This week recognizes St. Mark the Evangelist’s calendar day, April 25th. I wouldn’t just automatically know that, but I have one of those calendars that has red numbers for saints’ days.
Mark was/is very important, not because his gospel was written first, nor because it is one of the three synoptic gospels, but because it’s my favorite. “Synoptic” comes from the Greek word meaning synopsis. Mark, Matthew and Luke write to different cultures and audiences, and each has a particular slant on the happenings of Jesus’ ministry on earth.
Mark begins his gospel: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” (NRSV) We are at attention. This is one of the best once upon a times I’ve ever heard. We are about to hear a story, a very ancient story, one we will never forget, even though we will probably never quite believe it.
Mark’s writing is clipped, clear, concise, and concrete. He leaps onto a scene and simply writes what he sees and hears and what happened, as any good reporter would. )f course much of it was on the streets being told and therefore subject to some distortions. Yes, it was all news fit to print when printing became possible. What is news stays news when it changes people’s lives.
I was a newspaper reporter of local news many years ago, and I know how very hard it is to report accurately on any event while keeping your own interpretative thought and opinions out of it. Of course Mark was probably not present at every scenario he reports, but there is a very good chance that he knew lots about Jesus even if he was not in the original twelve of Jesus’s closest fellow travelers who became official disciples and had eye-witness advantages.
In general, it is important to remember that a number of years elapsed before anyone went public with the revelations they’d discovered. Also, that Paul was the first to write about Jesus’s divine identity, the Christ, the Anointed One. Christian orthodoxy tells us that Jesus is the word made flesh. He is God incarnate. He has two natures, one fully human and the other fully divine, neither compromising the other. I tell you a Mystery. What else is new? Still, be not deterred or discouraged, just read the story and you will find wisdom and parts of your self within the ancient story. I believe that the Bible is a collective memoir—full of truth and grace and wonder.
Why do I like Mark the best? Well, I didn’t always. At grieving times in my life, I’ve been drawn to John’s gospel, because it is more mystical, allows for offbeat spiritual reckonings and acknowledges the sorrow of Mary Magdalene, crouched before the empty tomb where her dead teacher and Lord was buried. BUT, he is gone. Where is the body? This is the way any great mystery novel begins, before it peels off into elaborate detective work and police searching for criminals.
But Magdalene’s search takes a sudden alarming and enlightening turn. She hears her Lord’s voice calling her name, "Mary". It is enough to raise her despair to hope. She runs to tell the other devotees, who do not believe her, until they too check out the empty tomb. It is empty. It’s true. The rest of the story can be summed in these words: “But what does it mean?”
Mark just tells the story from a more down-to-earth perspective. Markan language and literary style are different, but the story told has the same basic ingredients and ends simply with the empty tomb without further embellishment or explanatory revelations. We are left simply with the mysterious quest and question.
It is what still drive us today, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
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I offer an image of God and the relationship between divine and human, including the whole natural world of living things. The image is from the Hebrew word L’mantzeach: “To the Conductor of the Eternal Symphony.” Pamela Greenberg, author of “The Complete Psalms” a translation. She dedicates many of the psalms The Conductor of the Eternal Symphony—an image of God as “the arranger of the many diffuse aspects of existence.” (Greenberg, p. 323.)
I played in our high school orchestra too many years ago to count. I cringed when my clarinet squeaked, and/or if someone’s trumpet blasted in where it wasn’t time, or too loud or something. I’d feel sorry for the conductor, who nobly continued to direct the orchestra anyway for the sake of the whole production and for the integrity of the symphony itself. Greenberg writes: “the image suggests a deeply concerned, involved, and orchestrating God.”
To me, it also suggests that everyone and every variety of player and instrument is involved, has has a part to play, and each is essential to the harmony of the whole.
We make the best “music” together when we play our part well, and do not judge ourselves, punish or mock others, or violate the harmony. Such behavior is sinful, wounds the eternality as well as the finitude, and disturbs the fluidity of the “symphony” itself, not to mention making the “conductor’s” job a mockery.
May we trust each other and listen with respect to our own voices and all the others in this Creation. Why? We are all making a Symphony.
