Preaching Mark’s Unsettling Messiah – Book Review

Of the four canonical gospels Mark is probably my favorite 1. I say probably because I find it difficult to choose favorites. If you ask about my favorite food, book, movie, song etc… I will hesitate and hedge my answer because if I have to choose just one as my absolute favorite I’m reluctant to push aside all the others.

But of the gospels, Mark probably is my favorite. I love John’s poetic and philosophic and even mystical approach to the gospel. I love Luke’s investigative reporter style. I love the attention Matthew gives to the prophetic echoes in the gospel. But Mark – Mark confounds me, and that, I think, is why I like it so much.

Mark’s gospel is relatively simple. His vocabulary isn’t overwhelming. His writing style is rather like Ernest Hemmingway’s, filled with lots of short declarative sentences. He went there. He did this. They said something to him. He answered them. They went away… Mark’s gospel is brief, too. You could read it straight through in an hour or two. But for all that brevity and simplicity, Mark’s gospel is confounding too.

As many have pointed out, the ending – the most likely original ending – of Mark’s gospel is (seemingly) incomplete. The women go to the tomb early that Sunday morning, they find it empty, an otherworldly man tells them that Jesus has gone on ahead and that he’ll meet them in Galilee, and then the women go away and say nothing because they were afraid. That is not the ending we expect or want for this gospel story. But that’s what Mark gives us. Confounding.

And all through Mark’s gospel those who we might expect to see and to understand what’s going on are the ones who don’t comprehend at all. Jesus’ family, his hometown, his disciples – they don’t get it. They are blind and dense and thick headed. Confounding.

I’ve just finished reading Preaching Mark’s Unsettling Messiah – a collection of essays and sermons edited by David Fleer and Dave Bland. The essays contained in the first half of the book are “how-to” essays. How do approach scripture as we preach, and more specifically, how do we approach Mark’s gospel. How does the gospel’s prologue set up the rest of the story? What does the abrupt and (seemingly) incomplete ending mean? There are essays by Fred Craddock – whose methods and style have influenced my own style – and Morna Hooker – who has a book that I now want to read, about the endings of Old Testament books and how the endings invite us to continue the story 2… (I know I’m a nerd, always finding new things to learn.). There’s also a really interesting essay that wonders what it would be like if Mark the gospel writer were able to watch Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ.

The second half of the book is a collection of sermons that demonstrate the “how-to” that were described in the first half. Now, I have sometimes been told that I am a good preacher. And even though you know, and I know, that that is just what you’re supposed to say to the preacher as you leave the chapel, I have, on occasion, allowed myself to believe that maybe they meant it.

But when I read some of the sermons contained in this little volume, I realized what a truly good sermon could be. Wow. Mark Frost’s sermon “A Window into the Kingdom” based on Mark 2: 13 – 17 nearly brought me to tears and “Amen” shouting even though I was reading it as I ate dinner in a crowded IHOP. And I'm not nearly that demonstrative.

And I don’t mean "good" just in the sense that it is clever and well written and styled – though it certainly is. I mean it was good in that it is moving. It made me want more, and want to be more. It made be want to be a better person and a better preacher.

Preaching Mark’s Unsettling Messiah
ed. David Fleer, Dave Bland
Chalice Press
St. Louis, Missouri, 2006


1  -Of the non-canonical gospels, my favorite is Pseudo-Matthew for the story of the infant Christ and the dragon.
2  -Endings: Invitations to Discipleship - Morna Hooker, 2003