You Can Read the Bible Guided Podcast

As we enter this final reading in the Gospel of Mark, let’s retrace some steps.  Mark launched this book with his own conclusion about Jesus, the Son of God.   Jesus announces His arrival with equal thunder: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

From the first moments the disciples have been present.  Even when Jesus looked for escape, they, and the crowds, found Him.  They were often amazed, sometimes frightened, regularly confused, but always there.  So were the Pharisees and scribes, looking from the earliest days for a way to eliminate Jesus, one way or another. 

In the first half of Mark, Jesus was a man of action, moving freely throughout Galilee, Judea, the Decapolis, Tyre and Sidon.  Everywhere healing, teaching, and amazing.  A pivot occurs around Peter’s confession in chapter 8: “You are the Christ.”  From there, Jesus’ movements became singular: toward Jerusalem, and a destiny only He was willing to see. 

That destiny is completed in today’s reading.  The chaotic scene shifts from the chief priest’s house to the governor’s.  The author reveals that even Pilate knows what’s going on, but makes a political calculation to give the crowd what they want. 

Listen for what is present rather than for what is absent: the abuse, the wine, the inscription; those who are near, and those who are far.  In the paragraph depicting Jesus’ death, there are three lines of dialogue: from Jesus, from a bystander, and from a Roman Centurion, who in eight words sums up the themes of this book.

As the page turns to the final chapter, three women who were only introduced yesterday become central figures.  As you could expect, the final surprise is revealed not to the disciples, nor to the Pharisees, scribes, or priests, but to these women.  Very early, on the first day of the week, they find the tomb open, and a young man, sitting on the right side, who has a message for the disciples…and Peter. 

The final verses of this chapter are sometimes omitted in modern Bibles, or at least bracketed, because they don’t appear in the earliest manuscripts of Mark.  For more about these passages, see my note about John 8 on Day 81.  The terror of the story is more profound if we end with verse 8, but you can listen and determine for yourself if verses 9-20 sound like Mark’s voice.  Either ending brings the book to a fitting conclusion.  

Our verse for this week is Psalm 138:8: The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.  Do not forsake the work of your hands. 

Mark chapters 15 and 16.  Now let’s read it!

The entire discourse of chapter 13 is launched by an anonymous disciple marveling at the wonderful stones and wonderful buildings of the Temple.  This temple had been completed about 30 years before, under the direction of Herod Agrippa, and was indeed an architectural marvel, the center of Jewish worship.

It was also corrupt, as Jesus highlighted when He drove out the moneychangers, and it was temporary, as He announces here.  Notice that the conversation that follows is private, and is in response to the question of Peter, James, and John: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?” What follows is shared with the same three who also know what happened up on the mountain in chapter 9.  Don’t get so lost trying to parse what’s going on that you miss Jesus closing injunction: “And what I say to you, I say to all: Stay awake!”

The narrative returns abruptly at the beginning of chapter 14, when Mark lets you know that the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him,” but not during the feast, “…lest there be an uproar from the people.”  The pace is brisk: there is an anointing, a betrayal, a Passover meal.  After supper, they head to Gethsemane, where Judas and a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders finds Him.  Jesus calls out their cowardice and makes Mark’s point for him: “Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me.” 

The scene at the high priest’s house reflects the chaos of this past week.  Accusations fly but contradict each other.  Nothing sticks in a way that will allow them to legitimately put Jesus to death.  Finally, the high priest steps forward, and asks the singular question that Jesus cannot avoid: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 

Throughout this gospel, Jesus has waited to be asked a direct question to give the direct answer.  Here, His succinct response could have come straight out of a burning bush.   

Our verse for this week is Psalm 138:8: The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.  Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Mark chapters 13 and 14.  Now let’s read it!