Saint Mark the Evangelist

The Collect
Almighty God, by the hand of Mark the evangelist you have given to your Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank you for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
~BCP, p. 240

The Psalm
2

The Readings

Isaiah 52:7-10     +     Ephesians 4:7-16     +     Mark 1:1-15

Break forth into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; 
for the LORD has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The LORD has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
~Isaiah 52:9-10

This has been a strange Easter season. This is our season of celebration--"the feast of victory for our God, alleluia!"--but it's harder this year to feel that celebration, separated as we are from the physical presence of so many loved ones, and from our own church community. How shall we sing the LORD's song upon an alien soil? asks the psalmist, plaintively (incidentally, the raw honesty of the psalms has been as powerful as ever to me in these past weeks).

Though no one would wish for this current situation (and any theology that asserts this time as a punishment or "lesson" sent by God is sorely deformed), it is worth reflecting on what we might be learning in these days, and indeed what God might teach us. One thing that I am reminded of again today is just how much of the Bible is written from and to a place of great hardship. Much of the Old Testament is written explicitly from the perspective of the enslavement or exile of Israel. And even much of the scriptures that are not explicitly exilic in content were compiled and edited while Israel was in fact in exile in Babylon. And, of course, the New Testament is situated entirely in the context of people living under the coercive power of the Roman Empire--a power that brutally executed Jesus.  The passion is the central narrative around which everything builds in Mark's Gospel (and in the other Gospels, for that matter). And yet, throughout the scriptures, the people of God rejoice. Even amidst the ruins, the Lord comforts his people. Even in the wilderness, the Kingdom of God is proclaimed. Even in the fear and confusion and disillusion following the crucifixion, on that first Easter morning the angels declare to the women, He has risen, he is not here . . . go, tell his disciples. 

This basic context of suffering, exile, and hardship that underlies almost all of our scriptures can be, understandably, easy for us to forget or even fail to notice in modern America. But one unexpected blessing now may be that our current time of trial can serve as an opportunity for us to realize in new and powerful ways the depth of Christian faith--that it is and must be firmly grounded in the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. No other foundation will suffice.

Closing Prayer

Almighty God, stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages; through the same your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.  

~ adapted from a prayer in the Order for Evening, BCP, p. 113