The story of the Gospels  begins on a low hill, just outside the city of Jerusalem, about 30 AD, in the early days of the Roman Empire. This hill was popularly known as Golgotha, which is to say, “The place of the skull;” but many now call it Calvary. Here was crucified Jesus of Nazareth, “the King of the Jews”. 

 According to the Gospel of Mark:
“And they gave Him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but He received it not.
And when they had crucified Him, they parted His garments, casting lots upon them, what every man should take.
And it was the third hour, and they crucified Him.
And the superscription of His accusation was written over, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Which is, being interpreted, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
And some of them that stood by, when they heard it said, Behold, He calleth Elias.
And one ran and filled a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take Him down.
And Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost.
And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
And when the centurion, which stood over against Him, saw that He so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said Truly this man was the Son of God.” 

The Gospel of Mark may well be the first to have been written, by John Mark, the personal secretary of the apostle Peter. The version we have now was certainly composed 35 to 40 years after the events Mark recorded by a well–educated Greek-Speaking Christian. The term Gospel means “Good News” and the author was concerned with how he was bringing such news to the people rather than writing an actual biography of Jesus.

In this Gospel, Jesus is described as “the Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). For most Jewish people at the time this would have been a remarkable statement and to the educated élite would have appeared quite shocking. For “Christ” is Greek for the “Anointed One”, and is the equivalent of the Hebrew term for “Messiah”. The Jews were awaiting a great military leader or Cosmic figure who would deliver them from their enemies, not a person who had just suffered and in their eyes died ignobly on Calvary. And yet that is precisely why the author says… He was the Messiah….And so he was….

One of the significant points about the account is that at the beginning nobody actually seems to have known he was the Messiah. His family didn’t seem to know. The neighbours from his virtually unknown little village of Nazareth wondered what this son of the local carpenter was talking about… But, most of all, his Disciples didn’t seem to know who he was. God, of course, knew who he was, because Jesus, at his baptism by John the Baptist, and only Jesus, heard a voice from heaven declaring” you are my beloved son” (1:11)…. Mary Magdelene knew…. And the demons he cast out knew….But no one else had a clue.

All this changes in the middle of the Gospel, with the metaphor of the blind man who gradually regains his sight. The disciples at last begin to understand, though Jesus instructs them not to tell anyone. And he continues to predict that he must suffer and die, to take away the sins of the World. Yet, at the very end, even Jesus himself seems not to be so sure after all. He prays to God three times to save him from his fate , and then cries out in total despair before he dies, literally of a broken heart. He had suffered extreme torture and mental anquish, so that his heart finally ruptured, as the description of his death authentically shows. He was totally, absolutely, completely dead.

Yet if anyone had doubts about what had happened next, the author does not. Jesus’s death and resurrection had inevitably to be such, and, in fact, we, his readers, are expected to take up their own crosses and follow the Master….