named,Perhaps the fastest trial in the history of the Roman government, as the unprecedented nature of events left the Jewish rulthe Roman government and the followers of Jesus in utter disbelief. Early in the morning, the entire body of the Sanhedrin gathered and made plans to kill Jesus. They bound Him up and took Him…
Category: Mark
With Swords and Clubs – Mark 14
After finishing their meal, Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn and left for a place called Gethsemane. Jesus had come to the earth to accomplish the will of the Father and His ministry of more than three years was culminating to this very day. His soul was overwhelmed with sorrow as the hour of…
The Last Supper – Mark 14
The proximity of the Passover festival temporarily halted the plans of the chief priests and the teachers of the law from scheming and how to secretly arrest and kill Jesus. They were afraid that the capture of Jesus during the time when Jerusalem was already flooded with tourists from the surrounding states, would only diminish…
The Temple – Mark 13
Having established how the teachers of the law devoured the house of the widows but enjoyed the adoration from the elite (Mark 12:39-40), Jesus presented them with an example of what is God looking for in His people. While in the temple, Jesus was observing the crowds putting money into the collection boxes. The wealthy…
Evidence Gathering – Mark 12
After Jesus had cleared the temple of the various merchants, He called out the Jewish leaders for turning the house of the Lord into a den of robbers. This did not sit well with the chief priests and the teachers of the law, as they started looking for ways to kill Him. They questioned the…
A Grand Entrance – Mark 11
As Jesus and His disciples approached Jerusalem for their final trip to the hill city, they came to the familiar town of Bethany on the Mount of Olives. This was a regular halt point for the group as it was home to many of Jesus’ close followers. While preparing to head for Jerusalem, Jesus asked…
Seizing the Opportunity – Mark 10
Jesus was teaching in the region of Judea as the Pharisees were looking for an opportunity to trap Jesus. They knew about Jesus’ closeness with John the Baptist, who was killed for speaking out against the extramarital affairs of king Herod. They wanted to use this opportunity to try and get Jesus to speak against…
The Transfiguration – Mark 9
Almost a week later, Jesus took Peter, James and John and went up to a high mountain. When they were all alone, His appearance transfigured before their very eyes. His clothes became the brightest shade of white, unattainable by any of our earthly dyes. Definitely nothing close to what the disciples could have imagined as…
The Bread and the Yeast – Mark 8
During His time in the gentle region, there was another large gathering which caused Jesus to have compassion over the people. Again due to the remoteness of the place, there was no way to feed everyone who had gathered. Jesus asked His disciples to gather up all the bread and fish that they could find…
The Defiled Are Welcome – Mark 7
Jesus’ popularity had garnered so many admirers that the pharisees in Jerusalem simply could not ignore Him anymore. The scribes and the teachers of the law were sent to the region to keep a close watch on this new man of God that seemingly had the whole northern country of Galilee buzzing with excitement. They…
Prophet Without Honor – Mark 6
Having raised the daughter of a prominent synagogue leader, Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth and was given a chance to speak in His own synagogue. Those who had gathered were amazed at His teaching and were beginning to question His origins. Where had He learned everything? Isn’t he the son of the carpenter?…
The Restorer – Mark 5
After the ordeal that the disciples faced in the lake, Jesus brought them to the other side, to a place that they perhaps had never visited ever before in their lives. That day they were about to witness three completely different but equally astonishing miracles in the lives of ordinary people like them. Ordinary by…
The Sermon on the Boat – Mark 4
After His confrontation with the Pharisees, Jesus once again went to the lakeside to reveal the secrets of heaven. He got into the boat and narrated a string of parables focusing on the word of God. There is even a practical application of His teachings as at the end of this sermon on the boat, Jesus asked His disciples to go out to the sea where they faced storms like they had never faced before and their faith in Jesus is tested.
The Case Against Jesus – Mark 3
When watching a nature documentary we realise that even though big cats like lions and tigers are ferocious killing machines, their hunts are usually covert operations. A tiger uses its skin pigmentation to hides among the tall grasses and patiently waits for its hunt. Watching a pack of deers enter its field of vision, would be a mouth-watering prospect for sure, but it still waits for the deer to be separated from its group. Only when the deer is alone perhaps drinking water with its back turned does the tiger pounces on its prey. For an animal who is starving for the flesh, it still knows how to pick the opportune moment. Similarly, satan who is desperate for our soul knows when to stay silent and when to attack. When we feel disconnected from God, satan takes advantage of our situation and tries to separate us from God. He does not have to do much but uses the compassion of our father to sow seeds of doubt in our minds. The same compassion that has sustained us for all our lives, he seeks to use against us. The Pharisees had Jesus cornered and had home-field advantage. All they had to do was just remain silent till Jesus showed His compassionate heart. Then they would pounce on him with a flurry of accusations that will sow seeds of doubts in the hearts of His followers, leaving Jesus vulnerable and be caught by them.
The God of Sinners – Mark 2
Faith can work wonders and bring us even the unexpected. The men had brought their friend to Jesus to make his life on earth easier but by forgiving his sins, Jesus made his eternity better. Jesus knows the heart and he knew what was in the paralyzed man’s heart. When someone around us gets blessed, we try to equate their past actions and try to justify their path to their blessing not knowing anything about their relationship with God. People would have written off the paralysed man as a sinner but Jesus forgave his sins as He looks at the heart. Do we realise that Jesus knows the ins and outs of our hearts, or is our spirit paralysed to not even feel the presence of the Creator in our lives?
The Good News – Mark 1
Although the other Gospel writers, place the arrest of John the Baptist much later, Mark starts his account of Jesus’s ministry after John had been put in prison. On hearing about the arrest of John, Jesus proclaims to His followers that the time has come. The political leaders of Israel were cognizant of the role that the chief priests, Rabbis and even prophets played in keeping the peace. Throughout the Gospel, we read how the Pharisees wanted to prevent an uprising, the very reason they gave to put Jesus on the cross. But the imprisonment of John, a prominent prophet who had a lot of followers from the Judean countryside meant that the government officials were ready to capture and execute the previously protected group of the Jewish leaders. According to them Jesus also fell into that group and coupled with the fact that He was traveling with anarchists within His disciples, made it easier for them to execute Him. This would still happen a couple of years later but Jesus knowing all this told His disciples beforehand.
The Greatest Hits Gospel – Mark (Prologue)
While the accounts of Luke and Matthew tried to capture the early years of Jesus, Mark jumps starts his version from the start of Jesus’s ministry. Since Mark only knew what he heard in the sermons of Peter, Paul and the other apostles, his account seems like a fast-tracked version of Jesus’s ministry. His Gospel often does not match with the chronology followed by the other writers and focuses only on revealing the identity of Jesus as the Messiah and not so much on the minor details that are included in other accounts. Amidst the impending persecution of the Roman churches, Mark’s theme for the Gospel seems to be that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah who did not come to overturn the Roman government but to restore the bridge between humanity and God, by humble dying on the cross.
The Jordan Valley 