Weekdays in Ordinary Time till the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday we’ll be reading at Mass from the first 10 chapters of the Gospel of Mark. A medieval painter (above) sees Mark an old man, adjusting his spectacles to get down to work, while a lion, a traditional symbol of the evangelist, gets ready to roar.
A good way to describe Mark’s gospel– a roaring, fast-paced narrative. “After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.’”
Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God, first in Galilee and then in Jerusalem, by miracles and powerful signs. The “wild beasts” he faced in the desert (Mark 1,13) face him now in human form, but he boldly goes his way, with a lion’s courage.
Jesus asks his disciples in chapter 8 who people say he is? “You are the Messiah,” Peter answers, but when Jesus announces he must go up to Jerusalem and be rejected and killed and raised up, Peter will have none of it. In response, Jesus calls him “Satan,” he’s thinking as man thinks and not as God does.
Mark’s Gospel concludes with the story of the Passion of Jesus. Some say his gospel is “A passion narrative with an extended introduction.” Jesus dies and rises again and all who follow him do the same. But Peter finds it hard to understand, all the disciples–us too– find it hard to understand. Mark’s gospel repeats again and again–we don’t understand.
Many commentators say Mark’s Gospel was written in Rome for the Christians of that city who suffered during the first great persecution of the church by Nero after a fire consumed the city in 64 AD. That’s the story prompting Mark’s story.
The Roman historian Tacitus says that Nero blamed the Christians for the fire and had many of them arrested and put to death in his gardens and at the Vatican circus across the city.
The persecution had a devastating affect on the Christians of Rome, innocent people were completely taken by surprise by this brutal injustice. They didn’t understand it at all.
His first disciples didn’t understand the mystery of suffering either, Mark’s gospel says. The Kingdom of God comes anyway, in fact, it’s at hand.
Follow him.
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