Prepare for What is Coming

Homily for the Feast of St. Mark

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Mark, the evangelist. Scholars agree that this was the first of the Gospels to be written. They also agree that the second Gospel, that of St. Matthew, follows the outline of St. Mark’s Gospel very closely. However, just as is the case with each of the four Gospels, there is a distinctive character of St. Mark’s Gospel that cannot be overlooked.

St. Mark portrays Jesus as a blue-collared, compassionate, earthy, and constantly moving human being. He’s a carpenter who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty by touching bodily fluids and other people’s wounds. Jesus is always on a journey, a step ahead of his disciples so you feel an urgency in St. Mark’s Gospel account (the word, “immediately” occurs 27 times in Mark’s Gospel). His followers are often confused, afraid and, in some cases, run around naked! A few quotations from this Gospel will illustrate this point.

1. Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. (Mk 6:3)
2. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mk 6:34)
3. And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. (Mk 7: 32-25)
4. They were on the way, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went ahead of them. (Mk 10: 32)
5. Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked. (Mk 14: 51-52)
6. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. (Mk 6:34)

The fact that Jesus is very physical in his healings, touching and groaning and spitting, is present only in this Gospel. In addition, the word “suffering” appears in this Gospel more than in all the other Gospels combined. The audience of this Gospel seems to have been the Jewish-Christian community of Rome right before the persecutions of Christians began at the hand of the Roman Emperor.

By emphasizing the human nature of Jesus, and by emphasizing the fact that followers of Jesus will need to embrace suffering, St. Mark makes it very clear that the community should prepare for the coming persecutions. As one particular scholar put it, every episode of St. Mark’s Gospel bears the shadow of the cross on Calvary Hill.

Though we may not have been the intended audience for which St. Mark was writing, it has to be said that we too are being prepared for our embrace of the Christian vocation to suffer with the crucified Christ. This image was very much part of the mind of St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of our way of life. Let it be said that we are people who have come to embrace the cross.