CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) Our next four Fridays look the the four gospels.
If you were investigating something, your efforts would probably start with the materials that are closest to the event.
Mark is the gospel that was written closest to the life of Christ. That’s still not perfect, since it was written as least 30 years after Christ’s death. Memories fade. Facts are lost. 30 years is still a long, long time.
Jesus is a grown man at the beginning of Mark’s gospel. It starts with John the Baptist, proclaiming ‘make straight the path of the Lord.’ Jesus is proclaimed at the Messiah from the start.
Jesus does more healing in Mark than any of the other Gospels. Curing the sick, casting out demons… it’s suggested that Jesus proves who he is by what he does. To Jews of those days, only someone with the authority of God could do such things.
And yet many Christians find Mark to be a disappointing, dry read. The language is sparse, almost primitive. Of course it is. It was written so early that flowery language was much less common. And Mark still has tremendous value to the faith. The first recorded text of the Son of God walked among is.
And the ending of Mark, the Easter story, is strangely beautiful. The three women go to the tomb early in the morning. The stone is already rolled away. And an angle tells them “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Look, this is where they laid his body. Now go and tell his disciples that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you before he died.” But Mark says the women were terrified, and they went back into hiding, and told no one.
And that seems like an unsatisfying ending. And yet we know that Christ’s message and the Christian faith has spread across humankind, from a moment of doubt and uncertainty. Mark reminds us that God can do what seems impossible.
Chris Conley
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