we should endeavour to see this book as a whole; to gain the total
impression which it makes on the mind; to look at the picture of
Jesus Christ which it offers. That picture must inevitably be
an incomplete representation of Him; it will need to be supplemented
by other pictures which other writers have drawn.
But it is important to consider it by itself, as showing us what
impress the Master had made on the memory of one disciple who
had been almost constantly by His side.
The book opens thus: “The beginning of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.” This “beginning” is shown to be itself rooted
in the past. Hebrew prophets had foretold that
God would send a “messenger”; that a voice
would be heard saying, “Prepare the way of the
Beginning
of Christ’s Mission.
Lord.” And so, in fact, John came, baptizing in the wilderness
and turning the heart of the nation back to God. But John was
only a forerunner. He was himself a prophet, and his prophecy
was this, “He that is stronger than I am is coming after me.”
Then, we read, “Jesus came.” St Mark introduces Him quite
abruptly, just as he had introduced John; for he is writing
for those who already know the outlines of the story. “Jesus
came from Nazareth of Galilee.” He was baptized by John, and
as He came out of the water He had a vision of the opened
heavens and the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descending upon
Him; and He heard a Voice saying, “Thou art My Son, the
Beloved: in Thee I am well pleased.” He then passed away
into the wilderness, where He was tempted by Satan and fed
by angels. Then He begins His work; and from the very
first we feel that He fulfils John’s sign: He is strong. His first
words are words of strength; “the time is fulfilled”—that is to
say, all the past has been leading up to this great moment;
“the kingdom of God is at hand”—that is to say, all your
best hopes are on the point of being fulfilled; “repent, and
believe the Gospel”—that is to say, turn from your sins and
accept the tidings which I bring you. It is but a brief summary
of what He must have said; but we feel its strength. He does
not hesitate to fix all eyes upon Himself. Then we see Him call
two brothers who are fishermen. “Come after Me,” He says,
“and I will make you fishers of men.” They dropped their nets
and went after Him, and so did two other brothers, their partners;
for they all felt the power of this Master of men: He was strong.
He began to teach in the synagogue; they were astonished at His
teaching, for he spoke with authority. He was interrupted
by a demoniac, but He quelled the evil spirit by a word; He was
stronger than the power of evil. When the sun set the Sabbath
was at an end, and the people could carry out their sick into
the street where He was; and He came forth and healed them
all. The demoniacs showed a strange faculty of recognition,
and cried that He was “the holy one of God,” and “the Christ,”
but He silenced them at once. The next morning He was
gone. He had sought a quiet spot for prayer. Peter, one of
those fishermen whom He had called, whose wife’s mother had
been healed the day before, found Him and tried to bring
Him back. “All men are seeking Thee,” he pleaded. “Let
us go elsewhere” was the quiet reply of one who could not
be moved by popular enthusiasm. Once again, we observe, He
fulfils John’s sign: He is strong. This is our first sight of
Jesus Christ. The next shows us that this great strength is
united to a most tender sympathy. To touch a leper was
forbidden, and the offence involved ceremonial defilement. Yet
when a leper declared that Jesus could heal him, if only He
would, “He put forth His hand and touched him.” The act
perfected the leper’s faith, and he was healed immediately.
But he disobeyed the command to be silent about the matter,
and the result was that Jesus could not openly enter into the
town, but remained outside in the country. It is the first shadow
that falls across His path; His power finds a check in human
wilfulness. Presently He is in Capernaum again. He heals a
paralysed man, but not until He has come into touch, as we
say, with him also, by reaching his deepest need and declaring the
forgiveness of his sins. This declaration disturbs the rabbis,
who regard it as a blasphemous usurpation of Divine authority.
But He claims that “the Son of Man hath authority on earth to
forgive sins.” The title which He thus adopts must be
considered later.
We may note, as we pass on, that He has again, in the exercise of His power and His sympathy, come into conflict with the established religious tradition. This freedom from the trammels of convention appears yet again when he claims as a new disciple a publican, a Attitude towards Religious Tradition. man whose calling as a tax-gatherer for the Roman government made him odious to every patriotic Jew. Publicans were classed with open sinners; and when Jesus went to this man’s house and met a company of his fellows the rabbis were scandalized: “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” The gentle answer of Jesus showed His sympathy even with those who opposed Him: “The doctor,” He said, “must go to the sick.” And again, when they challenged His disciples for not observing the regular fasts, He gently reminded them that they themselves relaxed the discipline of fasting for a bridegroom’s friends. And He added, in picturesque and pregnant sayings, that an old garment could not bear a new patch, and that old wine-skins could not take new wine. Such language was at once gentle and strong; without condemning the old, it claimed liberty for the new. To what lengths would this liberty go? The sacred badge of the Jews’ religion, which marked them off from other men all the world over, was their observance of the Sabbath. It was a national emblem, the test of religion and patriotism. The rabbis had fenced the Sabbath round with minute commands, lest any Jews should even seem to work on the Sabbath day. Thus, plucking and rubbing the ears of corn was counted a form of reaping and threshing. The hungry disciples had so transgressed as they walked through the fields of ripe corn. Jesus defended them by the example of David, who had eaten the shewbread, which only priests might eat, and had given it to his hungry men. Necessity absolves from ritual restrictions. And he went farther, and proclaimed a principle: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, so that the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” For a second time, in justifying His position, He used the expression “the Son of Man.” The words might sound to Jewish ears merely as a synonym for “man.” For Himself, and possibly for some others, they involved a reference, as appears later, to the “one like to a son of man” in Daniel’s prophecy of the coming kingdom. They emphasized His relation to humanity as a whole, in contrast to such narrower titles as “Son of Abraham” or “Son of David.” They were fitted to express a wider mission than that of a merely Jewish Messiah: He stood and spoke for mankind. The controversy was renewed when a man with a withered hand appeared in the synagogue on the Sabbath, and the rabbis watched to see whether Jesus would heal him. For the first time, we read that Jesus was angry. They were wilfully blind, and they would rather not see good done than see it done in a way that contradicted their teachings and undermined their influence. After a sharp remonstrance, He healed the man by a mere word. And they went out to make a compact with the followers of the worldly Herod to kill Him, and so to stave off a religious revolution which might easily have been followed by political trouble.
Up to this point what have we seen? On the stage of Palestine, an outlying district of the Roman Empire, the home of the Jewish nation, now subject but still fired with the hope of freedom and even of universal domination under the leadership of a divinely anointed King, a new figure Recapitulation. has appeared. His appearance has been announced by a reforming prophet, who has summoned the nation to return to its God, and promised that a stronger than himself is to follow. In fulfilment of this promise, who is it that has come? Not a rough prophet in the desert like John, not a leader striking for political freedom, not a pretender aiming at the petty throne of the Herods, not even a great rabbi, building on the patriotic foundation of the Pharisees who had secured the national life by a new devotion to the ancient law. None of these, but, on the contrary, an unknown figure from the remote hills of Galilee, standing on the populous shores of its lake, proclaiming as
