I remember it as if it were yesterday.  It was one of the first classes I took in seminary.  It was a graduate course in the Gospel of Mark.  The class was taught by Dr. Leon Rosentals, Emeritus Professor of New Testament.  He was a scholar of great distinction, having studied under one of the greatest biblical minds of the 20th century, Rudolf Bultman. 

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  The first day of class he entered the room, a tall grey haired Latvian.  “Mr. Meyer,” he said, “please read and translate the first verse, Mark 1 verse 1.”  I remember looking at my Greek New Testament and feeling a certain relief as I counted the seven Greek words that begin the book of Mark. Seven words, I thought, this I can do.  I read the first word, “arche” and translated it, “The beginning”.  The next two words were to be translated together “tou euangeliou” “the good news, gospel”And then the name I knew well, “Jesu Christu uiou Theou” “Jesus Christ the son of God”.  I remember looking up from my text as he asked, “What have you just read?”  “The first verse” I replied.  “An introduction, maybe a title.”  “No,” he said, “you have just read the entire Gospel.  It is all in the one word, ‘euangeliou’, the good news.  This is what you are called to proclaim.”  He spoke with a heavy Latvian accent.  “This is what you are called to be.  Let us hope that someday there will be a people who will see you as the good news they have been waiting for.”  And for the next four weeks Dr. Rosenthals lectured on the seven words that begin the Gospel of Mark.

Today is April 25 which is a day that the early church set aside as a special day to remember the author of the second gospel in our New Testament.  Mark is the oldest and shortest of the four gospels with almost every word also used as a basis for the gospels of Matthew and Luke.  While Mark was an extremely common name in the time of the Roman Empire, many scholars are inclined to identify the author of the Gospel of Mark with the references to the Mark and/or John Mark mentioned in the New Testament book of Acts as well as in letters by Paul and Peter.  We first hear of Mark in Luke’s story of the early church in the book of Acts.  When Peter, imprisoned in Jerusalem for preaching about Jesus, is miraculously released by an angel, we are told in the 12th chapter of Acts that he goes immediately to the house of Mary (another common name) who was, the text tells us, the mother of John whose other name was Mark.  Some scholars and various traditions also hold that it was in the upper room of this Mary’s house where the disciples gathered after Jesus ascended into heaven to receive the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian church.  John Mark would have had an early connection with Peter, one of the great leaders of the Christian church.  Tradition says that Peter first taught Mark about Jesus and it was Peter’s recollections of time with Jesus that formed one of the primary sources for Mark’s gospel. 

Mark quickly encountered the euangeliou, the good news of Jesus.  He witnessed the miraculous delivery of Peter from prison and certain death at the hands of King Herod.  He also experienced the rapidly emerging compassion of the growing faith community when communities outside Jerusalem sent food and other supplies with the apostle Paul and Barnabas as relief to the city caught up in a very severe famine.  And when Paul and Barnabas left Jerusalem to return to Antioch, the book of Acts tells us that John Mark traveled with them.  Shortly after that the Antiochian community decided to send Paul and Barnabas on the first of their missionary journeys around the north Mediterranean.  The young John Mark traveled with them.  The journey was not easy, and when the missionary team reach Pamphylia in what is now southern Turkey and prepared to head further north into the mountains, John Mark decided to turn back.  The apostle Paul appears to have been troubled by Mark’s actions.  A couple years later, when it came time for a second missionary journey, Paul did not want to bring Mark along.  Mark’s cousin, Barnabas disagreed with Paul and in the end Paul and Silas head for Syria and Cilicia while Barnabas and Mark head for Cyprus.  But if Paul was upset with Mark, it appears that his objections were short lived.  The gospel of reconciliation was not just a message Jesus preached but a witness that Paul and Mark would model.  While on his third mission trip, Paul mentions Mark in several of his letters to the early churches and encourages them to receive Mark with a hearty welcome.  On at least one occasion it is clear from the letters that Mark was imprisoned with Paul for preaching about Jesus.  Tradition also makes Mark the one who helped to establish the early Christian church in Alexandria in Egypt.  This church would produce some of the greatest minds of the early Christian community with figures like Athanasius, Origen, Clement and Cyril of Alexandria all rising from the church Mark is often credited with creating and caring for. 

The last reference to Mark we find in Paul’s letters is found in our second lesson for today.  Paul writing from Rome as he faces almost certain death concludes his second letter to the young pastor Timothy with a personal request that he do his best to come to Rome soon.  And then Paul adds “Get Mark and bring him with you; for he is very useful in serving me.”We are not sure in what ways Paul found Mark useful but it may have been his ability to articulate the euangeliou, the good news.  Two verses later in this letter, omitted from today’s lesson, Paul reminds Timothy to remember to bring Paul’s cloak that he had left with Carpus at Troas and then he says, don’t forget to bring the books and above all the parchments.  Could these have been early drafts of Mark’s gospel?  At any rate we know from the 3rd letter ascribed to Peter that Mark clearly does arrive in Rome and there is welcomed fondly.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the son of God.  Today is the commemoration day for St. Mark, Evangelist.  The Greek word we translate as good news is also the source for our English words, evangelist and evangelical.  Mark is the first to use this word in the Bible and the first to connect the good news to Jesus.  To be an evangelist in the tradition of the gospel writer is to be a proclaimer of the good news.  As a congregation we are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is to say we are the good news church.  In most countries of the world outside the United States the Lutheran church is simply known as the evangelical church.  In this country our associations with being evangelical are sometimes unfortunately narrow and self focused.  But the good news to most of the rest of the world is our evangelical witness.  The evangelical churches of Germany and Scandinavian countries are the Lutheran churches working in mission and outreach.  The world wide evangelical Lutheran church brings not just churches but schools and hospitals to African, Asian and South American peoples.  It is the evangelical hospital in Jerusalem originally established by the Germans and now supported with training, personnel and equipment from our Advocate Lutheran General Hospital here in the Chicago suburbs that cares for the majority of Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian territories. 

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the son of God.  There was something about the first gospel written by Mark that captured the hearts, minds and spirit of those who heard it.  A story that begins without any Christmas nativity scene, no manger in Bethlehem, shepherds, angel choirs or star guided wise men, but rather a beginning with a voice proclaiming the need to prepare the way, roaring like a lion in the wilderness (hence the image associated with Mark is a that of a winged lion).  It begins for Mark as it does for all of us with baptism.  The first picture Mark gives us of Jesus is that of him rising out of the waters of the Jordan River after being baptized by John.  Dripping wet Jesus is then further anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit and a voice from heaven that claims him as God’s son just as Mark told us in the very first verse of his writing.  For Mark the good news needs to be proclaimed.  There is an urgency to the message.  Mark wants to get to the heart of the story as quickly as possible.  As soon as Jesus is baptized Mark writes that “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness”.

Immediately.  There is no word Mark uses more often as he begins to write his gospel.  In the space of 18 verses he uses the word “immediately” 6 times.  To Mark the whole purpose for writing his gospel was the need to proclaim the good news.  Our problem today is that we no longer know or even think of news as something that can be good.  Look at the networks and media and you quickly realize that for the most part only bad news is deemed worthy of coverage.  Every action and statement reported is parsed and analyzed to find something that must be wrong with it.  Political campaigns are waged in terms of what is wrong with the opponent rather than in proposing constructive or meaningful ideas.  The negative is the news.  The reports of the wars, the economy, the environment, the legislative process, even the traffic and weather focuses on the worst, the most dire.  A good news story is usually the last thing reported if it is reported at all.  But the good news Mark proclaims is the ground and foundation for surviving and rising again from the deadening impact of the bad news. 

What Mark makes clear is that the good news is not just a matter of words.  I can tell you all sorts of good news:  The sun is shining, or will be in a day or two; you passed the test; the surgery went well; you have the job.  Good news that matters is more than just the news of the moment, more than just words.  Jesus did not just proclaim good news, he was the good news, the living incarnation of the words.  To the homeless seeking shelter the good news is not the announcement that Habitat for Humanity will build them a house but that volunteers from places like Holy Spirit will be there on Saturday to work.Good news incarnate.  To the hungry the good news is not that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone but that there is a bag of food at the food pantry waiting for them.  To the imprisoned woman in Dwight Illinois the good news is that Lutheran Social Services of Illinois is providing transportation for their child to come to see their mother so she is more than just a voice on the phone.  To the grieving the good news is not that the sadness will pass but that the community remembers and cares and is present in prayer and in person.

We are to be an evangelical people, the good news people.  That doesn’t mean that there will no longer be any bad news but it does mean that we know how the story ends.  That’s what Mark declared to be our starting point.  The good news of Jesus Christ.  A message of hope and promise, reconciliation, caring and love.  The good news that God has declared that the final word concerning each of our lives will not depend on what we say or even what we do but our faith in a loving and eternal God.  What the gospel of Mark declares is that each of us are not only to hear the good news but we can become good news to those who have not yet heard, those who do not yet believe, those who do not yet live in a world that is being reformed by the good news. 

Mark was an evangelist.  Mark was a proclaimer of good news.  We also bear the name evangelical. 

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the son of God.  I remember it as if it were yesterday.  Dr. Rosenthal’s words still echo in my head.  “This is what you are called to be.  Let us hope that someday there will be a people who will see you as the good news they have been waiting for.” 

Amen