Who was Mark?
Mark is telling us this version of the story. So who, exactly, was Mark and how did he know about Jesus? Was Mark a disciple? – well, he isn’t included in any of the lists of disciples given in any of the Gospels. So who was Mark?In the 14th chapter of Mark, we get a clue. Immediately after Jesus is arrested, Verses 51 and 52 tell us: “51 Now a certain young man, having a linen cloth wrapped around his naked body, was following Him. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth behind and ran away naked.”
Early church fathers told us that this was Mark writing about himself. He was the young man. Do we have any further information about Mark? How was he connected to the other apostles? Let’s take a minute and learn some more about Mark.
In Acts 12:12, Peter escapes prison with the help of an angel and goes to the Jerusalem house of “Mary, the mother of John, also called Mark.” And a few verses later, when Barnabus and Saul finish their mission to Jerusalem, they return to Antioch and take with them “John, also called Mark.” John Mark accompanies them to Antioch, and then on a mission to Cyprus and to south-central Turkey, where John Mark leaves to return to Jerusalem. Later, in Antioch, in Chapter 15, Barnabas and Paul want to return to the churches they had established. Barnabas wants to take John Mark with them, but Saul felt Mark was unreliable because he had deserted them during their first journey. So Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus and Saul took Silas by the overland route.
Later, In Colossians 4:10, “Mark, the cousin of Barnabas” is with Paul. In 2 Timothy 4:11, Paul asks Timothy to “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” Mark is also with Paul when he writes the letter to Philemon. And in 1 Peter 5:13, we find Mark is with Peter in Babylon.
The early church fathers believed that Mark received much of his Gospel story through both being an eyewitness and hearing the stories from Barnabas and Paul, and particularly from Peter. So it seems fair to say that Mark was probably in his middle teens at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus, and then traveled with the various apostles over the next thirty or forty years. Almost all Biblical scholars believe that Mark’s Gospel was the first Gospel written, with traditional scholars believing he wrote around 50 AD, and more modern scholars (who believe that prophecy cannot exist) assigning dates in the 70’s after the fall of Jerusalem (because, you see, Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem in Mark’s Gospel, and modern biblical scholars are not allowed to believe in prophecy according to the rules of their profession.)
Mark begins his Gospel telling us a bit about John the Baptist, whom Mark explains is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”
John preaches in the wilderness and then baptizes Jesus, who goes at once into the wilderness to be tested by Satan forty days. Then, after John was put into prison, Jesus begins preaching in Galilee that “the time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
The next scene for Mark is when Jesus is walking beside the Sea of Galilee, the large freshwater lake in the north of modern-day Israel. Jesus sees Simon and Simon’s brother Andrew casting a net into the lake. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” And, according to Mark, “at once they left their nets and followed him.”
Jesus walked a bit farther on and saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee preparing their nets in a boat. He called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed Jesus.
A Bit of Background
Now, reading just Mark’s version, we might get the idea that Jesus just walked along the lakeshore, yelled at these four men, and they decided right then and there to follow Him. But when we read the Gospel of John, we find that there is more to this.According to John the Apostle, after John the Baptizer baptized Jesus, each of the next two mornings, John pointed out Jesus to his disciples as “Look, the Lamb of God” and explained more about Jesus, that Jesus was the promised Messiah. After hearing this the second time, Andrew and John the Apostle, who were two of John the Baptizer’s disciples, followed Jesus and spent some time talking with Him. Andrew then brought his brother Simon to meet Jesus, who nicknamed him Rock – Cephas in Aramaic, or, as the Greek name Petros is translated, Peter.
Jesus also found Philip, who introduced his friend Nathanael to Jesus. The two of them followed Jesus back to Galilee, where the next day, a wedding was held at the village of Cana. It was at this wedding that Jesus, prompted by His mother Mary, turned water into great tasting wine when the caterers ran out of wine. We think that he then headed into the wilderness to be tested by Satan for forty days.
And it was only after these events that Jesus went walking along the lakeshore and found Simon and Andrew and the Apostle John and his brother James. And so, the calling of these four disciples doesn’t seem so odd and sudden. They had met Jesus about 6 weeks earlier, talked with Jesus, and heard John’s endorsement of Jesus. And so they followed Jesus!
Have you ever thought about what would have happened in the lives of the four fishermen if they hadn’t followed Jesus?
Let’s think about this. We’ll take Peter, for example, with his given name of Simon in our story. After all, Peter was a name given to him by Jesus. So he would never been known by that nickname. He would never have been called “Rock”. Instead, he would have been simply Simon. Simple Simon?
Simon owns a small fishing boat. His brother Andrew helps him. Andy and Simon spend every day cleaning and repairing their nets, and every night fishing on the lake. They throw the nets in the water and they pull the nets in, lifting that heavy rope into the boat to catch a few fish. And then they repeat the process.
James and John do the same, except their father Zebedee is still alive. They work for him. Clean the nets, repair the nets, throw the nets in the water and pull the nets in. Good for the arms. Good for the legs. Good for the back. Not so good for the mind nor the pocketbook. And one night, a storm hits and they sink.
Jesus sees our potential!
You see, Jesus saw the potential with these fishermen. He knew that they had good, quick minds and he knew they could speak well. Simon Peter was rough, but he had potential. His loud captain’s voice would be important when Simon began to preach, leading 3000 men to Jesus at Peter's first sermon. John had a mind for the Greek language – He was eloquent – but as a fisherman he had nothing to write about. Yet Jesus saw his potential. And one day, John wrote:In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 All things were created through Him,
and apart from Him not one thing was created
that has been created.
4 Life was in Him,
and that life was the light of men.
5 That light shines in the darkness,
yet the darkness did not overcome it.
Such beautiful poetry that John wrote! Jesus saw John's potential!
The fisherman Andrew was just a helper on a fishing boat. The disciple Andrew brought all sorts of people to Jesus. Fisherman James was probably third in command of the fishing boat. The disciple James became so prominent in the early church that Herod Agrippa had him executed.
And so it is with us. We each have tremendous potential.
Yet, if we do not follow the call of Jesus, our potential is wasted. We remain useless to Jesus. We stay on the boat, living a life of cleaning and repairing nets, of dropping nets over the side and lifting them out of the water.
But if we follow Jesus – perhaps we can realize our potential. Perhaps Jesus can teach us to speak, to teach, to write, to lead people with love. Do you realize that every person listening to me could lead 10 or 20 or hundreds of people to Christ?
Don’t tell me you are too young. My son Andrew began ministry as a child and led his first church at age 19. Don’t tell me you are too old. A friend of mine led her nursing home roommate to the Lord at age 98 when she was already terribly deaf and her friend was nearly blind. Don’t tell me you have too much education – I have friends who have multiple master’s degrees and doctorate degrees. Don’t tell me you are too uneducated – I have a friend with a simple high school education who is a successful pastor. Jesus has one request for you – will you follow Him? If so, Jesus will provide everything else you need.
Most of us have heard bits and pieces about Jesus for years, often since early childhood. We know that Jesus is called the Son of God; we know that Jesus has a lot to do with Christmas and with Easter. We may have heard of the crucifixion and the resurrection, and we know that Christianity has a lot to do with Jesus – but until we begin to come regularly to church, we don’t put it all together. And we surely don’t pull together the other stories, like Noah and Samson and Joshua and Jericho, like the Apostles Peter and Paul, and who was Silas? Maybe we’ve heard of the rapture and the return of Christ, we may have heard of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – but who were they? And we know that Christians are supposed to be good people, but what does it mean to be good, and what, exactly is a hypocrite and why is that word so long?
Starting in two weeks, I’m going to begin a series of sermons that will pull together all of these bits and pieces and try to put it together in a single, epic story that will help you understand how it all fits together. Every week, we’ll try to understand another piece of the puzzle and how this all goes together. And this will be more than just a story – along the way we’ll learn how Christians are supposed to act toward each other and toward those who are not yet Christians, we’ll learn how to tell the Gospel story ourselves and lead others to meet and follow Jesus, as Andrew and Philip did with Andrew’s brother Simon and Philips’s friend Nathanael.
And through it all, I hope that this will help you make sense of it all, so that you begin to follow Jesus more closely.
Notice I said, to follow Jesus. One of those pieces and bits that we’ve heard over the years is that we are to BELIEVE in Jesus. That’s true. We are indeed to believe in Jesus. There are a couple of distinct points where we are told to believe in Jesus. But there are about eighty places in the New Testament where we are told to FOLLOW Jesus. Twice we are told to believe in Jesus; eighty times we are told to FOLLOW Jesus. And so we’ll focus on what it means to follow Jesus.
Because Jesus claimed to be God walking upon this earth. He made this claim repeatedly – sometimes in words, as when He said, “I and the Father are one” – and other times in His actions, as of when He boldly forgave people of their sins. The people standing around were outraged – only God could forgive people of their sins. The people standing around picked up rocks to throw at Him, attempting to stone him to death, the punishment for blasphemy. He was eventually crucified on a Friday afternoon for the crime of claiming to be equal to God. And the crowd was happy, because clearly Jesus had been out of his mind.
But then, on Sunday, reports began circulating that He had come back to life, something that couldn’t happen without God’s power and endorsement. And He was seen alive in at least eleven different appearances, speaking, eating, joking, even cooking breakfast for a group of seven men. And the audience for each appearance was different, with over five hundred people seeing him and at least seven of them writing down their testimony of His appearances. And since that time, literally thousands and millions of people have testified that Jesus lives and has changed their lives.
For, you see, if Jesus is truly the Son of God, as the testimony of millions of people agrees upon, then whatever He says is of wonderful and terrible importance to us. If Jesus is God walking on the earth, One with the Father who created the Universe and all the physical laws that govern the Universe – then His teachings are absolutely critical to understanding how to live in that Universe. And if Jesus has died and been resurrected, then He holds the keys to life and death and resurrection, and it is very important for us to know Him.
And so, when Jesus walked along the lakeshore and spoke to those fishermen who were preparing their nets for another hard day of work, trying to squeeze out a living – when Jesus said “Follow Me”, he was also saying this to us who work hard to survive today. And just like those fishermen who chose to immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus, we should also plan to spend time learning about what Jesus has to say and who He was and is. Thankfully, we no longer have to walk around from town to town to learn these things. We can follow five simple steps by ourselves, not needing a church, but simply stepping forward on our own:
First, we can read our scripture. Which scripture? How about staring with the Gospels of Mark and John to begin with. You’ll find them near the beginning of the New Testament. Find out what Jesus did from people who saw Him live. Read from a modern translation like the New King James or the New International Version so we can understand more easily what we read. We can read alone, but a church can guide our understanding.
Second, we can pray for understanding. Pray daily before we read to God and ask that we understand what we read. And take your time to listen for God’s reply. Pray with your spouse or child or a friend – together. We can pray alone, but in a church group there is prayer power.
Third, we can begin to give to God and the church. Give money (yes!) but more importantly give time, give service, give talents, give your presence which will help others. We can do much ourselves, but more can be accomplished by working together with others.
Fourth, fast. If your health allows it, skip a meal or even a day or two of meals. Let God show you that you live because of God, not because of food. If your health does not allow you to skip food, then fast from other things. Fast from anger, fast from Facebook, fast from the news, fast from the other things which claim to be so important in your life. We can fast alone, but we can better stay the course through rough times with godly friends who can support us in avoiding what we should not have.
Fifth – Do evangelism. Try to explain the Good News of Jesus’ story to someone else. To do so will require you to act like Jesus teaches us to act in scripture. It will require you to ask God for the words to say through prayer. It will require you to give of time and talent. It will require you to fast by give up doing something that is not needed to make time for the important task of leading your friend to Christ. We can do this daily with the people we meet, but it helps to learn from others who are experienced.
Read scripture, pray, give, fast, and evangelize. These are the daily ways that God gives us grace – but each requires us to give God permission to act by taking the first steps toward any of these five actions. Read, pray, Give, Fast, Evangelize. We start – and God fills us with God’s grace through these simple, individual means of grace. Individual actions, yes. But strengthened when we join with others.
It is something worthy of spending some time on during this terrible winter, a time when we are locked down, locked in, and have little else to do. For it might prove to be a time when we looked up and saw the Son of God speaking to us.
“Follow Me”, he said – and still says. And for those four fishermen, their lives were never the same again.
Your life can change too.
God of the Universe, lead us to speak on Your behalf. Lead us to accomplish Your mission in this world. Give us people to speak to, the words to say, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we may speak with gentleness and grace, leading people to Your Son, Jesus, sharing His guidance, praying to Him, looking expectantly to eternal life, worshiping our God, and being assured of the Truth. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
The fisherman Andrew was just a helper on a fishing boat. The disciple Andrew brought all sorts of people to Jesus. Fisherman James was probably third in command of the fishing boat. The disciple James became so prominent in the early church that Herod Agrippa had him executed.
And so it is with us. We each have tremendous potential.
Yet, if we do not follow the call of Jesus, our potential is wasted. We remain useless to Jesus. We stay on the boat, living a life of cleaning and repairing nets, of dropping nets over the side and lifting them out of the water.
But if we follow Jesus – perhaps we can realize our potential. Perhaps Jesus can teach us to speak, to teach, to write, to lead people with love. Do you realize that every person listening to me could lead 10 or 20 or hundreds of people to Christ?
Don’t tell me you are too young. My son Andrew began ministry as a child and led his first church at age 19. Don’t tell me you are too old. A friend of mine led her nursing home roommate to the Lord at age 98 when she was already terribly deaf and her friend was nearly blind. Don’t tell me you have too much education – I have friends who have multiple master’s degrees and doctorate degrees. Don’t tell me you are too uneducated – I have a friend with a simple high school education who is a successful pastor. Jesus has one request for you – will you follow Him? If so, Jesus will provide everything else you need.
Most of us have heard bits and pieces about Jesus for years, often since early childhood. We know that Jesus is called the Son of God; we know that Jesus has a lot to do with Christmas and with Easter. We may have heard of the crucifixion and the resurrection, and we know that Christianity has a lot to do with Jesus – but until we begin to come regularly to church, we don’t put it all together. And we surely don’t pull together the other stories, like Noah and Samson and Joshua and Jericho, like the Apostles Peter and Paul, and who was Silas? Maybe we’ve heard of the rapture and the return of Christ, we may have heard of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – but who were they? And we know that Christians are supposed to be good people, but what does it mean to be good, and what, exactly is a hypocrite and why is that word so long?
Starting in two weeks, I’m going to begin a series of sermons that will pull together all of these bits and pieces and try to put it together in a single, epic story that will help you understand how it all fits together. Every week, we’ll try to understand another piece of the puzzle and how this all goes together. And this will be more than just a story – along the way we’ll learn how Christians are supposed to act toward each other and toward those who are not yet Christians, we’ll learn how to tell the Gospel story ourselves and lead others to meet and follow Jesus, as Andrew and Philip did with Andrew’s brother Simon and Philips’s friend Nathanael.
And through it all, I hope that this will help you make sense of it all, so that you begin to follow Jesus more closely.
Notice I said, to follow Jesus. One of those pieces and bits that we’ve heard over the years is that we are to BELIEVE in Jesus. That’s true. We are indeed to believe in Jesus. There are a couple of distinct points where we are told to believe in Jesus. But there are about eighty places in the New Testament where we are told to FOLLOW Jesus. Twice we are told to believe in Jesus; eighty times we are told to FOLLOW Jesus. And so we’ll focus on what it means to follow Jesus.
Why listen to Jesus?
And why should we worry so much about Jesus?Because Jesus claimed to be God walking upon this earth. He made this claim repeatedly – sometimes in words, as when He said, “I and the Father are one” – and other times in His actions, as of when He boldly forgave people of their sins. The people standing around were outraged – only God could forgive people of their sins. The people standing around picked up rocks to throw at Him, attempting to stone him to death, the punishment for blasphemy. He was eventually crucified on a Friday afternoon for the crime of claiming to be equal to God. And the crowd was happy, because clearly Jesus had been out of his mind.
But then, on Sunday, reports began circulating that He had come back to life, something that couldn’t happen without God’s power and endorsement. And He was seen alive in at least eleven different appearances, speaking, eating, joking, even cooking breakfast for a group of seven men. And the audience for each appearance was different, with over five hundred people seeing him and at least seven of them writing down their testimony of His appearances. And since that time, literally thousands and millions of people have testified that Jesus lives and has changed their lives.
For, you see, if Jesus is truly the Son of God, as the testimony of millions of people agrees upon, then whatever He says is of wonderful and terrible importance to us. If Jesus is God walking on the earth, One with the Father who created the Universe and all the physical laws that govern the Universe – then His teachings are absolutely critical to understanding how to live in that Universe. And if Jesus has died and been resurrected, then He holds the keys to life and death and resurrection, and it is very important for us to know Him.
And so, when Jesus walked along the lakeshore and spoke to those fishermen who were preparing their nets for another hard day of work, trying to squeeze out a living – when Jesus said “Follow Me”, he was also saying this to us who work hard to survive today. And just like those fishermen who chose to immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus, we should also plan to spend time learning about what Jesus has to say and who He was and is. Thankfully, we no longer have to walk around from town to town to learn these things. We can follow five simple steps by ourselves, not needing a church, but simply stepping forward on our own:
First, we can read our scripture. Which scripture? How about staring with the Gospels of Mark and John to begin with. You’ll find them near the beginning of the New Testament. Find out what Jesus did from people who saw Him live. Read from a modern translation like the New King James or the New International Version so we can understand more easily what we read. We can read alone, but a church can guide our understanding.
Second, we can pray for understanding. Pray daily before we read to God and ask that we understand what we read. And take your time to listen for God’s reply. Pray with your spouse or child or a friend – together. We can pray alone, but in a church group there is prayer power.
Third, we can begin to give to God and the church. Give money (yes!) but more importantly give time, give service, give talents, give your presence which will help others. We can do much ourselves, but more can be accomplished by working together with others.
Fourth, fast. If your health allows it, skip a meal or even a day or two of meals. Let God show you that you live because of God, not because of food. If your health does not allow you to skip food, then fast from other things. Fast from anger, fast from Facebook, fast from the news, fast from the other things which claim to be so important in your life. We can fast alone, but we can better stay the course through rough times with godly friends who can support us in avoiding what we should not have.
Fifth – Do evangelism. Try to explain the Good News of Jesus’ story to someone else. To do so will require you to act like Jesus teaches us to act in scripture. It will require you to ask God for the words to say through prayer. It will require you to give of time and talent. It will require you to fast by give up doing something that is not needed to make time for the important task of leading your friend to Christ. We can do this daily with the people we meet, but it helps to learn from others who are experienced.
Read scripture, pray, give, fast, and evangelize. These are the daily ways that God gives us grace – but each requires us to give God permission to act by taking the first steps toward any of these five actions. Read, pray, Give, Fast, Evangelize. We start – and God fills us with God’s grace through these simple, individual means of grace. Individual actions, yes. But strengthened when we join with others.
It is something worthy of spending some time on during this terrible winter, a time when we are locked down, locked in, and have little else to do. For it might prove to be a time when we looked up and saw the Son of God speaking to us.
“Follow Me”, he said – and still says. And for those four fishermen, their lives were never the same again.
Your life can change too.
Prayer
Let us pray:God of the Universe, lead us to speak on Your behalf. Lead us to accomplish Your mission in this world. Give us people to speak to, the words to say, and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so we may speak with gentleness and grace, leading people to Your Son, Jesus, sharing His guidance, praying to Him, looking expectantly to eternal life, worshiping our God, and being assured of the Truth. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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