Read Mark 5:1-20

As with yesterday’s reading, we have a story which appears in all three of the synoptic Gospels.  But again, there are some unique features in Mark’s reporting of the event.  All three evangelists agree that, in the country of the Gerasenes Jesus and the disciples run into a man who is possessed by many evil spirits and who lives among the tombs.  But Mark adds the following details:  “No one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him…”  Those are some frightening details.  

When Paul, Barnabas, and Mark were in Paphos, they were opposed by a sorcerer who had a position of power in the city.  There is no description of what he did to try to discourage the pro-consul from accepting the Word preached by Paul, but his opposition must have been significant based on Paul’s response.  “Filled with the Holy Spirit,” Paul “looked straight at Elymas and said, ‘You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right!  You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery…Now the hand of the Lord is against you.  You are going to be blind, and for a time you will be unable to see the light of the sun’” (Acts 13:9-11).  For the young man Mark, this encounter could have been very frightening.  Then later to hear from his mentor Peter about the Gerasene demoniac, and the authority that Jesus had over that multi-possessed individual, was undoubtedly encouraging.  

That same power and authority is available to all who are in Christ.  St. Paul says that we have nothing to fear because in Jesus “we are more than conquerors”; we can “stand against the wiles of the devil”, and that Jesus has “disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him” (Rom. 8:38; Eph. 6:12; Col. 2:15).  Nothing can separate us from Him!

Read Mark 4:35-41

As we approach the end of this week we have two stories revealing the power and authority that has been given to Jesus by the Father.  The first story shows His authority over nature.  The story appointed for tomorrow reveals His authority over the demonic.  Both stories are found in all three synoptic Gospels, but there are some details in both of these stories which are unique to the Gospel of Mark.

In the reading today, we see Jesus exercising His authority over the wind and waves.  But the unique detail that Mark provides is that, before they depart, the disciples “took Him with them in the boat, just as He was” (italics added).  This peculiar phrase makes sense in light of Mark’s experience.  The disciples, and Mark by extension, had seen Jesus as a teacher, and the disciples call Him “teacher” or “Rabbi” in vs. 38.  But as Mark later learned through experience, and the disciples learned in the boat on the sea, He is far more than a teacher; He is Lord over creation.  There is nothing that is beyond His power—even the wind and waves.  Jesus wasn’t afraid of the weather.  He was asleep in the back of the boat.  As a result, Mark is pointing out that we can draw on His peace, and rest in His presence, and trust His power to deliver!  If we acknowledge Him to be who He is, just as He is, we too, have nothing to fear.

All of us will, from time to time, run into situations in our lives when we are powerless to remedy what has happened.  Sickness, accidents, financial problems, no matter what it is, we can turn to the Lord Who is all-powerful.  And we can trust Him.  Too often we try to take control and fix the situation.  And all-too-often we make it worse.  Jesus is in your boat.  He may be asleep in the back, but He is still Lord of all creation, and you can rely upon Him to calm the storm.  You need only ask.

Read Mark 4:21-34

In this second half of chapter 4, Mark continues his presentation of the parables of Jesus.  There are three parables:  the lamp on the stand, the seeds of the harvest, and the mustard seed.  Then in verse 33, Mark indicates that these were but a sample.  He says, “With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand.”  Again, as stated yesterday, Jesus wasn’t presenting the parables that the hearers might grasp the Truth intellectually; rather, His purpose was to draw them to Him with stories to which they could relate.  The majority of the parables here and in the other synoptic Gospels were agrarian stories.  This was an agrarian culture, and the people could relate to stories about seeds and harvests.  

Mark’s experience of the Good News was the profound grace that he was shown by the Lord and the chosen leaders of the Church.  For him, the Kingdom of God was dramatically different from what he had expected when he failed in his first attempts to carry out his calling.  There was no condemnation.  There was no open rejection of Him by Jesus, or Barnabas, or Peter.  There was only grace.  The nature of the Kingdom is declared to the people, not in intellectual precepts and reasoned arguments.  Jesus’ use of parables is designed to present the Kingdom by comparison to common things that the people may grasp.

Ultimately what Mark is presenting in the three parables, and the brief explanation accompanying them, is that the Word of God is Truth, and there is power in the implanted Word.  When received, the Word brings light, it works deep in the spirit of the one receiving it, and the Word will produce abundant fruit in and through us.  We don’t need to understand how that works, we simply need to yield to His power made manifest through us by the Holy Spirit.

Read Mark 4:1-20

Chapter 4 is Mark’s presentation of the parables of Jesus.  Today’s reading contains the Parable of the Sower and our Lord’s explanation of it to His disciples.  However, prior to the explanation Mark tells us that Jesus said, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables…”  That statement is followed by the harsh word from Isaiah 6:9-10 that the outsiders may “never perceive, and…never understand…otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”  How can this be?  Didn’t Jesus come that all might be forgiven and saved?

The problem that most of us have with the Word is that we want to intellectually understand it.  It is the curse of our Western mindset.  The real purpose, though, of the parables is to facilitate apprehension of the Truth by the Spirit.  Thy Word is Truth.  Jesus is the Truth.  To apprehend the Truth we must come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  The capacity to receive the Truth depends on our readiness surrender to His will.  As an example, in John’s Gospel, when Philip tells Nathaniel that they have found the Messiah, Nathaniel cannot comprehend this because it does not line up intellectually with what he has been taught.  Philip does not argue with him, rather he simply says, “Come and see.”  The purpose of the parables, as Mark presents it here, is to pique the interest of the hearer that they might pursue Jesus, that they might come and see, and ultimately accept Him as Lord.

Thus, in today’s reading and in tomorrow’s, the parables presented temporarily conceal truths on an intellectual plane.  But the Lord is seeking to touch the hearer’s heart that they may see themselves in these common stories and be convicted in spirit.  For it is only when we are truly convicted that we will “turn and be forgiven.”

Read Mark 3:20-35

When I told my mother that I had left the Episcopal Church to join the CEC, she told me, “Don’t ever expect me to go to church with you again.”  People react negatively to things they don’t understand or things that challenge what they believe.  Mark experienced such rejection when Bar-Jesus, the Jewish prophet and magician in Paphos “withstood them, seeking to turn away the proconsul from the faith” (Acts 13:6-8).  So it was probably comforting to him to hear Peter relate the story of Jesus’ rejection by His own family.  Sometimes, we have to recognize that our family lines may be drawn with common faith rather than common blood, and that their rejection is a rejection of Jesus, not of us.

Rejection, though, is hard to accept, and the hatred that people express toward us because of our faith is seldom rational.  Nevertheless, Jesus warns us that it is to be expected.  Mark records that Jesus said that we could expect rejection, even from our own family.  “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:12-13).

For many it is not enough just to disagree with you.  They will, like the scribes in today’s lesson, not only denigrate you and your integrity, they will lie about you.  And that is hard.  But Jesus said that we should expect that.  “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).  “But he who endures to the end will be saved.”  That is good news.  Pray that God will give you the grace and perseverance to stand fast in the faith.

Read Mark 3:7-20

“He appointed twelve…that they might…have authority to drive out demons.”  And some early manuscripts add that Jesus designated them to be “apostles”.  The word apostle means, “one who is sent.”  Whether He gave them the title or not, Jesus did send them out, and most importantly, He gave them “authority.”  At the great commission in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” (28:18-19).  “Therefore, go!”  They are sent.  And we, through the Holy Spirit given in baptism are also sent.  In the welcome of the newly baptized we say, “We receive you into the household of God.  Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim His resurrection, and share with us in His eternal priesthood.”  To share in Christ’s eternal priesthood is to be endowed with His authority.  We were baptized into Christ Jesus.  Our ministry is in Him.  It is His ministry and authority made manifest through us.

You have to be with Him before you can be sent by Him.  This was a hard lesson that Mark learned through his misadventure in ministry.  Mark may have begun his ministry too soon.  He had not walked with Jesus during the Lord’s earthly ministry.  He had not spent time, like Paul, in the desert (Gal. 1:15-18), nor learned at the feet of the apostles, like Barnabas, but his later association with Peter may have helped him understand the importance of spending time with Jesus.  God does not call the equipped; He equips the called.  And to be imbued with Christ’s authority, we must be in Christ Jesus.

Jesus told His disciples, “he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12).  To believe is to set our hearts firmly in Christ.  We believe “into” the Lord.  In Him, then, we are sent out to do His work.

Read John 5:19-24

Who was the Gospel writer, Mark?  Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that he was a young man whose given name was John, but went by the name Mark (Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37).  Mary, his mother, may have been a Jew, and his father a Gentile, and it is obvious from the evidence in Acts that his family had some wealth.  John was his Hebrew name and Mark his Gentile name.  Some refer to him by both, John Mark.  He was known to Peter, as is evidenced in Acts 12:12, and sometime later became his disciple.  

After the resurrection of our Lord and following Paul’s conversion, Paul and Mark’s cousin, Barnabas (Col. 4:10), invited the young man to join them on their first missionary journey (Acts 12:25).  But after a difficult encounter in Paphos, John Mark left Paul and Barnabas and returned home (Acts 13:13).  This abandonment of the mission later came to haunt the young minister as we will see next Sunday.

But we can take great comfort and be filled with hope in reading Mark’s account of the Good News, because we know that he lived it.  As the Gospel reading appointed for today reminds us, Jesus promises that “he who hears my word and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life, he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”  We were all young once, both chronologically and spiritually.  And we all have had to learn through experience.  Mark learned.  He made mistakes, and he has graciously revealed to us in his Gospel how Jesus came to redeem and restore him.  And that is an encouraging message for us.

In the readings for this second week of Lent, Mark will show us examples of Jesus’ power and authority.  This was Good News for Mark.  It is Good News for all who call on the Name of Jesus and look to Him for deliverance from strife, peril, and enemies.

Read Mark 2:23-3:6

“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”  Sadly, many have used this statement of our Lord’s as an excuse for ignoring the sabbath.  In our modern world, we have come to believe that filling every moment with activity is virtuous.  We scorn rest as wasted time.  This incessant busyness takes its toll on our bodies, our minds, our families, and most significantly, on our relationship with God.  The sabbath was made for man—it is a gift.  But it is also the fourth of the 10 commandments.

When God commanded His people to “keep holy the sabbath day,” He was telling us to “set apart” a day when we can rest—a day to focus on our family and our relationship with Him.  It is a gift.  The teachers of the law attempted to spell out specifics on what constituted work on the sabbath.  So, when Jesus’ disciples plucked a kernel from a head of grain, the tradition declared their action as harvesting—they were working on the sabbath!  Ultimately, when Jesus went into the synagogue, He is confronted with the effort of the teachers to find fault.  He uses their reasoning against them, saying, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”  But they were silent—they had no answer.

The sabbath is a gift, a gift of rest for God’s faithful people.  Saturday, the sabbath, is a day of rest and preparation for the day of resurrection.  Sabbath days are time to spend with God, and time to prepare for celebratory worship of Him.  Look at the collects appointed for Saturdays.  In Morning Prayer we pray, “Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary…”  And as we lay the day behind us in Compline, we pray, “Grant as we sing your glory at the close of this day, our joy may abound in the morning as we celebrate the Paschal mystery…”  The sabbath was made for man, as a precious gift to us.  Why would we want to scorn such a precious gift?

Read Mark 2:13-22

Fridays, especially during Lent, are traditional days of fasting.  In today’s reading, the questions about eating with tax collectors and fasting all took place around the table in Levi’s home.  As we saw in the story on Ash Wednesday, the tradition of the Pharisees was to fast twice a week.  But here is Jesus, in the home of a notorious sinner, feasting on what was probably one of those fast days.  Jesus is asked why neither He nor His disciples are keeping the tradition.  He said, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?”  It would be inappropriate to fast at a feast.  But Jesus adds that “the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day they will fast.”  Jesus is no longer with us in the flesh, so now is an appropriate time for fasting.  But what does putting a new patch on an old garment, and putting new wine in old wineskins have to do with fasting?

Mark has placed these two parables as a transition between the questions about fasting and those about the sabbath, which we will discuss tomorrow.  Our Lord’s statement about old cloth and old wineskins refers to old traditions.  Jesus is not suggesting that the Old Covenant be ignored, rather that the Pharisaical traditions associated with it are not incumbent upon the faithful in light of the New Covenant.  The old traditions were about rigidity and legalistic ritual.  The New Covenant in Jesus is about relationship with the Bridegroom.  It is about grace!  We are to put on the new garments of salvation.  We are to put the new wine of the Holy Spirit in new wineskins, not brittle and aged traditions.

Should we fast?  The more relevant question is: “Does the fasting that we choose help us focus more closely on our relationship with Jesus?”  If fasting is distracting, don’t do it.  If it helps you, then by all means it is a healthy discipline and worthy to be practiced.  It is a season of fasting.  It is also a season of grace.

Read Mark 2:1-12

Is this a healing story?  Or is this a story about forgiveness and Jesus’ ability to forgive sins?  Maybe it is a story about the friends’ perseverance in pursuing Jesus for the paralytic.  Yes.  It is all of those.  But for Mark, it must have been incredibly heartening to hear Peter talk about Jesus’ authority made manifest before the teachers of the law.  The teachers asked themselves, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  Jesus’ response was immediate!  “Why are you thinking these things?”  

Once again, Mark presents an action that Jesus took to make manifest His Sonship.  Who can forgive?  Only God.  But, Jesus let the action speak for Him.  He said to the paralytic, “Rise, take up your pallet and walk.”  He did not simply say, get up and walk.  But Jesus said, “take up your pallet and walk.”  The very sign of the man’s infirmity—the bed upon which he had lain for however long—became the sign of his healing.  It became the sign of his forgiveness!

Too often we want to divorce our mind, spirit, and body from each other.  If I am walking in unforgiveness, it affects the way I think about myself, others, and God.  It can lead to discouragement, depression, and doubt.  My body then suffers, and my spirit is derailed.  That is why St. Paul warns us to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).  Mark could have wallowed in his failure to persevere in ministry with Paul and Barnabas, but Peter helped him see that Jesus has the authority to forgive, and that his return to ministry would be a sign of the wholeness that God had restored to him.

The people who saw the man carrying his pallet were “amazed…and they praised God.”  Walking in forgiveness is an amazing thing.  It brings wholeness and life to our broken selves.