St. Mark
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Mark. Concerning St. Mark’s Gospel, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in the early second century stated, “Mark, indeed, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, albeit not in order, all that he recalled about what was either said or done by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord, nor was a follower of his, but, at later date, as I said, of Peter; who used to adapt his instruction to the needs of the moment, but not with a view to putting together the oracles of the Lord in an orderly fashion: so that Mark did no wrong in thus writing some things as he recalled them. For he kept a single aim in view: not to omit anything of what he heard, nor to state anything therein falsely.” In other words, St. Mark’s Gospel was not the work of an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus, but it was based on the testimony of one who was an eyewitness, St. Peter. Later in the second century, Clement of Alexandria and St. Irenaeus also stated that St. Mark’s Gospel was based on the testimony of St. Peter.
St. Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four Gospels. Traditionally, it is the Gospel that has received least attention in the Church. It very rarely features in the lectionary, which usually draws not on St. Mark, but on the other three Gospels. It is clear that there is a close literary relationship between the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke, hence they are commonly referred to as the Synoptic Gospels. It has traditionally been supposed that St. Matthew’s Gospel was the first to be written. St. Augustine spoke of St. Mark as following St. Matthew as a “sort of camp follower and abridger”. In more recent times this judgement has commonly been reversed and St. Mark has been supposed to be the first of the Gospels to be written. In other words, St. Matthew’s Gospel has been seen to be an expanded version of St. Mark’s Gospel, rather than St. Mark’s Gospel an abbreviated version of St. Matthew’s Gospel (as St. Augustine supposed). In fact, the evidence can be argued either way. The brevity of St. Mark’s Gospel can be taken as evidence that he wrote first, and then St. Matthew and St. Luke wrote later, including additional material that had not been included in St. Mark’s Gospel. On the other hand, much in St. Matthew’s Gospel is clearly directed at a specifically Jewish audience, and so it can be argued that much of this material was omitted by St. Mark, who was writing for a mostly Gentile audience.
It is probably a mistake to see the Gospels as written in a lineal sequence, one following the other. Most probably they were produced over a similar period of time, but for different audiences and in different places. St. Matthew’s Gospel is essentially a work of catechesis for Jewish Christians in a Palestinian or Syrian setting. St. Mark’s Gospel, enshrining the testimony of St. Peter, was probably produced in Rome for a mostly Gentile audience. St. Luke’s Gospel is the first of a two volume work on the origins of Christianity and is directed at the interested pagan enquirer. St. John’s Gospel enshrines the testimony of St. John, the Beloved Disciple, and was published in Ephesus. Thus, while St. Mark’s Gospel may not necessarily have been the first to be written, it is a crucial source for the ministry of Jesus because it is based on the testimony of St. Peter.
St. Mark’s Gospel very much breathes the spirit of St. Peter’s preaching which is recorded in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. St. Mark begins his Gospel with the words, “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”. It tells of how, after his baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus went into Galilee preaching the Gospel, “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.” The Kingdom of God, future in its fullness, was now being manifested through the words and works of Jesus. He spoke as one with authority and not as the scribes. In his mighty works the prophecies of the coming messianic age in which the eyes of the blind were being opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped were being fulfilled.
The question was inevitably raised whether Jesus was in fact the Messiah, the promised agent of God’s final deliverance. But when St. Peter confessed Jesus’ messiahship it was clear that he was still thinking in terms of a warrior and a conqueror. Jesus gave his disciples further teaching that his messianic destiny, enthronement and rule could only come through reversal, repudiation, suffering and death. The kings of the Gentiles exercise authority and are called benefactors, but the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus’ messianic destiny was not fulfilled through violence and the bullying and control of others, but through suffering and service. He would fulfil the role of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He would take the evil of the situation upon himself and somehow subsume it into good. “This is my blood of the new covenant which is poured out for many.”
At the time, the disciples did not fully understand what was happening, but after his resurrection, they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. St. Peter, who had originally strongly opposed Jesus’ redefinition of his messianic destiny as a Suffering Servant, now preached the Gospel of how it was necessary that the Christ should suffer before he entered into his glory. It was this witness about how it was through suffering and service that Jesus’ life reached its fulfilment that St. Mark, basing himself on St. Peter’s preaching, embodied as the central theme of his Gospel. “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Let us make our own the words of today’s collect:
O God, who by thy grace didst raise up blessed Mark, thy evangelist to be a preacher of the Gospel; grant, we beseech thee, that we may ever profit by his teaching and be defended by his prayers.
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