LITMIR.BIZ

      Copyright © 2020 by Jay Sidebotham

      Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Jay Sidebotham

      All rights reserved. Permission to duplicate pages is granted for local church or school use.

      Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Church Publishing

      19 East 34th Street

      New York, NY 10016

      www.churchpublishing.org

      Cover art by Jay Sidebotham

      Cover design by Jennifer Kopec, 2Pug Design

      Typeset by Denise Hoff

      A record of this book is available from the Library of Congress.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-082-4 (paperback)

      ISBN-13: 978-1-64065-083-1 (ebook)

       CONTENTS

Introduction

Advent

Christmas

Epiphany

       Lent

       Easter

       Pentecost

       In Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

      How Would You

      Tell the Story of Jesus?

      What do you think is most important for people to know about Jesus? What part of the story would you emphasize? Evidently, telling the story of Jesus is something we’re all supposed to do. In the service of Holy Baptism, the following question is asked of the whole congregation:

       Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

      It is a promise that we will share the Good News of Jesus as we know it, a promise that we will tell the story. There are lots of ways to do that. This book is just one of them, as it moves us through the church year, beginning with the First Sunday in Advent. For each Sunday, we include the citation for the gospel to be read in church on the appointed Sunday, a few comments about the reading, some questions to think about, and a cartoon to illustrate something about the passage.

      It’s exciting that there’s more than one way to tell Jesus’s story. We give thanks in particular for the four gospels in the New Testament, and the varied ways that they share the story of Jesus.

      What About the Cover of This Book?

      For a long time, the church has recognized the distinctive voices of the gospels and represented them with ancient symbols: Matthew is represented as a human being, Mark as a lion, Luke as an ox, and John as an eagle. Each character is depicted with wings, indicating the presence and participation of God in the writing of the gospels. The symbols, depicted on the cover, have biblical roots. We read about four such figures in the Book of Ezekiel (chapter 1), and also in the Revelation to John (4:6–9ff).

      As you might imagine, commentators over the centuries have offered various interpretations of these symbols, some more far-fetched than others. For example, the symbol of Matthew—a winged person, or perhaps an angel—represents the humanity of Jesus, noting the way the gospel begins with the genealogy of Jesus. The symbol of Mark—a lion—suggests a figure of courage and monarchy, as Jesus announces the nearness of the Realm of God. The symbol of Luke—an ox—reflects a figure of sacrifice, service, and strength. The symbol of John—an eagle—may represent the soaring, poetic language of the gospel, or the persistent and paradoxical theme in John’s gospel that Jesus comes from above and returns to his heavenly realm when he is “lifted up”—lifted up on the cross, lifted up to heaven.

      At various times in the history of the church, efforts have been made to harmonize, even homogenize the gospels. The Diatessaron, a document created by an ascetic named Tatian in the second century, is one of the earliest examples of this kind of attempt. The church, over the centuries, decided to let four distinct voices stand, even if and when they disagree (and they sometimes do).

      The church has also decided that it is important for us to hear each of these voices. So we worship on Sunday guided by a three-year cycle called the Revised Common Lectionary, which is a schedule of readings used by many denominations. On any given Sunday, you could drop in on a church down the street or on the other side of the globe and hear the same readings that are being read at your home church.

      The lectionary is designed for a year-long focus on each of three gospels, Matthew, Mark, or Luke. They have been called the synoptic gospels, which literally means that they can be seen together, or alongside each other, in parallel tracks. (Syn is a prefix meaning with; optic has to do with being seen.) These three gospels follow a similar outline and share a great deal of material, though each one contains some unique material. In the course of the three lectionary years, we read a good chunk of the Gospel of John, which follows a different outline and represents a different style of writing, a different historical context, and a distinctive theological perspective on the story of Jesus.

      Which Brings Us to the Gospel of Mark . . .

      This year in church, Year B, we will focus on the gospel attributed to Mark. It’s not the first of the four gospels, in terms of its order in the canon, but most scholars agree that it is the earliest. It seems that the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used Mark as a basis for their writing, building on a basic outline and then adding other material.

      What do we know about Mark? We don’t know a whole lot, and it doesn’t help that there are a few characters in the New Testament named Mark. He is not listed as one of the twelve disciples, though some have wondered if he is the mysterious young man who runs away naked in the Garden of Gethsemane. (See Mark 14, now that we have your interest. Please note that we provide no illustrations of this event.) The gospel is the shortest, which also serves as an argument for its chronological priority. There’s an urgency about telling the story. Mark gets right into it in the first verse, saying that this is the gospel. We first meet Jesus as adult. Mark seems uninterested in the stories of Jesus’s birth. And the word “immediately” appears repeatedly throughout the gospel. It’s not hard to understand why other gospel writers felt like they wanted to build on Mark’s account.

      Regardless of authorship (other authors can argue about that), the message is distinctive. Our faith would be deeply diminished without this gospel.

      Whoever wrote this gospel, it presents a vision of Jesus as the servant, the Son of Man, down to earth and humble. Scholars have identified a theme of the messianic secret, that is that no human being recognizes Jesus until the centurion sees him die on the cross and says that this is the Son of God (Mark 15). The mysterious teaching of parables features large in Mark’s account. Jesus’s hours

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