(1) It is the nearest thing we will ever get to a report of Jesus’ life. Mark’s aim was to give a picture of Jesus as he was. The scholar B. F. Westcott called it ‘a transcript from life’. A. B. Bruce of Glasgow’s Free Church College said that it was written ‘from the viewpoint of loving, vivid recollection’, and that its great characteristic was realism.
If we are ever to get anything approaching a biography of Jesus, it must be based on Mark, for it is his delight to tell the facts of Jesus’ life in the simplest and most dramatic way.
(2) Mark never forgot the divine side of Jesus. He begins his gospel with the declaration of faith, ‘The beginning of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ He leaves us in no doubt what he believed Jesus to be. Again and again he speaks of the impact Jesus made on the minds and hearts of those who heard him. The awe and astonishment which he evoked are always in the forefront of Mark’s mind. ‘They were astounded at his teaching’ (1:22). ‘They were all amazed’ (1:27). Such phrases occur again and again. Not only was this astonishment in the minds of the crowds who listened to Jesus; it was still more in the minds of the inner circle of the disciples. ‘And they were filled with great awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” ’ (4:41). ‘And they were utterly astounded’ (6:51). ‘They were greatly astounded’ (10:26).
To Mark, Jesus was not simply one of us; he was God among us, constantly moving people to a wondering amazement with his words and deeds.
(3) At the same time, no gospel gives such a human picture of Jesus. Sometimes its picture is so human that the later writers alter it a little because they are almost afraid to say what Mark said. To Mark, Jesus is simply ‘the carpenter’ (6:3). Later Matthew alters that to ‘the carpenter’s son’ (Matthew 13:55), as if to call Jesus a village tradesman is too daring. When Mark is telling of the temptations of Jesus, he writes, ‘The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness’ (1:12). Matthew and Luke do not like this word drove used of Jesus, so they soften it down and say, ‘Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness’ (Matthew 4:1; cf. Luke 4:1). No one tells us so much about the emotions of Jesus as Mark does. Jesus sighed deeply in his spirit (8:12; cf. 7:34). He was moved with compassion (6:34). He was amazed at their unbelief (6:6). He was moved with righteous anger (3:5, 8:33, 10:14). Only Mark tells us that when Jesus looked at the rich young ruler he loved him (10:21). Jesus could feel the pangs of hunger (11:12). He could be tired and want to rest (6:31).
It is in Mark’s gospel, above all, that we get a picture of a Jesus who shared emotions and passions with us. The sheer humanity of Jesus in Mark’s picture brings him very near to us.
(4) One of the great characteristics of Mark is that over and over again he inserts the little vivid details into the narrative which are the hallmark of an eyewitness. Both Matthew and Mark tell of Jesus taking the little child and setting him in the midst. Matthew (18:2) says, ‘He called a child, whom he put among them.’ Mark adds something which lights up the whole picture (9:36). In the words of the Revised Standard Version, ‘And he took a child and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them . . .’ In the lovely picture of Jesus and the children, when Jesus rebuked the disciples for keeping the children from him, only Mark finishes, ‘and he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them’ (10:13–16; cf. Matthew 19:13–15; Luke 18:15–17). All the tenderness of Jesus is in these little vivid additions. When Mark is telling of the feeding of the 5,000, he alone tells how they sat down in hundreds and in fifties, looking like vegetable beds in a garden (6:40); and immediately the whole scene rises before us. When Jesus and his disciples were on the last journey to Jerusalem, only Mark tells us, ‘and Jesus was walking ahead of them’ (10:32; cf. Matthew 20:17; Luke 18:31); and in that one vivid little phrase all the loneliness of Jesus stands out. When Mark is telling the story of the stilling of the storm, he has one little sentence that none of the other gospel writers have. ‘He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion’ (4:38). And that one touch makes the picture vivid before our eyes.
There can be little doubt that all these details are due to the fact that Peter was an eyewitness and was seeing these things again with the eye of memory.
(5) Mark’s realism and his simplicity come out in his Greek style.
(a) His style is not carefully developed and polished. He tells the story as a child might tell it. He adds statement to statement connecting them simply with the word ‘and’. In the third chapter of the gospel, in the Greek, there are thirty-four clauses or sentences one after another introduced by ‘and’ after one principal verb. It is the way in which an eager child would tell the story.
(b) He is very fond of the words ‘and straightaway’, ‘and immediately’. They occur in the gospel almost thirty times. It is sometimes said of a story that ‘it marches’. But Mark’s story does not so much march; he rushes on in a kind of breathless attempt to make the story as vivid to others as it is to himself.
(c) He is very fond of the historic present. That is to say, in the Greek he talks of events in the present tense instead of in the past. ‘And when Jesus heard it, he says to them, “Those who are strong do not need a doctor, but those who are ill”’ (2:17). ‘And when they come near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and to Bethany, to the Mount of Olives, he sends two of his disciples, and says to them, “Go into the village opposite you . . .” ’ (11:1–2). ‘And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of The Twelve, comes’ (14:43).
Generally speaking we do not keep these historic presents in translation, because in English they do not sound well; but they show how vivid and real the thing was to Mark’s mind, as if it was happening before his very eyes.
(d) He quite often gives us the very Aramaic words which Jesus used. To Jairus’ daughter, Jesus said, ‘Talitha cumi’ (5:41). To the deaf man with the impediment in his speech, he said, ‘Ephphatha’ (7:34). The dedicated gift is ‘Corban’ (7:11). In the garden, he says, ‘Abba, Father’ (14:36). On the cross, he cries, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ (15:34).
There were times when Peter could hear again the very sound of Jesus’ voice and could not help passing it on to Mark in the very words that Jesus spoke.
The Essential Gospel
It would not be unfair to call Mark the essential gospel. We will do well to study with loving care the earliest gospel we possess, the gospel where we hear again the preaching of Peter himself.
MARK
THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY
Mark 1:1–4
This is the beginning of the story of how Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brought the good news to men. There is a passage in Isaiah the prophet like this – ‘Lo! I send my messenger before you and he will prepare your road for you. He will be like a voice crying in the wilderness, “Get ready the road of the Lord. Make straight the path by which he will come”.’ This came true when John the Baptizer emerged in the wilderness, announcing a baptism which was the sign of a repentance through which a man might find forgiveness for his sins.
MARK starts the story of Jesus a long way back. It did not begin with Jesus’ birth; it did not even begin with John the Baptizer in the wilderness; it began with the dreams of the prophets long ago; that is to say, it began long, long ago in the mind of God.
The Stoics were strong believers in the ordered plan of God. ‘The things of God’, said Marcus Aurelius, ‘are full of foresight. All things flow from heaven.’ There are things we may well learn here.
(1) It has been said that ‘the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts’, and so are the thoughts of God. God is characteristically a God who is working his purposes out. History is not a random kaleidoscope of