Last week we left Mark sailing east with the south shore of Asia Minor sinking into the horizon.  It may have been the lowest point of  his young life.

THE DESERTION.  It happened early on Paul and Barnabas’ first mission trip.  “Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia (south Asia Minor—today’s Turkey).  And John (also known as Mark, Barnabas’ younger cousin) left them and returned to Jerusalem” (Acts 13:13).  “Left” was a kind word.

Some time after that mission trip ended Paul suggested to Barnabas they return to the newly-planted churches.  “Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.  But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn (the Greek word implies “deserted”) from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.  And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other” (Acts 13:37-39a).  Imagine two early church leaders so provoked they openly argue and split!  Mark’s “leaving” must have been desertion.  That’s why (together with Mark likely belonging to a well-to-do family) I see him as a somewhat-spoiled, direction-less young man.

THE DECADE.  Ten years pass.  The apostle Paul has been imprisoned in Rome.  He ends a letter to the Colossian church:  “Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, and Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him), and Jesus who is called Justus.  These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me” (Colossians 4:10,11).  Mark has become a commended fellow worker with Paul!  About the same time Paul ends a letter to a friend named Philemon:  “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus sends greetings to you, and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers (Philemon 23).

Apparently Paul soon was freed from imprisonment in Rome and resumed his missionary ministry.  Then he was re-arrested and imprisoned and sentenced to death.  In his final letter Paul gave closing instructions to his young associate Timothy:  “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica, Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.  Luke alone is with me.  Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry” (2 Timothy 4:9-11).  A decade earlier Paul had sharply argued against Mark’s presence on a mission trip.  Now he wanted Mark with him in Rome, because “he is very useful to me for ministry”

THE DIFFERENCE.  What changed Mark?  The transforming power of God the Holy Spirit.   “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).  As we “behold the glory of the Lord” in his Word and in our new nature, the Spirit progressively makes us corrupted sinners  into image-bearers of the Lord.  But the Spirit also works through the influence of other believers.  For Mark, they were probably . . .

Cousin Barnabas.  After Paul and Barnabas split, “Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus” (Acts 15:39b).  It was a mission trip on which Barnabas the Encourager certainly mentored Mark in faithful, courageous ministry.

The Apostle Paul.  Before Mark had deserted he, Paul and Barnabas had evangelized the island of Cyprus and spent days traveling on board ship.  It’s not unlikely that a bit of Paul “rubbed off” on Mark.

The Apostle Peter.  About the same time Paul wrote his “prison letters” from Rome, Peter wrote letters to the churches.  He ended the first with these greetings:  “She (the church) who is at Babylon (a “code” reference to Rome), who is likewise chosen, send you greetings, as does Mark, my son” (1 Peter 5:13).  Peter’s relationship with Mark had grown so close Peter called him “my son.”   From this relationship came the Gospel according to Mark!  According to Eusebius, an early 4th century church leader, “In the same reign of [Roman Emperor] Claudius (died 54 A.D.) the Providence of the universe . . . guided to Rome the great and mighty Peter . . . preaching the Gospel . . . But . . . the hearers of Peter . . . were not satisfied with a single hearing . . . but with every kind of exhortation besought Mark . . . seeing that he was Peter’s follower, to leave them a written statement of the teaching given them verbally, nor did they cease until they had persuaded him, and so became the cause of the Scripture called the Gospel of Mark” (ESV Study Bible).  Mark, once rejected by Paul, was chosen and inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the Gospel—in part because as “Peter’s follower” he had learned it from the apostle.

WHAT MEETING MARK MEANS FOR US. Assuming my supposition that early on Mark was direction-less, we might ask, “Is there a “Mark” in my life?  A young man with no clue about what to do with his life?  An old, lonely widow who thinks she’s of little use to anyone?”  If so, maybe we can be Barnabas or Paul or Peter to them.  Maybe we can speak encouragement or “rub off” or teach.  Maybe we can pray the Holy Spirit will work through us to transform that young man or older woman into an image-bearer of Christ at this point in his or her life.  Our young person or senior citizen won’t write a gospel.  But if he or she hears and responds to God’s call in Christ, then the Spirit will have done a “Mark” again—this time, at least in part, through us!

Maybe my glasses are dirty.  But I see Mark as a somewhat spoiled, direction-less young man.  Of course, it’s risky to use the bare-bones description of someone in Scripture to flesh out a full person.  I’ll take the risk, though, because I’m intrigued by Mark.

WHAT WE KNOW OF MARK.  Mark lived in Jerusalem with his mother Mary.  The house was large enough to hold prayer meetings, as it did the night Peter was miraculously freed from prison (Acts 12:12).  That Acts calls it Mary’s house may imply that Mark’s father had died.  The house- size and the presence of a servant girl (Acts 12:13) may suggest the family enjoyed some measure of wealth.

Mark had a cousin named Barnabas (Colossians 4:10), who with Saul (later known as Paul) were teachers in the Antioch, Syria church (Acts 13:1).  On one occasion they delivered famine relief to the brothers in Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30), about 300 miles south.  When they returned, they brought with them “John, whose other name was Mark” (Acts 12:25).

Later, as the Antioch leaders were praying, the Holy Spirit spoke: “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2).  The “work” was to take the Gospel to Gentiles in Asia Minor.  They took Mark with them, probably at cousin Barnabas’ suggestion.

Then Mark did something which makes me see him as spoiled and direction-less. When they reached the southern shore of Asia Minor  ” . . . John (Mark) left them and returned to Jerusalem” (Acts 13:13).  The Greek verb translated “left” can mean “abandoned, deserted without concern for what was left.”  Apparently Mark’s leaving upset Paul.   Months later when he and Barnabas were setting out to visit the churches they had planted on this first trip (Acts 15:36), “Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.  But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphyilia and had not gone with them to the work.  And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.  Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord” (Acts 37-40).

Again, this is why I see Mark as spoiled and direction-less despite cousin Barnabas’ attempt to make a man out of Mark on the mission trip.

WHEN WE’RE DIRECTION-LESS.    Blessed today are the young people with direction.  Many have none.  As Diana West notes in her definitively-titled book, The Death of the Grown-Up. “Once upon a time, in the not too distant past, childhood was a phase, adolescence did not exist, and adulthood was the fulfillment of youth’s promise.  No more.  A profound civilizational shift has taken place . . .  ”  (Preface, (p. xv).  In other words, youth’s direction once was toward adulthood.  Now we’ve created “perpetual adolescence.”  I argue that the individual young person isn’t entirely to blame.  “Societal norms” encourage the adolescent to remain adolescent (to say nothing of adults!).  Just deciding which vocation to choose out of myriads is a mind-numbing challenge.

Young people aren’t the only direction-less ones.  So are retirees.  I should know; I’m one.  Freedom from the demanding schedule of a job easily becomes a tragedy.  John Piper, in his book Don’t Waste Your Life, tells about a February 1998 “Reader’s Digest” story about a couple who “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells.” Piper laments, “Tragically, this was the dream: Come to the end of your life—your one and only precious, God-given life—and let the last great work of your life, before you give an account to your Creator, be this: playing softball and collecting shells. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.'”  This “American Dream” is, as Piper diagnoses it, a tragedy.  No purpose.  No direction.  No reason for living bigger than entertaining yourself.

So what can we do?  Here a few suggestions.

1. Realize God has a purpose for your life.  This is true whether we’re young people with the future stretching ahead or retirees with only a short while left.  You are God’s creation.  If you’ve trusted your life to Christ, you are God’s child.  He made us and redeemed us to use us to make much of him in a world that makes almost nothing of him.
2. Regularly read God’s Word.  Note especially how God called and used all sorts of people.  See how ill-equipped they were for the magnitude of the task he called them to.  Learn from your reading that God uses ordinary people to further his extraordinary saving work in the world, whether your part in it is preaching the Gospel or printing cookbooks or repairing airplane engines.
3. Perseveringly pray for God to show you his way for you.  Since God has a purpose for your life at this point in your life, it makes sense to ask him what it is.  It’s somewhat maddening that God doesn’t directly or quickly answer.  Partially this is because the search for our direction is really a seeking after him.  But providentially, sometimes through ways least expected, he’ll nudge you into the course he wants.  And in that course you will be fulfilled.

We leave deserter-Mark finding a ship to take him from south Asian shores.  As it  plowed wind-driven into the waters of the Mediterranean, Mark left without direction, without purpose.  We don’t have to be.

(*Suggestion:  First, grab your Bible and read Mark 11:20-14:11.  You’ll understand this post better if you read the Scripture.  Remember:  The Old Preacher’s job is just to pass on God’s Word.)

The conflict begins.  Not physical, just verbal.  But tension is building.  The controversy between Jesus and Jewish leaders has become a life-and-death struggle.  Either Jesus must die or Jerusalem must fall.  The kingdom of God (see Mark 1:14,15)  cannot peacefully co-exist with the kingdoms of this world, be they religious or secular.  Mark fills Tuesday’s news with the growing conflict.

Preparing for the Day.  In the morning Jesus and the disciples pass by Monday’s cursed fig tree.  “Rabbi, look!” Peter exclaimed.  “The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”  Jesus answered, “Have faith in God.  Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown in to the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him” (Mark 11:20-23).   Jesus was preparing the Twelve for what lay ahead.  Israel (symbolized by the fig tree) would fall.  Life would turn upside down.  But they must have faith in God.  Their believing prayer could move mountains.  As Philip Yancey wrote, “Faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”

Facing the Conflicts.  In 14:1,2 Mark will make it clear that “the chief priests and scribes were seeking how to arrest [Jesus] by stealth and kill him, for they said, ‘Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.'”  Passover pilgrims packed the city.  Many hoped Jesus was Messiah.  Arrest Jesus in the middle of that mob and a riot is sure to erupt!  So for now the conflict will be verbal.

The chief priests, scribes and elders fire the first salvo.  “By what authority are you doing these things . . . ?” (Mark 11:28).  If he said, “God’s”, they’d claim they represented God’s authority.  If he said, “Mine”,  they’d claim theirs exceeded even a miracle-worker’s like him.  They thought they had him.  But Jesus used a common debate tactic, turned the tables on them and they found themselves had (Mark 11:29-33).

Other temple visitors were listening, of course.  It was an opportunity Jesus seized to fire a salvo of his own.  He told a parable about a vineyard owner who sent a series of servants to collect fruit from his tenant farmers.  But the tenants refused, abused the servants and even killed some.  Finally they even killed the owner’s son.  “What will the owner of the vineyard do?  He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others.  Have you not read this Scripture:  ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone . . . ?'” (Mark 12:1-11).  Jesus’ interrogators would have grabbed him that minute.  (They knew he told the parable against them.)  But, fearing the people, they simply sulked away (Mark 12:12).

Try again.  ” . . . they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians (representing two sects in Judaism) to trap him in his talk.”  After flattering Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  Jews hated Caesar.  So a simple “yes” would have made Jesus a friend of Jewish oppressors, while “no” would have been grounds for treason.  You know how he answered, right?  If not, read Mark 12:15-17.  Everybody “marveled at him.”

Next came Sadducees (another sect) who didn’t believe in a last-day resurrection.  (Did they not think how their belief clearly showed the hypocrisy of their question?)  They wanted to know if a woman had seven husbands who died, whose wife would she be in the resurrection!  Jesus demolished both their question and their belief.  ” . . . when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage.”   Furthermore, when God spoke to Moses he was still Abraham’s, Isaac’s and Jacob’s God–the God of the living.   ” . . . you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Mark 12:18-27).  Whoops.

“Which commandment is the most important of all?” one of the scribes standing nearby asked.  With hundreds of commandments, rabbis debated this incessantly.  Maybe this could somehow trap the Teacher.  Love the one God with your whole being and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus replied.  The scribe was so impressed he actually congratulated Jesus (Mark 12:28-34)!

Warnings about the Scribes.  According to Mark, Tuesday’s conflicts were over.  But Jesus had two warnings for the crowds about the scribes.  (Scribes were authorities on Jewish law.)  The first came in question form: “How can the scribes says that the Christ is the son of David?”  In other words, how could Messiah be both David’s son and David’s Lord?  The question (which Jesus didn’t answer) implied that Messiah would bring a different kind of kingdom than anybody understood–including the scribes.  The second warning was against following the scribes who were hypocrites and would one day receive great condemnation (Mark 12:35-40).  Jesus pointed to (of all people) a poor widow who exemplified both the emptiness of hypocrisy and the nature of the messianic kingdom.  Many rich people were making a show of putting large sums of money into the temple treasury, while a poor widow modestly dropped in a penny–all she had to live on.  Jesus explained, ” . . . this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing . . . ” (Mark 12:41-44).  Different kind of kingdom for sure!  One in which outward signs of importance mean nothing.

Warnings about Coming Judgment.  Continuing his implications about the nature of his kingdom and assuring his disciples that he would win the war against his opponents, Jesus warned of coming judgment.  These  impressive temple buildings would be destroyed.  Wars, earthquakes and famines would mark coming days.  They would be “birth pains of the kingdom”.   Jesus’ followers would suffer.  But in the end (no one knows when that will be) , “they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.”  So they must not be misled by false messiahs.  They must “stay awake”, living with that end in view (Mark 12:1-37).

Plotting the Betrayal.  By Tuesday night Jewish authorities have decided they must wait to arrest and kill Jesus until Jerusalem empties after Passover (Mark 14:1,2).  Meanwhile, back in Bethany, Jesus knows death is imminent.  When a woman pours expensive perfume over his head, he explains, ” . . . she has anointed my body beforehand for burial” (Mark 14:3-9).  In fact, in the darkness of that very night Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, “went to the chief priests in order to betray [Jesus] to them” (Mark 14:10,11).

So the conflict’s outcome was settled.  Jerusalem would stand.  Jesus would die.  But, in view of Jesus’ prediction of judgment falling and of his coming, was something more happening here than met the eye?  If so, was it something that would change the world–and our lives–forever?

Passover visitors praised Jesus as he entered Jerusalem that Sunday.

And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.  And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!  Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:810).

Jesus’ miracles had fueled Jewish hope that he was the son-of-David Messiah the Lord had promised 900 years earlier.  “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom . . . I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Samuel 7:12b,13b).

Passover kindled their expectations.  Pilgrims come to commemorate rescue from Egyptian slavery 1400 years earlier packed the city.  As Moses had freed the Jews from Egyptian slavery, so they expected this messianic son of David would free them from Roman oppression.

But expectations flickered when Jesus didn’t fight.  “ . . . he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.  And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve” (Mark 11:11).

Jesus doesn’t act according to our script.  We don’t like that.  We don’t understand.  Preachers who portray Jesus as a genie in a lamp ready to grant our every wish only deepen our disillusionment when he doesn’t.  Let’s get it straight.  Jesus calls us to follow his script.

The last Monday dawns.  “On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.  And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it.  When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.  And he said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’  And his disciples heard it (Mark 11:12-14).

What’s with that?  Jesus the spoiled brat?  No breakfast from that tree!  A death-curse be on it!  But things will get more startling this last Monday.

“And they came to Jerusalem.  He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.  And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.  And he was teaching them and saying to them, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?  But you have made it a den of robbers.’  And the chief priests and scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.  And when evening came they went out of the city” (Mark 11:15-19).

Passover visitors didn’t cart their sacrifices with them.  They bought them at the marketplaces east of the city.  Business was so successful new ones had opened in the outer temple courts–“The Court of the Gentiles”, where Gentiles could approach Israel’s God and pray to him.  But merchants had made the place of prayer for “the nations” a place of profit for themselves.  That Monday for a few hours Jesus ground the whole business to a halt.

What’s going on here?  First Jesus curses an empty fig tree.  Then he violently shuts down the temple.  What’s happening is a mini-judgment day.  The barren fig tree symbolized Israel—a God-called nation that bore no fruit of righteousness.  The temple symbolized God’s living presence among the nation—but Jews had turned the temple into a business, while smugly assuming God was on their side.  When Jesus cursed the fig tree he  symbolized God’s judgment on Israel.  When Jesus cleansed the temple he briefly executed judgment on Israel.

Imagine Jesus in our church sanctuary during Sunday morning worship overturning chairs and bashing instruments and throwing books around the room.  This is no “sweet Jesus meek and mild”!  This Jesus gets angry when we dishonor his Father.  This Jesus turns into a judge when we reject him.

The last Monday is a bitter appetizer of judgment to come.  ” . . . because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5).  Safety can be found only in the one who unleashed a taste of God’s judgment that last Monday.