I invite you to open your Bibles to the gospel of Mark. The gospel of Mark. We're gonna be reading through a lot of Mark, but gotta start somewhere. So how about the beginning? Let's read verse 1, and then we'll pray together.
Joel Brooks:The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word, and we ask that you would simply open it up to us.
Joel Brooks:And not that we might just gain knowledge, but that we might hear from you, Jesus, you calling us to yourself. And through your holy spirit, I pray that you would captivate us, you would open up dull hearts and minds. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Alright. So after spending so long, a year and a half going through the gospel of John, I thought we could do something a whole lot different, especially with it being the Sunday after Thanksgiving, knowing it would probably be a more small, intimate crowd. We're gonna just kinda walk through an entire gospel in about 40 minutes, all right? We're gonna go through all of Mark together, and this really isn't gonna be so much of a sermon because there's gonna be some audience participation. I might get you to, to answer a few questions I throw out there.
Joel Brooks:I might, depending on, the mood I'm in, make you get in small groups and look at certain passages together. Basically, I'm gonna throw a lot at you as we go through a gospel. But what I wanted us to do is just kinda gain an understanding of how do you read a gospel? I mean, we've just done it verse by verse by verse as we've gone through John, but holistically, what do you do when you come across the gospel? This Advent season, we wanna behold Jesus.
Joel Brooks:That's kinda the theme of Advent. Well, how do we behold Jesus in the gospel, and particularly in the gospel of Mark? And so we're gonna look at things like, different literary clues that the author might give us, certain ways he repeats himself over and over to to teach us certain theology about Jesus, and then what is the overarching theme of Mark that he really wants to hit home in our hearts. So I wanna begin just by defining what gospel is. It's kinda hard to to define what a gospel is.
Joel Brooks:It doesn't fit neatly into any category. It's its own genre, And the best way I would describe a gospel is that it's a biographical sermon. A gospel is a biographical sermon. It's it's certainly a biography, a biography about Jesus, but it's also a sermon. It's not just random stories and teachings thrown together.
Joel Brooks:It's ordered and structured in such a way to teach us something and to actually push us to a point of decision. So it's both biography and it's sermon. And we saw that as we were going through the gospel of John. The gospel of John ends with these words. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did.
Joel Brooks:Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So it's a great little summary of the gospel of John, but it's also a clue as to what a gospel is. And basically, John is saying, listen, there's countless stories about Jesus out there. There's all of these teachings that are about Jesus out there. The world itself couldn't contain everything, but I've selected some.
Joel Brooks:I chose some of His miracles. I chose some of his teachings, and I decided to pull these together, these select few together, to present to you a certain message, to present to you a sermon, if you will, about who Jesus is. Yes, it's a biography, but it's also a sermon. And so John, he selects these stories, he selects these miracles to push something on us, and for John, we got to see it was that Jesus was the unique son of God and that we are to believe in Him. All of His stories, all of His teachings are to push that truth into us.
Joel Brooks:He uses different literary devices. We don't have time to go through all of those, but the main literary device that John used was the I ams. He structured his gospel with 7 I am statements of Jesus. I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world.
Joel Brooks:I am the resurrection and the life. I am the good shepherd. And through each one of these literary this this literary structure of these I ams, 7 of them, he wants to show us that Jesus is the unique Son of God, and then to push us into a decision. And so when you're reading a gospel, you wanna understand what the author is trying to say to you, and then ultimately, you wanna So let's look at Mark. Alright.
Joel Brooks:Let's start walking through Mark and see what Mark's purpose is, what literary devices Mark uses to communicate his message. And once again, buckle up. We're gonna go through a lot. Alright? Now some of these I'm gonna tell you.
Joel Brooks:Some of these, I'll make you work for. Mark begins his gospel with verse 1. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Right there at the start, he tells you what his whole gospel is for. He's uncompromising.
Joel Brooks:He's direct in the purpose of his gospel. Jesus is the Christ. He's the Messiah. He's the king and He is the Son of God. Mark is super direct with you in this statement at the start because he is gonna show throughout the entire rest of his gospel that no one gets it.
Joel Brooks:No one else is gonna have the knowledge that you now have at the very start. The gospel of Mark is all about confusion. Everybody is confused as to who Jesus is when they encounter Him. Everybody walks away from a conversation with Jesus with just more questions. And so you have things like in chapter 1, He will cast out a demon, and it says that they're all amazed, but then they're like, What just happened?
Joel Brooks:What is this? Even the demons are like, why are you here? What are you gonna do with us? In chapter 2, he heals a paralytic man and he forgives him, and all people do is have questions. Why does this man speak like this?
Joel Brooks:Who does he think he is? Who can forgive sins but God alone? Later in chapter 2, people are asking questions like, why is He eating with tax collectors and sinners? Why do His disciples not fast? Why are why is Him and His disciples breaking the Sabbath?
Joel Brooks:No matter what Jesus does, they're just more puzzled. In chapter 4, Jesus, He calms the storm. You know, there's this basically almost a hurricane that's there, and Jesus just kinda calms it down. He says, be quiet and stay quiet to the wind and the waves. And instead of a confession by His disciples, there's only confusion.
Joel Brooks:Who is this man
Jeffrey Heine:that He
Joel Brooks:can even command the wind and the waves, and they obey Him? In chapter 6, Jesus goes to His hometown and He teaches, and He is bombarded with questions. People are asking, where did this man get these things? What is this wisdom he has? How is he doing all of these miracles?
Joel Brooks:Isn't he just a carpenter? I thought he was Mary's son. Question after question. Now you could go on, but I I hope you get the point. Every time Jesus teaches, every time Jesus does a miracle, people walk away confused in Mark.
Joel Brooks:Even when Jesus says parables, don't think of them as illustrations trying to clarify His points. In Mark, He gives parables to confuse people. Every time he gives a parable, people walk away scratching their heads going, I didn't get that at all. And then Jesus has to gather his disciples together and say, all right, let let me tell you what everybody else is confused about. And even then, they often missed it.
Joel Brooks:So Mark, at the very start of his gospel, has to give us in the clearest terms, what he's setting out to do, because he wants to show us that no other human is gonna get it throughout the entire gospel until we get to the very end. Alright. So right after he he begins with this declaration, Mark goes full steam ahead. It's funny that we're talking about Mark at the start of Advent, the Christmas season, because Mark has no birth narrative. He's not interested in Jesus' origins.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't start there. Jesus starts fully grown. So, so no one reads from Mark to start an Advent series except for us. There's no Jesus is a descendant of David, Jesus came from Bethlehem, this is how Jesus was born. There is none of that.
Joel Brooks:Jesus starts in Mark fully grown on the scene launching into ministry, and then the pace goes really fast. Let's look at verse 16. Let me read a few verses, and I'll I'll I'll I'll ask you guys some questions. Alright. Passing alongside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus said to them, follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. And immediately, they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther, He saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets. And immediately, He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants and followed him. And they went to Capernaum.
Joel Brooks:And immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at His teaching, for He taught as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately, there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And we'll just stop right there. What what is a word that that keeps happening over and over in this?
Joel Brooks:Immediately. Immediately. Mark uses immediately 11 times in chapter 1 alone. In the rest of his gospel, he will use it more than the rest of the New Testament combined. Everything is immediate for Mark because he's setting this relentless pace.
Joel Brooks:He is setting this urgency by Jesus. He's just flying from place to place to place. Look at all that he does in chapter 1 alone. In verses 14 and 15, he proclaims the kingdom of God and he proclaims repentance, so he begins preaching. In 16 through 20, He calls disciples.
Joel Brooks:In 21 through 28, He begins teaching again, and He casts out a demon. In 29 through 34, He heals Peter's mother-in-law, and then He heals pretty much everyone else around. In verse 35, He gets up really early before the the sun comes up to pray because when else is Jesus going to have time, and he prays, and then he goes and he preaches at a bunch of synagogues, casts out a bunch more demons, and then it ends with him healing a leper. Alright? That's chapter 1.
Joel Brooks:A lot of the other gospels have Jesus doing one thing in a chapter, but then you get to Mark and it's like bam bam bam bam. There's no sense of time. He never even talks about time until we get to the cross. Everything is immediate. Everything is urgent.
Joel Brooks:Ironically, Mark is the shortest gospel, yet it has more action than any of the others. And the term that the disciples call Jesus is teacher, yet there's hardly any teaching in Mark. It's almost all action, yet it's the favorite term that the disciples have of him. Teacher. Teacher.
Joel Brooks:And what Mark is trying to show us is Jesus teaches us who He is through His actions. You wanna know who He is? Look at him casting out demons over and over and over. You wanna know who He is? Look at him healing people over and over and over.
Joel Brooks:You wanna know who He is? Look how he can rebuke the wind and the waves. Jesus teaches us through what He does, that He is the unique Son of God. Now because Mark's pace is so unrelenting, we know when he does slow down, we should slow down. So so if His pace stops, you better stop.
Joel Brooks:If He gives you some additional details, you better pay attention. So I want us to look at one of those. Turn to Mark chapter 6. A great example of this is when Jesus feeds the 5,000 in Mark's gospel. Mark's account of things that the other gospels also write about is always shorter, typically.
Joel Brooks:I shouldn't say always. It's usually shorter. There's a couple of exceptions. This is one of them. He actually writes this account much longer than a Matthew or a Luke, the story of Jesus feeding 5,000.
Joel Brooks:You just have to wonder why. So let's look. We won't read the whole account, but let's look at chapter or verse 30. The apostles returned to Jesus and told them all that they had done and taught. And then he said to them, 'Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.' For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
Joel Brooks:And And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of him. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd. And he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Now let's go to verse 39.
Joel Brooks:You're familiar with the story. I just wanna pull out a few things. Says, Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass, and so they sat down in groups by 100 and by fifties. And then we see Jesus multiplying the loaves. All right, so Mark, he takes time to tell this story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 longer than the other gospel writers.
Joel Brooks:Then he adds details that are really unnecessary. And if Mark ever does this, stop. Pay attention. Alright. So Mark, he says things like the other gospels, they say Jesus had compassion.
Joel Brooks:Mark adds a detail. He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. That's unique to Mark. The other gospel writers said that Jesus had them lay down. Mark says he had them lie down in green grass, not just grass, but green grass.
Joel Brooks:And so Mark is using these extra details to evoke in us an image of Psalm 23. That's what he wants. He's like, you wanna understand what Jesus is doing here in feeding the 5,000? You gotta see that the Lord is my shepherd. He's the one who sees unless sheep without a shepherd.
Joel Brooks:I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in what? Green pastures. Then what does he do? He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Joel Brooks:So this is Mark's little subtle way of showing you. You know what? Jesus is the Lord that David was talking about. Jesus is Yahweh. He's the good shepherd.
Joel Brooks:All this just from Him slowing down and giving us this few extra little details. So anytime any gospel writer seems to slow down or throw out a detail that seems to be unnecessary, stop, listen. Gospel writers don't waste words. Another literary device that Mark uses is threes. John had a fascination with 7.
Joel Brooks:Mark has a fascination with threes. He likes to repeat a story 3 times, And for somebody who's not using many words, whose pace is relentless, the fact that you would repeat something 3 times, you gotta kinda scratch your head and say, why? Why say the same thing 3 times? So Mark gives us 3 boat scenes with Jesus. In each one of these boat scenes, the disciples fail to comprehend who He is.
Joel Brooks:Three times, Jesus tells the disciples that He's going to be killed. Each time, they fail to understand. Three times, Jesus teaches his disciples that if you wanna follow me, you gotta deny yourself. Three times, the disciples fall asleep while Jesus asks them to stay awake and pray. Three times, Peter denies Jesus, and that action there is set in a course of 3 acts that were done to hurt Jesus, Judas's betrayal, Peter's denial, the apostles' abandonment of Him.
Joel Brooks:It's it's almost like Mark is hammering something in in these threes, these blows of like, hear this, get this, pound this in you. So what do you think of those right there? What do you think Mark is pounding into us right there? Anybody? Those stories.
Joel Brooks:Suffering. Suffering. Suffering's in there. And I would say the disciples' inability to comprehend it. Every one of those stories, every one of these threes has the disciples' failure.
Joel Brooks:It has man's failure. We don't just kind of fail. We massively fail. And if you don't get it, Mark's gonna pound it in you. We don't just kind of not comprehend who Jesus is.
Joel Brooks:We have no comprehension of who he is. Pounds that in, pounds that in, because he wants the big reveal at the end of how do we actually come to understand really who Jesus is. It's not gonna be through all these miracles. It's not gonna be through all these teachings. Even the disciples had that, and they failed repeatedly.
Joel Brooks:Another literary device that Mark uses, I I love. These are fun to me. I hope they're fun to you. He likes putting 2 stories side by side. Each one of them shed light on the other.
Joel Brooks:So he pairs up stories. They're not to be read individually. They have to be read as a unit. Turn to Mark chapter 8, verse 22. I'll make you work for this one.
Joel Brooks:Alright. And they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand, and he led him out of the village. And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and said, I see men, but they look like trees walking.
Joel Brooks:Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again. And he opened his eyes, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him home, saying, do not even enter the village.' And Jesus went on with his disciples to the village of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am? And they told him, John the Baptist.
Joel Brooks:Others say Elijah. And others, one of the prophets.' And he asked them, 'But who do you say that hand?' Peter answered him, you are the Christ. And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him. We'll stop right there. What a strange story that Mark includes.
Joel Brooks:He's the only one who includes this story, And there's a lot of bizarre elements to it. Alright? So everything else in Mark, he's healed people immediately. Immediately. But he comes to this blind man, and what does he do?
Joel Brooks:He doesn't heal him immediately. Actually, he takes him kind of by the hand, and he goes, let's get out of here. Let's get alone. And He takes the guy outside of the village. Strange detail number 1, why doesn't He heal him immediately?
Joel Brooks:And then He heals the guy, sort of. It's like the healing didn't take. It's like, okay. Let me restore your sight. And he's like, well, you know, it kinda worked.
Joel Brooks:It's better than it was. Better than it was, but, people kinda look like trees to me walking around. And Jesus is like, Okay. Heals him again, and this time he sees clearly. Alright.
Joel Brooks:For 1, nobody making up that Jesus is the Son of God is gonna include that story. Alright? Because it seems to look like Jesus failed. He messed up. Why does Mark put it in there that it took multiple things?
Joel Brooks:Jesus didn't heal immediately, took them out. Jesus, he wasn't healed perfectly the first time. It wasn't till that second time he finally got it. Well, then we have the story right after it with Peter. Jesus goes, Who do people say that I am?
Joel Brooks:Oh, you're the prophet Elijah, John the Baptist. I'm like, Well, no, you're blind. They're blind. Who do you say I am, Peter? Insight.
Joel Brooks:You're the Christ. He has this moment where he sees things clearly, sort of. He doesn't quite get it. Anybody know how Mark's account is different than Matthew's account of this? In Matthew's account, Peter says, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
Joel Brooks:It's like, it's not there in Mark's account. In Mark, he just says, Thou art the Christ. You are the Christ. Now I'm sure he said, you are the Son of God, but Mark chooses not to include that. Why?
Joel Brooks:Because he knows Peter didn't get it. Peter didn't really understand it. And we know this because right after this, Jesus actually calls Peter Satan. Like, get behind me, Satan. You don't know who I am at all.
Joel Brooks:So there's this momentary flash of insight, sort of, not really, then later he's gonna come and understand it more in full. These stories would be read right by one another. So what is Mark teaching us? Hey, it's great if we can have a road to Damascus kinda Paul experience in which blinders just come off. But you know what?
Joel Brooks:A lot of times when the Lord is revealing Himself to us, it's in stages. He leads us away. He gives us some insight. He begins working on our hearts, and then eventually, we come to know Him, but it's all His work and His grace that He does this. So that's another literary device that Mark uses.
Joel Brooks:It's kind of fun reading these stories side by side. Now for my most fun literary device out there. I'm gonna break you up into groups for this. It's called a Markian sandwich. Alright?
Joel Brooks:A Markian sandwich. And this is when Mark, he puts 2 stories right by each other, but he actually puts 3. He begins a story, he moves to another story, and then he goes back to that first story. So that that first story is the bread. Alright?
Joel Brooks:It fits this a b a pattern. That's the bread. In the middle of those pieces of bread is the jam. Alright? We're just gonna call it.
Joel Brooks:That's that's the jam. That's the stuff right there. The bread sheds light on the jam, and the jam spreads light, sheds light on the bread. Alright? And so there's this ABA pattern throughout.
Joel Brooks:Turn to Mark 11. We're gonna look at a really easy one, and then I'm gonna give you some hard ones. Alright? Mark 11 verse 12. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.
Joel Brooks:And seeing in the distance a tree or a fig tree and leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season of figs. And He said to it, may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And His disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem, and He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who who bought in the temple.
Joel Brooks:And He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, and He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And He was teaching them and saying to them, 'Is it not written, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, but you have made it into a den of robbers?' And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy Him, for they feared Him, because all the crowd was astonished at His teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. And as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to Him, 'Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered.' All right, Stop there.
Joel Brooks:So what are the pieces of bread? What's the outside pieces? What is it? Fig tree. Alright.
Joel Brooks:You Jesus coming up on a fig tree and it ends with Jesus on a fig tree. So the middle piece is Jesus going into the temple. How do they shed light on one another? So Jesus, He goes to a fig tree and He wants fruit. There is no fruit, so He curses it.
Joel Brooks:Jesus goes to the temple. What is He looking for? He's looking for fruit. He doesn't find it. You can see the actions that he does there as Jesus is cursing it and saying, I end this.
Joel Brooks:No one will eat fruit from here again. And then Jesus goes back and he sees, they all see that fig tree, Look, what you cursed is withered. And He's like, that's right. The stories shed light on one another. You have to understand the middle to understand the pieces of bread, and you have to understand the pieces of bread to understand the middle.
Joel Brooks:The gospel of Mark is full of these, absolutely full of these. So what I'm gonna do is, alright, this group here, alright, we're dividing kind of the middle unless I divide married couples. I don't wanna do that. So you guys over here, this is what I want you to do. You're gonna read through this text and what I want you to do is identify the bread, identify the jam, and then come up with what you think it means.
Joel Brooks:Here's your text. Mark 3 verses 19 through 35. This this group over here. I'm I'm it's going going all the way up to the balcony as well. Alright?
Joel Brooks:Well, just the 2 of them. Mark 6 verses 7 through 30. Read through it, quickly identify, and then we're gonna walk through this together. Alright? Alright.
Joel Brooks:So Mark 3, somebody tell me what was what's the the bread? What's the bread that's there, the outside piece? There's there's Jesus' family. His earthly family is right there. So the story is this.
Joel Brooks:There's Jesus' family, and, they go to seize Jesus for they are thinking Jesus is out of his mind. And then it switches to what? This this story, the jam, which is about, okay. Well, he's crazy, you know. He's he's casting out demons because he's empowered by Satan himself.
Joel Brooks:And then Jesus says, no, a house divided cannot stand. But no, you first go in and you bind the strong man and then you could plunder him, and that's what He says He is doing. And then he says, I tell you this, all sins will be forgiven the children of men, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of eternal sin. Then what does it go back to? It goes back to Jesus' family, Jesus' earthly family, and it says that they're calling Him to come outside.
Joel Brooks:Come outside, come. And he goes, who's my family? Not you guys. It's those who obey God. The sandwich is the bread is this.
Joel Brooks:Jesus's earthly family doesn't believe. Disbelief. They wanna stop him. Jesus talks about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Those who blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
Joel Brooks:It goes back to his parents or to his family. Unbelief, and what Jesus is saying here, it's it's pretty direct how Mark puts this, but hey, family, you're really close to blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. Mary, brothers, you're this close. Because of your unbelief, not just unbelief, but you're actually attributing my works to saying I'm crazy. That's very close to attributing my works to Satan.
Joel Brooks:You're so close. It's a powerful thing, the way Mark sets it up, so much so that when Matthew records it, he decides to drop one of them. It's like, it's like, wow, can we say this about Jesus' family so directly? And he softens it a little, but Mark puts it out there for us. Nobody has a special privilege to Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Everybody must come and believe. Alright. So what was the other? There was, how'd y'all do Mark 6? Alright, so what's the bread?
Joel Brooks:Jesus sends his disciples out. Jesus sends his disciples out. So that's the first piece of bread. Alright? And the second is Jesus' disciples return.
Joel Brooks:In between, what is the story? John the Baptist, he gets killed because some woman dances and and just basically a guy loses his head and says, I'll give you whatever you want. So how do they shed light on one another? Well, you have, what does being sent out look like? Jesus sends out, and yeah, man, they're casting out demons, aren't they?
Joel Brooks:They're like healing people, they're teaching. It's incredible. That's what they do when they are sent. That's what they report back to Jesus when they come back. But what's in the middle?
Joel Brooks:You see the greatest proclaimer of Jesus who ever lived, and look what happened to him. Death. Death, beheaded, disgraced, and embarrassing death, and Mark is putting that out to us, say, okay, what awaits those who are sent out and boldly declared Jesus? What is your future? Well, look at look at John the Baptist.
Joel Brooks:Look at John the Baptist. Yes, you're gonna go out in power. Yes. These great things are gonna happen, but if this happens to the greatest proclaimer of Jesus, what's gonna happen to you? So you find these Markian sandwiches all throughout the gospel of Mark.
Joel Brooks:They're really fun to read, but not only that, it helps you understand. Jesus, what are you saying? What are you teaching us as we go through this? I've got I mean, when I practiced this sermon, I had like an hour and a half, 2 hours. There's so much I'm gonna leave out.
Joel Brooks:We're gonna we're gonna just we're gonna shoot to the end here. When you pull together, like, all these different literary devices and you try to get this overall picture, the overall the overarching theme of Mark, once again, is Jesus is the Son of God, but He's setting this relentless pace for the big reveal that He is a Son of God, and this is going straight to the cross. That's where Mark is heading all along. That's where he slows down to a crawl when you get to the cross. You even get a hint at the at the beginning of Mark when Jesus is baptized.
Joel Brooks:It says that the heavens were torn apart, And the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. All the other gospels are much more mild. It's like, and the heavens were opened. But for Mark, it's they were torn apart. And the only other time you see that is at the end of Mark when it says the curtain veil was torn in 2.
Joel Brooks:And then right after that, you have another declaration, surely this man was the Son of God, this time by the first human being ever, by the Roman Centurion. Those are the bookends in Mark. You have the tearing, and then you have the declaration, this is the Son of God. And what Mark is saying is you need to see the beginning of Jesus' ministry when He was baptized. He was baptized to die.
Joel Brooks:Everything points to the cross in Mark, because it's at the cross that Jesus is revealed to be the Son of God. So all throughout Mark, He does a miracle people don't understand. No one gets it. He teaches no one understands. No one gets it, not a single human being.
Joel Brooks:Even Peter's confession falls short, thou art the Christ, but he doesn't say, thou art the Son of the living God. But then you get at the very end when Jesus is on a cross. This Roman Centurion of all people, he looks at him, and he when Jesus breathes his last, and he says, surely, this man was the son of God. That's what Mark's been pointing us to all along. You wanna know who Jesus is?
Joel Brooks:You really wanna know who He is? His whole ministry, He was going as fast as He could to this place here, because that's where He best reveals Himself as the Son of God, is at the cross. So from beginning to end in Mark's gospel, the cross defines it. Mark ends his gospel in an unusual way. He ends it in verse 8 of chapter 16.
Joel Brooks:Some of you are like, wait a second. My bible goes a little bit further. It shouldn't. Verses 9 through 20 are probably parenthetical in there. A lot of your bibles might have it out completely.
Joel Brooks:It's because it's just not in the earlier manuscripts. It's it's an obvious addition. It was added because verse 8 ends so abruptly, and they're like, Well, who would end their gospel so abruptly? Well, Mark would if you've been paying attention. It's how Mark writes.
Joel Brooks:And so this is how Mark ends his gospel. Shortest account of the resurrection of all the gospels because Mark's point is the cross, But he doesn't talk about the resurrection, and it ends in verse 8. And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Great way to end a gospel, isn't it? Remember those threes, hammering it in?
Joel Brooks:What does he hammer in? Our failure. All humans fail. Even the resurrection itself afterwards, what happened? Failure.
Joel Brooks:It's like they didn't get it. They still need the miracle of God to change hearts. Still has to happen. And I think, Mark, he ends it that way because he almost he's like, so what are you gonna do? Church.
Joel Brooks:Are you gonna just sit in your home scared, or are you gonna declare the greatest message in all the world? What are you gonna do? It's a challenge to us. Are we gonna be transformed by Christ and boldly proclaim Him, or are we gonna say nothing to anyone because we are afraid? And of course, we know the whole story.
Joel Brooks:The disciples weren't scared for long, but God, through His spirit, utterly transformed them. So here's the gospel of Mark in just kind of a little nutshell, some things for you to look for. If you would pray with me now. Our father, we thank you, we thank you for your servants who wrote the gospels and how we just get a little glimpse into how you use them in creative and in bold ways to declare who you are. But ultimately, the gospels are not a puzzle to figure out.
Joel Brooks:They're to lead us to you, Jesus, and for us to hear you calling us, and I pray now in this moment we'd hear you calling us as we come to this table, that we would see you beautiful as the son of God as we remember your broken body and your blood. And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.