…
- Join a Life Group so you are studying the texts in a community of friends…
- Boards… From the Bible Project guys we have this schematic which we will highlight off where we have been!
- And then this board…
- Which asks the central question in Mark’s gospel in Mark 8:29 where Jesus says; “who do you say I am?”
- And so I want to encourage you to reflect and come and put post it notes up – put your reflection up here as you answer that question.
OK, before we get into the first text… well actually just the first verse… here are 3 things to know about Mark…
Firstly, it was most likely written by Paul and Peter’s companion, Mark, in Rome around 70AD… so 40 years after Jesus death and resurrection…
- The gospel never mentions Mark as the author but early citations by the early Christians point towards it being written by Mark.
- So the good news about Jesus had been spreading through the known world and communities of faith were springing up in all major towns and villages.
- And you get non-narrative proclamations of the good news like Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 15
- So in about 53 AD (super early) Paul would write… (verse 1) “Now brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you… (verse 3) “that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day.”
Right? So that is Paul saying here’s the headline of the good news that you heard and responded to…
- But by 70AD the eyewitnesses of Jesus life are starting to die off and Mark, who heard all the stories from Peter about being with Jesus decides to put together a biography of Jesus.
- Right? People knew the facts concerning salvation, but not all knew the stories…
- And there would have been written stories and oral stories about Jesus that the faith community cherished about Jesus…
- They had faithful traditions of collecting these stories accurately.
So Mark, who is most likely the first Gospel writer puts them together.
- So Peter tells him about the time Jesus walked on water… Peter tells him about the time he fed the thousands…
- Right? He is honest with him about how he had denied Jesus… that’s brave!
- And the first readers probably knew many of these stories… but if they hadn’t been written down, over time they would have become less accurate and even disappeared…
- So thank God for Mark.
- In the fashion of an ancient biography, he tells the story of Jesus.
Secondly, Mark writes his biography story of Jesus, deeply rooting it in the story and expectations of Israel – God’s people.
- So there are 58 stories or pericopes (that’s the fancy bible scholar term for each story)
- And you would be hard pressed to find one that doesn’t either start with a direct citation to the OT, an allusion to an OT passage or an echo of one of the main OT stories…
- So next week John the Baptist is prefaced by a citation from Isaiah about one coming to prepare the way of the Lord.
- When Jesus walks on water we think of Israel crossing the Red Sea.
- When Jesus feeds the 5,000 we think of God’s people in the Exodus receiving bread from heaven.
- After Jesus delivers people from evil spirits and is accused of being possessed, he talks about plundering a strong mans house – an allusion to Isaiah 42
Right? But why is this important for us to know? Cant we just read the gospel and go – hey Jesus is cool… I’ll follow him…
- Well it is important because it adds to the depth of the gospel story and it’s persuasive claim that this is God’s long awaited Messiah.
- And knowing the back story add all the riches to the current story.
- Right? The Lion King is in itself a great movie with a great story. But it is cooler and richer if you know it is based on Shakespeare’s story of Hamlet and the naughty uncle….
- Westside Story is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet…
- Narnia is an adaption of the Gospel story…
- Right? If you know the older stories it makes sense of the new story!
- Well for Mark particularly, Jesus is the retelling and fulfilment of Isaiah’s suffering servant motif and the coming Messiah that many will perceive but not believe in…
And that brings us to the final thing to know about Mark before we dive into verse 1 today!
- And that is this central question asked by Jesus in Mark 8:29 “who do you say I am?”
- To which Peter responds “you are the Messiah.”
- So much of Mark’s gospel is going to be about understanding and responding to who Jesus is…
- And this is particularly going to relate to Isaiah 6:9 which Jesus quotes in Mark chapter 4.
- “Go and tell this people, be ever hearing but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.”
Now why is this important? Because the same Jesus who Peter confesses as Messiah… the same Jesus whom the centurion at the cross confesses as “the Son of God.”
- Is the same Jesus that many see in the gospels, but reject and persecute.
- Mark’s gospel is going to be all about seeing and believing.. or seeing and perceiving… or seeing and confessing!
- And Mark puts his biography of Jesus together in a brilliant fashion.
- Right?
- So for example, either side of Jesus being confessed as Messiah by Peter, are two stories of blind people being healed and seeing!
OK? In fact the story just before Peter’s confession is a double stage healing…
- So Jesus is in Bethsaida and the people bring a blind beggar to him.
- He spits on the man’s eyes… how’s that for a healing technique… anyone up for some prayer ministry this morning… pewt!
- Anyhow… Jesus says, do you see anything… and the man says I see people, they look like trees walking around…
- So Jesus puts his hands on the mans eyes and this time his sight is fully restored and it says “he saw everything.”
Pretty cool huh? So this story (from his vast collection of Jesus stories) is put here by Mark to illustrate the point about seeing and believing!
- And we know this to be true ever since too…
- Some people see Jesus but don’t perceive him clearly and in fact think the whole thing is foolish and weak… they stay blind
- But other people… probably most of you here today… see Jesus and recognize him as the Messiah.
- Right, but there is a warning in that…
- Don’t be in the words of Isaiah 6 “ever hearing but never understanding, be ever seeing, but never perceiving.”
OK… so Mark was written as a biography of Jesus to put the stories about him together for all of us…
- It is about understanding Jesus in light of the big story of God’s people…
- And it is about seeing Jesus for who he is – the Messiah!
- And he starts this whole biography… verse 1 by saying “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”
In his book storytelling, the Austrian theologian and philosopher Ivan Illich wrote;
“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a more powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story.”
Written during, and released in 2009, still in the midst of the Iraq war, Director James Cameron released what became the highest grossing film of all time – Avatar!
- Who has seen it?
- There was a lot of debate still raging around foreign wars and how we treat our planet.
- And Avatar is a good story… but in fact it is more than just a good story, it is meant to be a film with a persuasive story…
- It is really about the dangers of imperialism and the dangers of mechanized warfare and ecological vandalism…
- So much so that by the end of the film you are cheering on these 9ft tall blue aliens to defeat the humans at all cost!
- Right? James Cameron, the director and writer, told the story to make a point and get a response…
- “to change a society you must tell a more powerful tale.”
If the central question of this Gospel is Mark 8:29 “Who do you say I am?”
- The first verse in Mark in one sense answers that…
- This is going to be the story of Jesus…
- This is going to be the good news story about Jesus
- This is going to the be good news story about Jesus the Messiah
- This is going to be the most powerful good news story about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God who will change the world.
And basically what Mark does, before we get to the central question in Mark 8:29 about who he is…
- Is he starts with this one verse preface that tells us the answer…
- And then the next 20-30 stories are about how Mark and the other disciples came to that conclusion…
- And of course… (and you will have to still be with us mid next year), the Gospel concludes with Jesus on the cross and the centurion saying “surely this man was the Son of God.”
So let’s look at that first verse… Mark 1:1
- “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.”
- 3 things…
- Firstly, Good news…
- Secondly, about Jesus the Messiah
- Finally, about The Son of God
So first, this more powerful story that will change society is Good News
- Now the Greek word for good news which we also translate as Gospel is Evangelion…
- From that word we get evangelist which means bringer of good news…
- In the ancient world when the emperor died in Rome, he would be replaced with a new leader…
- It was often a bloody power struggle…
- But word would be sent forth through the empire that a new Emperor, a new Lord was on the throne. They would call this “the spreading of the Evangelion” – the good news…
- Now no one was allowed to be called Lord except Caesar, except the Emperor.
So, you can imagine how subversive it is then when Mark begins his biography of Jesus by proclaiming the good news, the Evangelion of God.
- From this backwater town out of Galilee, in the far flung corner of the Roman Empire, Jesus makes a claim for the throne.
- Mark says in starting his biography he has good news from God!
- That a new Kingdom is being established, and that a new Lord will begin to rule…
- The evangelion of good news is going forth to all the earth. There is a new King on the throne. A foot washing, compassionate, truth telling King.
- Who beckons us to come to him humbly to receive citizenship to his kingdom!
Now just as an aside, when Victoria and I started this church 12 years ago, we wrote down some values that we wanted to help shape our new church community.
- And the first one is this “we value the gospel as Good News!”
- Now here is the point of having values in a church… every time you think about running a new group or event or program…
- We are meant to stop and ask – will this be good news?
- If Jesus was about good news, then surely, everything we do, should also be good news in the church and for our community!
Right? Why do we run youth Alpha and adult Alpha courses – because we want to share good news
- Why run playtime? Because we want to connect with our community and be and share good news!
- Why run the Marriage Course… well because marriage is really hard, but with help from Jesus and a loving community, your marriage can be restored or flourish even better.
- Right? Why bother with pastoral care or life groups or things like church camp? Because when Jesus gets hold of a community, we begin to care for one another in extraordinary ways… and that is good news!
Next in this more powerful story, we are told the good news is about a person – Jesus the Messiah
- Mark wants us to know, by doing this biography that Jesus was a real man who did things in history…
- Jesus was a historical figure who did things like walk on water and mulitiple loaves and fishes…
- And Jesus was a relatively common name… just Yeshua (Joshua)
- More importantly this Jesus is the Messiah…
Now this one is really interesting…
- Because there was this Jewish expectation of a Messiah who would deliver the people of God.
- And the gist of this word Messiah is anointed one… chosen one… set apart one who could do what no human being could do…
- And this Messiah would usher in a new age of peace and justice and righteousness…
- He would be one to heal sickness and deliver people from evil.
- So will explore much more on this title in this series…
Ok and then finally, he is the Son of God…
- I don’t want to steal Joey’s thunder from next week… but next thing that Mark says in Mark 1:2-3 is a quote from Isaiah 40:3 about the coming of the Lord.
- This was a passage referring to God coming, acting, saving, at a point in history, decisively!
- Who then arrives… John the Baptist as the one preparing the way…
- But who does John the Baptist prepare the way for? God?
- Well get ready for the subversive revolution… because onto the scene comes Jesus…
- Be under no illusions what is trying to be said here by Mark…
- This Jesus will be God!
- OK, more on that all through this series too!
Well let’s close. Has this been helpful?
- When Mark writes his biography of Jesus, it is not just a collection of interesting stories about God’s Son
- It is a persuasive story that is aiming for a response…
- The dropping of all other allegiances and the confession of Jesus as Messiah…
- It’s like he is saying to that first audience… you have experienced this life…
- You have lived the story under the imperial conquest and dominion of Rome…
- You have lived the story under corrupt and self serving religious leaders…
- You have lived your own human story full of sin and disappointment…
And Mark tells a better story…
- But it is going to ask us for our allegiance to Jesus
- And out from every other story, narrative and authority that is over our lives…
- I can’t wait to get to know this Jesus better together…
- As you do… bit like Avatar you kind of find yourself being drawn to him…
- And it is like no other story ever told with a main actor unlike anyone we’ve ever met before.
Let’s respond!
- Boards… highlight off where we have been
- And post it notes – put your reflection up here…
Invitation
Join a Life Group…
Respond to Jesus.
Go on this journey with us… be here!