A short introduction to St. Mark the Evangelist

On this, the Monday in the Octave of Easter, a brief introduction to St. Mark the Evangelist, whose feast is today:

Who was Mark? And what does he emphasize? According to an old tradition, he is supposed to have come from Jerusalem. His mother was called Mary. The first Christian congregation used to meet at her house for prayer and worship (cf. Acts 12:1-17). We find Mark as the companion of Barnabas in the first "mission team" led by Paul. And thereby "there arose a sharp contention" between Paul and Barnabas concerning him. This conflict even led the two great missionary apostles to separate for a while. Barnabas took Mark with him to his homeland of Cyprus, to carry on the mission there (Acts 15:36-40).

There was certainly a reconciliation later. Mark became a faithful assistant and brother to Paul, in prison in Rome. And Peter, too—already in Rome by that time, like Paul—calls Mark "my son" (1 Pet 5:13).

So we are not surprised that later tradition sees Mark as Peter's "interpreter", carefully writing down whatever he heard about Jesus from Peter. According to tradition, Peter sent Mark to Egypt, where he became "chief shepherd", the first bishop of the new Christian community.

Did Mark know Christ personally? Probably, at least at the end, when he was taken prisoner and suffered his Passion (cf. Mk 14:51f.). He certainly belonged to the milieu of the first congregation in Jerusalem. I wonder whether his picture of Jesus is not strongly influenced by Peter. For no other evangelist talks about Jesus in such a "human" way as he does. Anger and sorrow, Jesus' passionate emotional responses, are more clearly mentioned in Mark than in the other Gospels.

However human Jesus may appear here, it is Mark in particular who also strongly emphasizes his divinity. The climax of the whole Gospel is the witness of the Roman centurion, a pagan, looking at Jesus, who has died on the Cross: "Truly this man was the Son of God!" (Mk 15: 39) .

Everything Mark tells us about Jesus is intended to lead us to the same confession of faith as made by this soldier, who was in charge of putting Jesus to death in this agonizing way. Through his Gospel, Mark intends to bring about what he himself experienced with Paul and with Peter: that through stories about Jesus, people come to believe in him. Belief is what the Gospel is about; it is not simply a biography of an interesting person. The first of Jesus' sayings that Mark reports is an urgent challenge to believe: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mk 1: 15).

Changing the way we think, changing our way of life and converting, that is what the Gospel is about. The new way that Jesus shows us is not wide and comfortable. It demands our assent to our own cross. It costs a lot, but it gives us much more. Giving up the old way and walking in this new way is a good bargain.

From the Introduction to Behold, God's Son: Encountering Christ in the Gospel of Mark (Ignatius Press, 2007), by Christoph Cardinal Schönborn.