Introduction To Mark’s Gospel

Let’s get one thing straight from the start: Mark didn’t sit down with a quill, a blank scroll, and the wide-eyed idea of writing “My Life and Times with Jesus of Nazareth.” This isn’t a travel diary with snapshots of Jesus feeding ducks by Galilee and selfies of the disciples squinting in the sun. Mark is no stenographer. He’s an author—and a sly one at that—who knew the whole tale before he scribbled the first word. And he doesn’t just tell it; he tells it with tricks. Foreshadowing, irony, punchlines you don’t see coming, and a climax that has the nerve to show up where polite Gospels would never put it.

And whose Gospel is this, anyway? Church history tells us that this is Peter’s Gospel, told through the hand of his sidekick Mark. Papias, the ancient gossip from the second century, assures us Mark was Peter’s interpreter. Which explains why the whole thing reads like a fisherman’s tale: raw, quick, messy, sometimes half-finished, but always alive. You can almost hear Peter blurting it out between gulps of air, while Mark frantically scratches it down before the old man forgets his point.

But here’s why I’ve fallen for Mark: it refuses to be house-trained. This Gospel is not the sanitized, velvet-draped Jesus we prefer to parade on Sunday mornings. Mark’s Jesus is bracing, abrasive, and often terribly inconvenient. He snaps at demons and disciples alike, keeps his own mother guessing, and seems intent on wrecking everyone’s tidy picture of religion. Everything here is upside-down and backwards: insiders turn out to be outsiders, the righteous turn out to be frauds, and the supposed losers—well, they just might be the ones who get it.

So I beg you: don’t come at this Gospel with your safe little notions intact. Imagine you’ve never heard of Jesus before. Let Mark’s Jesus run roughshod over your expectations. Because that’s what he’s here to do.

One more thing—Mark is short. Gloriously short. It was almost certainly read in one sitting by the first Christians, maybe even memorized in taverns and marketplaces. Today, we’re addicted to breaking it up into polite sermon-sized morsels. But Mark was meant to hit you like a thunderclap, not a leaky faucet. So before you settle into this commentary, do yourself the favor of reading it in one sitting. Better yet, listen to David Suchet’s magnificent reading at St. Paul’s Cathedral (it’s floating around on YouTube and Spotify). Let it wash over you once now—and again when you’ve finished. I dare you to come out the same.