1 Peter 5:12-14 12 Through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it. 13 Your sister church in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
That’s not the first time in the New Testament that someone called Mark has been associated with Peter.
As Peter makes his final breakthrough to recognise that God shows no partiality his story begins to interweave with someone by the name of Mark.
Acts 10:34-35 34 Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
As Peter draws on his vision and the wonderful experience he has with Cornelius the Roman Centurion, one time Saul of Tarsus, Paul is beginning his life calling, taking the Gospel to the Gentile world. He is drawn to Anitoch by Barnabas, whose name means ‘son of encouragement’ and it is there in Antioch that the followers of Jesus are first called ‘Christians’. News of impending famine in Judea prompts Barnabas to take Paul, still at this point known as ‘Saul’ back to Jerusalem.
Acts 11:29 - 12:1 29 The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; 30 this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.
It is there in Jerusalem that Peter faces imprisonment. The Church community meet together to pray for him and much to their surprise Peter is released. Free from prison he goes to the house where the Christian community is deep in prayer.
Acts 12:12 12 As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying.
Peter goes on his way … Herod is angry and meets a sticky end.
As Barnabas and Saul complete their mission they return to Jerusalem, bringing Mark with them.
Acts 12:25 25 Then after completing their mission Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem and brought with them John, whose other name was Mark.
It looks very much as if when Paul and Barnabas set off on their first great missionary journey they take Mark with them … but sadly there is a falling-out in Pamphylia.
On a subsequent journey, Barnabas wants to take Mark with them again … but Paul refuses.
Acts 15:37-40 37 Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. 39 The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. 40 But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord.
Mark’s story goes quiet until we find Paul in prison, possibly in Rome. He writes a couple of letters to the Christian community in Colossae. One is addressed to the church, Colossians. The other is addressed to the person in whose house the church meets, Philemon. In both those letters Paul sends greetings from Mark, who is sharing his experience in prison.
Colossians 4:10 10 Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions-- if he comes to you, welcome him.
Philemon 1:23-24 3 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, 24 and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.
Shortly after that imprisonment Paul writes to Timothy and at the end of that letter requests the company of Mark.
2 Timothy 4:9-13 9 Do your best to come to me soon, 10 for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. 12 I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments
The New Testament story seems to link Peter with someone called Mark and locate their association first in Jerusalem and later in Rome. This link was taken up by some of the very first historians of the early church.
www.earlychristianwritings.com
Eusebius quotes from Papias on the Gospel of Mark in Hist. Eccl. iii. 39 as follows:
For information on these points, we can merely refer our readers to the books themselves; but now, to the extracts already made, we shall add, as being a matter of primary importance, a tradition regarding Mark who wrote the Gospel, which he [Papias] has given in the following words: "And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark.
Irenaeus wrote (Against Heresies 3.1.1): "After their departure [of Peter and Paul from earth], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter." Note that Irenaeus had read Papias, and thus Irenaeus doesn't provide any independent confirmation of the statement made by the earlier author.
However, there are two other pieces of external evidence that may confirm that the author of the Gospel of Mark was a disciple of Peter. Justin Martyr quotes from Mark as being the memoirs of Peter (Dial. 106.3). In Acts 10:34-40, Peter's speech serves as a good summary of the Gospel of Mark, "beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached." Finally, there was not an extremely strong motivation for the early church to attribute the second gospel to one obscure Mark, the disciple of Peter, instead of directly to an apostle. Thus, the tradition of Markan authorship is to be taken seriously.
Who knows how true these traditions are! It fits with the way the New Testament hangs together. It accords with the picture of Peter: it’s not a very flattering one in Mark! It gives us a glimpse of the person behind what seems to have been the first of the Gospels to have been written.
Almost all of Mark is used by Matthew and Luke in one way or another. There are very few verses that are not used by those later writers. It looks very much as if they regarded Mark as a reliable source in telling the story of Jesus. Maybe he had been around as Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. There’s one intriguing verse towards the end of the Gospel that doesn’t appear in any of the other Gospels. Was it there because the writer could say, ‘I should know. I was there. That was me!’
Mark 14:51-52 51 A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.
The Gospel beings and ends curiously.
The opening words might be the beginning of the story. Or they might be the title of the book.
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The oldest manuscripts end in the middle of things
Mark 16:8 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Was it that this whole story was only the beginning of something very special that was going to change people’s lives? But we must supply the end to the story!
There’s an urgency about the way the story is told. ‘And immediately’ is a favourite phrase. The gospel is full of action. Teaching is primarily through parables and those are mainly in chapter 4. There’s a pace that drives us to the mid-point of the Gospel when the disciples make their confession of faith and see Jesus for who he is.
To that point Jesus’ identify is something of a secret. Just as blind men have their eyes opened on more than one occasion, so the eyes of the reader are slowly opened to the identify of Jesus. He is the Messiah, the Son of God.
That becomes apparent as the action of the Gospel after that mid-point rushes towards the final week of Jesus’ life and to his cruficixion. So much of the Gospel is devoted to that final week that it is sometimes known as a Passion Narrative with a Prologue.
In Mark the cross is a place of execution, a place of desolation, where Jesus’ only words are words of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And yet as Jesus goes to his death there is a sense of triumph through that suffering and with a sense of fear and trepidation of what lies ahead we are left on the threshold of resurrection, to experience the risen Christ for ourselves.
Mark – Down to Earth Hope
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Greeted and baptised by his cousin John as the One everyone had been waiting for Jesus was sorely tempted to give it all up before it had even begun. But he didn’t. Starting in the country region in the North of what is now Israel he had a simple message. ‘Now’s the time. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. Now’s the time God’s rule is breaking into your heart, your home and your world. Now’s the time to decide. Not tomorrow or the day after. Now. Make a fresh start with the whole of your life and believe in the good news.
What a message he had to share – and he backed it up by bringing healing into the lives of many people who were hurting in all sorts of different ways. He broke down all sorts of barriers, touching the untouchable and bringing healing even to those who were disturbed and disturbing, even to those suffering from leprosy and other awful diseases. Crowds found his message captivating and he enlisted the support of a mixed bag of twelve no-hopers who travelled the countryside with him.
The stories he had to tell were down to earth – all he asked from his followers was faith the size of a grain of mustard seed. But he wanted them to make their own minds up. ‘Never mind what other people say: who do you say that I am?’ was the burning question he put to even his closest friends. You’re the One to bring in the Rule of God in our lives – Peter was certain of it. But he couldn’t believe that that would take Jesus on a pathway that would take him through the deepest darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. Not Jesus.
How wrong Peter turned out to be. His teachings brought him into conflict with the religious authorities and even more so with the occupying Roman power. When he made his way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, a king who stood for peace and not war, the end was inevitable. And it came all too quickly.
What agony Jesus experienced on the cross. “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” The end was a bitter experience for all who witnessed it. But it wasn’t the end after all. On the third day the tomb was empty. The message was there for those women to hear – he is risen … and he’s going ahead of you. Wherever you go he’ll meet you there.
They were amazed … and filled with fright …
At this point Mark’s story breaks off … maybe the scroll he had written it on has been torn and his ending has been lost. Maybe, there is no ending to his story for the promise is to us as well – He is risen … and he’s going ahead of us. Wherever we go he’ll meet us there. Maybe this really is just the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God!
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Greeted and baptised by his cousin John as the One everyone had been waiting for Jesus was sorely tempted to give it all up before it had even begun. But he didn’t. Starting in the country region in the North of what is now Israel he had a simple message. ‘Now’s the time. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. Now’s the time God’s rule is breaking into your heart, your home and your world. Now’s the time to decide. Not tomorrow or the day after. Now. Make a fresh start with the whole of your life and believe in the good news.
What a message he had to share – and he backed it up by bringing healing into the lives of many people who were hurting in all sorts of different ways. He broke down all sorts of barriers, touching the untouchable and bringing healing even to those who were disturbed and disturbing, even to those suffering from leprosy and other awful diseases. Crowds found his message captivating and he enlisted the support of a mixed bag of twelve no-hopers who travelled the countryside with him.
The stories he had to tell were down to earth – all he asked from his followers was faith the size of a grain of mustard seed. But he wanted them to make their own minds up. ‘Never mind what other people say: who do you say that I am?’ was the burning question he put to even his closest friends. You’re the One to bring in the Rule of God in our lives – Peter was certain of it. But he couldn’t believe that that would take Jesus on a pathway that would take him through the deepest darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. Not Jesus.
How wrong Peter turned out to be. His teachings brought him into conflict with the religious authorities and even more so with the occupying Roman power. When he made his way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, a king who stood for peace and not war, the end was inevitable. And it came all too quickly.
What agony Jesus experienced on the cross. “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” The end was a bitter experience for all who witnessed it. But it wasn’t the end after all. On the third day the tomb was empty. The message was there for those women to hear – he is risen … and he’s going ahead of you. Wherever you go he’ll meet you there.
They were amazed … and filled with fright …
At this point Mark’s story breaks off … maybe the scroll he had written it on has been torn and his ending has been lost. Maybe, there is no ending to his story for the promise is to us as well – He is risen … and he’s going ahead of us. Wherever we go he’ll meet us there. Maybe this really is just the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God!
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