Mark's Hurried Gospel

If we wanted a nickname for Mark’s gospel, we might call it “The Hurried Gospel.” One of Mark’s favorite words, which he uses over 30 different times, is the word “immediately.” Throughout story after story, conversation after conversation, teaching after teaching, Jesus and everybody around him is always doing whatever the next thing is “immediately.” Clearly Mark has written his gospel this way, with such intentional focus on this word, for a reason. So, why might he have done so?

We gain some insight into this question by noticing that there is a specific point in Mark’s gospel where the use of this word abruptly ends. For chapter after chapter it shows up in virtually every passage, and then, all of the sudden, it disappears. The last time this word is used is in the last verse of chapter 14. The very next verse, verse one of chapter 15, describes Jesus being taken to Pilate, where he will be sentenced to death. It certainly seems plausible that this is intentional by Mark, that he is rushing through everything else Jesus did and said up to this point in order to get us to the most important aspect of Jesus: his death and resurrection on our behalf. Nowhere in the final two chapters of Mark, the two chapters that cover his death and resurrection, does the word “immediately” show up.

Mark’s gospel is constructed in a way that is meant to get our attention about the most important part of Jesus. Though we are certainly meant to learn from his teachings and miracles, what is most important about him is our need for him as our substitutionary sacrifice, the one who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Mark rushes through everything else in order to invite us to stop and settle into what Jesus has graciously done for us; may we take time this week to pause from our rushing around to remember and give thanks for the great work of salvation that Christ has accomplished on our behalf.