Yohanan Marcus was a young man, possibly of mixed Jewish and Roman parentage, living in Jerusalem early in the first century. In 33 AD he was probably in his mid to late teans and beginning to explore youthful independence, as one does. So one Thursday night, at the beginning of the Passover festival, he can be found in an olive grove, just over a mile from downtown Jerusalem. It seems that it was perhaps fairly warm, because it got round to midnight and he was there wearing just a long linen shirt.
Why he was there, we don't know. He might have had a secret liaison with a young lady. Maybe he was part of a gang lying in wait for an unsuspecting passerby, or even a lone bandit; this seems unlikely though, given what else we know about his family and his attire. Of course, there had been quite a stir in Jerusalem recently. There was this teacher, called Yeshua, who was persona non grata. The population of the city were cautious talking about him, so spoke in whispers. However, on Sunday, just four days ago, he'd entered the capital, riding on a young donkey and so fulfilling a prophecy from the Jewish scriptures. That had created a huge crowd, in defiance of the Jewish authorities, who hailed him as their Messiah and Son of David, the one annointed by God to put things right in Israel. However, things were different now: a group of soldiers and other officials had set off late that night to go to the grove and arrest Yeshua. It's possible that Yohanan Marcus had got wind of this and decided to tag along to see what would happen.
Anyway, from where he was hiding, he saw Yeshua being betrayed by one of his friends, the soliders bowing down to him for some reason, one of his other friends cut off one of the ears of a servant of the high priest and Yeshua heal it, and finally Yeshua himself being tied up and led away while all his friends ran off. A soldier noticed Yohanan and grabbed hold of his garment, but he managed to wriggle out of it and run back home naked.
This had been an interesting, exciting and perturbing experience for the young man. Yet he knew that there was probably going to be a trial, so he might well have joined the crowd later that morning who were watching what was happening. Eventually he would have heard them clammering for Yeshua to be crucified. After a long and confusing series of exchanges between them and the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilatus, he was led out of the city to be executed. There was a label nailed to the cross, stating that Yeshua was the King of the Jews. Yohanan may well have witnessed the crucifixion and seen the label, although it wouldn't have been clear to him at the time what it meant, because he wasn't one of his followers.
Then, of course, a couple of days later there was another stir in the city. Yeshua's supporters were claiming that he had come alive again, which seemed very unlikely given the beatings that he had been given, followed by crucifixion and a final test to check that he was dead by a spear being thrust into his side. On the other hand, the Jewish authorities were promulgating the official line that Yeshua's followers had stolen his body. This was the talk of the town and it was probably difficult for someone like Yohanan to know what to believe.
Almost two months later, there was yet another commotion when some of Yeshua's followers seemed to have suddenly learned a whole load of foreign languages and were preaching about him in what seemed to be every language under the sun. All very odd, but thousands of people joined them that day. Again, this was something not easily missed, whatever your opinion of it. It was perhaps sometime after this that Yohanan became a follower himself.
Eleven years later
Now the Jewish authorities started to clamp down on all this preaching, as they had on Yeshua himself. At one point in 44 AD, King Herod Agrippa imprisoned one of Yeshua's main followers, a man called Kephas. It got round to the night before Kephas was due to attend trial. Yeshua's mother, Miriam, was by this time a follower of Yeshua as well and had several friends round to her house, where they were praying together for Kephas. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. The servant girl, Rhoda, went to see who was there and came back saying Kephas was outside. Once he had come into the room, he explained that he had been chained between two guards in a locked prison, when an angel appeared and released him. Then Kephas left. Yohanan very likely witnessed these events at first hand.
At the time, Barnabas and Saul, two members of the church that had grown up in Antioch, quite a long way north, were visiting Jerusalem. They got to know Yohanan, and when they returned home he went with them and joined in with church life there. During a meeting in 47 AD, it was decided to send Barnabas and Saul out on a missionary journey. They had been impressed with Yohanan, so they took him with them. They sailed to Cyprus, where Yohanan experiened their preaching to the non-believers and their altercation with a powerful wizard. They then sailed to the south coast of modern day Turkey, where Yohanan decided to leave them to carry on by themselves, while he returned home to Jerusalem.
About two and a half years later, Saul (now calling himself Paul) suggested to Barnabas that they go on another ministry trip together. Barnabas wanted to take Yohanan again, but Paul didn't think that his reason for leaving them last time was good enough and so refused. Barnabas, however, could still see the potential in the young man and wanted to give him a second chance. In the end Barnabas, who was the senior parnter in the team, had his way, but only at the cost of losing Paul, who set up his own ministry team.
Sometimes we get it wrong, sometimes it's embarrassing, sometimes we even give up - but God is always faithful.
By now you may have worked out that this very Jewish story is that of the man known to us in English as John Mark, or Mark for short. Yeshua is the Aramaic form of Jesus, by which he would have been known in Israel, and Kephas is the Aramaic form of Peter, the chief of Jesus's disciples. Paul, of course, became one of the most famous and successful of the post-resurrection missionary apostles. Being thrown off his team was not a great career move. In fact, we don't hear anything about what Barnabas' team achieved on their second journey. Later, though, Mark reappears as a companion to Peter after he had moved to Rome. Peter was not a linguist or accomplished writer, so Mark translated Peter's recollections of Jesus from the Aramaic and gave them a structure, which became his Gospel.
Mark has gone from being Paul's quite public ministry-team reject, to Peter's scribe and interpreter. Even more telling, though, is that when Paul is in prison for the final time he asks Timothy to bring Mark to him, presumably prising him away from Peter to do so. Paul by now has decided that Mark is not just very useful, but also a great companion. He probably finished writing up his Gospel just after Paul and Peter had both been executed in 67 or 68 AD. It seems that he might have eventually moved to Alexandria, where he was martyred for his faith in Jesus.
Is this all just a religious romance, or is it the the real life story of John Mark, one of the most famous authors in history? The account above is what can be pieced together from Mark's own book, Luke's mentioning of him in Acts, some references in Paul's letters and a comment at the turn of the second century by Papias. Papias was a disciple of John and companion of Polycarp, who became Bishop of Hierapolis. His statement about Mark's authorship of Peter's memoires was later independently confirmed by other early Church leaders. The story in the Garden of Gethsemane is told only by Mark, so he clearly knew about it. Mark's Gospel is by far the shortest, because he is very selective about what he includes, so why did he write about the peripheral incident of the young man unless he had a personal interest in it, a bit like a cameo appearance by Alfred Hitchcock in his own films? Some scholars think that the evidence suggests that the young man was Mark; I tend to agree; it is the simplest and most obvious interpretation.
More important, though, is the fact that Mark has left us one of the four accounts of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. It is based on the teachings of Peter, who was with Jesus for the duration of his ministry, and probably put into a final structure using some of Mark's own first-hand knowledge of events in Jerusalem. Despite no attempt at chronological accuracy, he writes a compelling story, with a sense of immediacy. It has become the introductory Gospel for many a new Christian and rightly so, not just because it's shorter than the others, but also because it's a great read. It's so good that Mark didn't give up on Christian ministry when Paul didn't want to have anything to do with him, it's so important that he had Barnabas to encourage him to continue and help him on his way, and it's so great that God allows us another chance when we mess up.
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