The Bible Project | The Gospel According to Mark:
Jesus is the Messianic King
Recent posts on overviews of the Story of God found in the Bible:
The Story of God, the World, and You | Our World Belongs to God | Creation, Crisis, Covenant, Christ, Church, (New) Creation | Jesus as the "True and Better" One | The Messiah | The Covenants | Heaven and Earth | God's Holiness | God's Multi-Ethnic Family | Hell | Sacrifice and Atonement | The Law
For this post, I'm including a video and the manuscript for an Animated Explanation of The Gospel According to Mark by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins via The Bible Project, a wonderful new and free video series on YouTube.
Animated Explanation of The Gospel According to Mark by The Bible Project
Produced by Tim Mackie and Jon Collins
The Gospel of Mark is a book in the Bible about the life of Jesus. And the earliest reliable tradition tells us that it was written by a guy named John Mark. Now Mark didn't just grab a bunch of random stories about Jesus and throw them together. He's designed this book to address some really specific questions about whether or not Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.
So let's stop right there because that's a term a lot of people like me aren't familiar with. The Messiah was a royal figure sometimes called the Son of God that Israel was expecting to come and set up a kingdom here on earth. And around the time of Jesus, Israel was occupied by Rome. So many Jews were hoping that the Messiah would come and overthrow the Romans and rule as king. But Jesus didn't overthrow the Romans. In fact, He was killed by them.
And that brings us to the very issues Mark is trying to get at in the book. In the first half (chapters 1-8), he focuses on who Jesus is. Is He really the Messiah? And then in the second half (chapters 11-16) he is addressing how He became the Messianic King. And then right here in the middle of the book (chapters 8:27-10) is the pivotal story that brings the two halves together as Jesus answers both of these questions.
So let's talk about the first half (chapters 1-8) of the book: Who Jesus Is. So Mark makes his beliefs about Jesus very clear from the first line of the book: The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God (Mark 1:1). One of the next stories is Jesus getting baptized and God's voice announces from heaven, "This is My Son." So it couldn't be more clear, it's presenting Jesus as Messiah.
Yes, but as you're reading through this first half of Mark, you'll notice something really interesting start to happen. Jesus is going about healing all these different people. And He's constantly telling them to keep quiet about who He is. This happens so many times in Mark's account, it's very strange. Why keep it a secret?
So remember lots of Jews had lots of different expectations about what the Messiah would be and do. And so Jesus doesn't want people to misunderstand what it means for Him to be Israel's Messiah. And so with all that in mind, we come now to the pivotal story at the center of the book (chapters 8:27-10) where Jesus takes His disciples away and He asks them, "Who do you all say that I am?" And Peter says what everyone has been saying, "You're the Messiah, the Son of God."
But then something new happens. Jesus starts explaining to them how He's going to become the Messianic King and it is not what they expected. He says He's going to suffer and die and rule by becoming a servant. In His words, "The Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to become a servant, and to give His life as a ransom for many."
And that brings us to the very issues Mark is trying to get at in the book. In the first half (chapters 1-8), he focuses on who Jesus is. Is He really the Messiah? And then in the second half (chapters 11-16) he is addressing how He became the Messianic King. And then right here in the middle of the book (chapters 8:27-10) is the pivotal story that brings the two halves together as Jesus answers both of these questions.
So let's talk about the first half (chapters 1-8) of the book: Who Jesus Is. So Mark makes his beliefs about Jesus very clear from the first line of the book: The beginning of the good news about Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God (Mark 1:1). One of the next stories is Jesus getting baptized and God's voice announces from heaven, "This is My Son." So it couldn't be more clear, it's presenting Jesus as Messiah.
Yes, but as you're reading through this first half of Mark, you'll notice something really interesting start to happen. Jesus is going about healing all these different people. And He's constantly telling them to keep quiet about who He is. This happens so many times in Mark's account, it's very strange. Why keep it a secret?
So remember lots of Jews had lots of different expectations about what the Messiah would be and do. And so Jesus doesn't want people to misunderstand what it means for Him to be Israel's Messiah. And so with all that in mind, we come now to the pivotal story at the center of the book (chapters 8:27-10) where Jesus takes His disciples away and He asks them, "Who do you all say that I am?" And Peter says what everyone has been saying, "You're the Messiah, the Son of God."
But then something new happens. Jesus starts explaining to them how He's going to become the Messianic King and it is not what they expected. He says He's going to suffer and die and rule by becoming a servant. In His words, "The Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to become a servant, and to give His life as a ransom for many."
Peter was startled by this and rebukes Jesus because there's no way He's going to let Jesus die. And Jesus response is, "Get behind me, Satan!" which is really intense. It really is. But it highlights how important it is to Jesus that His disciples come to understand who He really is. And so here now in this pivotal section, Jesus tries three different times to have this conversation with them and every time they respond in confusion, and even fear.
And so this launches us into the second half of the book (chapters 11-16) where Mark addresses how Jesus became the Messianic King. It's the last week of Jesus' life. He goes to Jerusalem, gets in conflict with the religious leaders, and gets arrested. And He's put on trial as someone claiming to be the King of the Jews. He's even given a crown and a purple robe like a king would get, but it is all a cruel joke. Then He's mocked and beaten and hung up on a cross where He dies.
And it's here in this crucial scene where we meet a new character, a Roman soldier who suddenly gets everything that's going on. He says, "Surely this is the Son of God" which is crazy. It's an enemy first putting it all together that Israel's Messianic King is the crucified Jesus. That's the structure of the book of Mark. But the book doesn't end with Jesus dead on the cross.
No. On the third day, some women go to visit Jesus' tomb only to find that it's empty. And then there's this angel standing there instructing them to go and tell this good news that Jesus is alive from the dead. But instead they run away and they don't tell anyone because they're afraid and that's how the book ends, which is a really abrupt ending. It's so abrupt that later scribes did add an ending that brings more closure to the story. And you'll find that story in your Bible with a little footnote that says it was added much later.
Mark's a brilliant storyteller. He intentionally ended this book abruptly. So all through the book the disciples have been confused about Jesus' plan to give up his life, the story in the middle and right here at the end, it's like Mark is acknowledging just how startling this claim really is. And he wants you the reader to wrestle with it yourself. Is this crucified Jesus really the Messiah that they've been waiting for?
Next post: The Story of God | What the Son of God Said About the Word of God
– Sully
And so this launches us into the second half of the book (chapters 11-16) where Mark addresses how Jesus became the Messianic King. It's the last week of Jesus' life. He goes to Jerusalem, gets in conflict with the religious leaders, and gets arrested. And He's put on trial as someone claiming to be the King of the Jews. He's even given a crown and a purple robe like a king would get, but it is all a cruel joke. Then He's mocked and beaten and hung up on a cross where He dies.
And it's here in this crucial scene where we meet a new character, a Roman soldier who suddenly gets everything that's going on. He says, "Surely this is the Son of God" which is crazy. It's an enemy first putting it all together that Israel's Messianic King is the crucified Jesus. That's the structure of the book of Mark. But the book doesn't end with Jesus dead on the cross.
No. On the third day, some women go to visit Jesus' tomb only to find that it's empty. And then there's this angel standing there instructing them to go and tell this good news that Jesus is alive from the dead. But instead they run away and they don't tell anyone because they're afraid and that's how the book ends, which is a really abrupt ending. It's so abrupt that later scribes did add an ending that brings more closure to the story. And you'll find that story in your Bible with a little footnote that says it was added much later.
Mark's a brilliant storyteller. He intentionally ended this book abruptly. So all through the book the disciples have been confused about Jesus' plan to give up his life, the story in the middle and right here at the end, it's like Mark is acknowledging just how startling this claim really is. And he wants you the reader to wrestle with it yourself. Is this crucified Jesus really the Messiah that they've been waiting for?
Next post: The Story of God | What the Son of God Said About the Word of God
– Sully
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