No Christmas Story?
We haven’t really talked about the Christmas story proper yet.
There are four gospels in the Bible. Gospel means “good news.” Four different authors give the good news from their four different perspectives, each to a different audience. Each of them touch on Christ’s birth.
Except one.
Matthew gives a genealogy of Jesus and introduces us to the wise men.
Luke starts with John the Baptist, Jesus’s cousin, who was prophesied to prepare the peoples’ hearts for Messiah. It also gives us the detailed account of Jesus’s birth, and of the shepherds, that we all know thanks to Charlie Brown.
John gives a mind-blowing metaphysical lesson that ties creation to Jesus, the “Word made flesh.”
And Mark’s account of Jesus’s birth? He skips it.
The reasons he skips it make the gospel without a Christmas story a perfect contemplation for this final Sunday before Christmas, when my family will light the Advent candle of Purity.
Meet the King
Mark is a master editor.
His gospel is the shortest of the four, and it plays out like an action movie. Quick edits intentionally splice together scenes—sometimes scenes within scenes—where repetitions and contrasts communicate Mark’s themes.
He begins with John the Baptist. While he preaches repentance to the crowds who come to hear him, he baptizes them—dunks them in water—to symbolize their repentance (“turning”) from sin.
And he makes this bizarre declaration:
After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
John the Baptist, the Gospel of Mark 1:7-9
Enter this “mightier” one: Jesus comes to John to be baptized himself. It becomes clear even in the act of baptism that this is no mere man coming to cleanse himself of sin. The Holy Spirit descends on him, and a voice from Heaven announces, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
He is baptized, yet he had nothing to repent of. Who is this man of Purity? He tells us as he begins his preaching:
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.
Jesus, the Gospel of Mark 1:15
Mark’s editing makes clear who is the king of that kingdom. In a series of scenes, despite the differences in characters, a repetition occurs: People fall to their knees in front of Jesus.
Rich and poor. Men and women. Those with authority and those who are outcasts. Jews and Gentiles. Eventually soldiers, in mocking him, and even demons will do the same.
And through the course of these scenes, Jesus shows himself to be in authority over it all: demons, diseases, interpretation of Scripture, the Sabbath—“even the winds and the waves obey him.”
By the time the book hits its midpoint, Peter’s declares the theme: “You are the Christ.” He is Messiah, the Anointed One. We have met King Jesus.
And then the book takes a turn: Jesus announces to those closest to him that he came to suffer, be rejected and die.
The Abandoned King
Two scenes spliced together toward the end show us some of that suffering and rejection. Knowing the awful path before him, Jesus brings three of his closest followers to a garden so he can pray. But their “flesh is weak,” their eyes are heavy, and they fall asleep. Even when Jesus wakes them up, they fall back asleep. Twice.
In the next scene, Jesus is arrested. Judas, one of his followers, comes with an armed crowd. He kisses Jesus on the cheek in fake intimacy, a sign to the soldiers on who to arrest. Jesus’s followers abandon him, and we get an odd detail: Soldiers seize a young man following Jesus, but he abandons the garment he is in and runs away naked.
Mark’s editing is never an accident. What is going on here?
Plato’s Republic might help. In the book, Socrates and friends create a fictitious community to illustrate morality in a person. To paint with the broadest brushstrokes possible, Philosopher Kings, representing the rational head, are to rule the republic. They are assisted by the courageous Guardians, representing the passionate heart. Head, assisted by heart, rules over the “rabble,” the rest of the populace—representing the “gut” of desires and appetites.
Why must the Guardians, and therefore our hearts, be “courageous?” To Socrates, courage in our heart is like dye on wool. If it’s properly treated, the dye would be “incapable of being washed out by those solvents which are so frighteningly good at scouring—pleasure … and pain and aversion and desire, which outclass any solvent.”
To quote a patriotic bumper sticker, “These colors don’t run.”
No amount of scouring or solvent, no desire for pleasure or aversion to pain, should chase away our courage to do what is right.
Unless you are like the disciples in the garden with Jesus.
The three disciples were so comfortable in pleasure that they continued to fall asleep.
An Iranian Christian was able to flee her persecuted homeland to live in America. But she was disappointed in what she found here.
“There is a satanic lullaby here,” she said. “All the Christians are sleepy and I’m feeling sleepy.” Our comfortable, sensual, materialistic Western life is a danger.
In contrast, the naked young man feared the pain of arrest and persecution.
Scholars have guessed that the naked young man is John Mark himself, the author of the gospel. It makes sense: Later in the book of Acts, we learn that John Mark ran away a second time, abandoning St. Paul on a missionary journey.
Being a Christian in most places is incredibly dangerous. Just study our Christian brothers and sisters in Nigeria for a taste.
So John Mark gives himself a cameo without drawing attention away from the main event.
And, in a masterful stroke, he has shown us our need for repentance.
I crave pleasure, comfort more than God. So I don’t listen to him.
I fear the consequences of listening to God. So I value a variety of things over the pleasure of having him.
I suppose from a Platonic view, the three disciples and the naked young man have defective hearts. They did not have the Purity our candle highlights today. They weren’t educated properly to to give them enough courage to obey their heads.
But the gospel of Mark isn’t worried about that. Remember, this is gospel, “good news.”
The Kingdom Is at Hand
Shortly after his arrest, Jesus is put through a sham trial. Beaten. Mocked. Tortured. Beaten, mocked and tortured again. And finally executed.
This is Messiah, the king with authority over everything? Why does he submit to undeserved suffering, rejection and death?
The “good news” is this: All of those disciples who fell asleep or abandoned Jesus in the garden will be forgiven. They will be restored to relationship with Jesus.
This happens literally. Jesus cooks a meal for the disciples and intentionally restores Peter, one of the three disciples, to ministry. And late in his life Paul will call Mark back to ministry with him.
How is this restoration possible? Remember: Jesus will “baptize you with the Holy Spirit,” just as John the Baptist said, cleansing completely. His work on the cross is able to “save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
One more sobering note: The disciples were restored. But Judas, the betrayer, was not. He never repented. Encouraged by the crowd supporting him, he pretended to have intimacy with God.
I suspect we have all been guilty of pretending that our spiritual lives are in order. But the reality is that we are all in desperate need of restoration. The “good news” is that King Jesus came to make a way for that to happen.
This is the Advent: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
It was true at the first Christmas. And it is true now.
This is part of a series on Advent. Click here for an introductory post, the first candle, Expectation, the second candle, Hope, and the third candle, Joy.