Mark

Yesterday, as my husband and I were driving down towards Baltimore, Chris asked if I'd be willing to bring along a Bible and read Mark during the trip down. After all, you might as well use that hour in the car...it's not good for much else! Mark is the reading this week for our DISCIPLE class, and though we're not always good at doing each day's reading, it's no fun to wait till Thursday to try to pack it all in before class. Since I'm leading the class, I am not using the reading for my own devotion...trying to honor that rule that pastors need to have devotional time that has nothing to do with preaching, teaching or otherwise being pastor-y.

That said, it was a neat treat to be able to read Mark as a continuous story. I've always loved the Gospel of Mark...a remnant of having my seminary Intro to the NT professor be a Mark scholar. I love the activeness of the story telling, and I always point out to people how well-suited Mark is to being told as a story around a campfire. Pack in the midst of "immediately" is a fast pace, low on words account of Jesus' life. It is certainly the gospel that has maintained the closest form to what would have been the earliest oral traditions about Jesus.

For all these reasons, this gospel really comes alive in Eugene Peterson's translation The Message. In fact, at points I laughed in the reading of it, as the phrasing lifted forth some humor or sarcasm that can get lost in liturgical readings of small sections of the text. Flowing forth in the entirety of the account is a sort of pacing that is pretty cool.

One of the passages that made me chuckle was the account of the disciples panicking when a storm comes upon their boat, and Jesus is asleep on the boat! The disciples are freaking out, and run to Jesus to ask why he's not up and taking care of things. Peterson's translation continues, "Awake now..." Maybe it's just me, but if you read the whole flow of that, it comes off like what happens when you walk in or call someone who is sleeping and ask, "Are you awake?" and their response, "I am now." It's pretty mundane, but Mark (esp. in The Message) really captures the very real like-us-ness of Jesus and the others in the account.

My favorite part of Mark, in the context of this fast paced account laced with the secrecy motif is the very end. After people being constantly told not to tell about Jesus, the women are told to go and tell. But the Gospel explains that they were afraid and went and told no one. (Though in reality, they must have told someone, because that part of the story is included!) Scholars believe the original text ends there. I love it, because the oral tradition part of it seems vividest there. The story ends by begging this statement and question: "But you know the story. Will you have the courage to go and tell?"

We didn't make it through Mark...we've got a few chapters left. I don't know if we'll finish off with a read-through. I'm kind of hoping we do though. It really brings it all to life. And maybe some day, I'll even get to read or hear Mark around a campfire...