Lost in wonder!

‘At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory’ – Mark 13:26 (NIV)

It is reported that when the NASA scientists who had worked for years on the Voyager space projects finally received from the spacecrafts the photographic images of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, they fell into silent wonder at all they were seeing.

In a similar way, I have found myself scrabbling for words in wonder as I have ‘stepped back’ at the end of engaging deeply with the Gospel of Mark.

Mark is truly one of the most unusual, astonishing and fascinating documents ever written.

The Gospel of Mark states that this earth has been visited by a superior being whose life was completely different from anyone either before or since.

A man who healed sick people, all who came to him.

Who commanded evil, and it obeyed him.

He controlled and ruled nature.

He walked on water.

He raised people from the dead.

He treated men and women with a compassion that moves to tears anyone with an iota of compassion in their own heart.

He spoke with astonishing bravery and courage.

He claimed to be the Jewish Messiah.

He claimed to be the Son of Man that the prophet Daniel had said would establish the kingdom of God on earth.

He called men and women to follow him.

He created a community of followers.

He taught them to live in a profoundly counter-cultural way.

He taught them that greatness, authority and power can only come through service and servanthood.

He called and expected his apprentices to believe in him and do what he was doing – and they did.

He told them he was going to Jerusalem, where he would be executed and would rise again. Which was exactly what then happened.

He taught that he was establishing the kingdom of God on earth.

He taught how the kingdom would be established and grow throughout the world, and he taught that he is going to come back to this earth again with great power and glory.

He called men and women to follow him.

He taught them.

He questioned them.

He challenged them – sometimes uncomfortably.

He called God his Father.

Twice, the divine voice spoke from heaven and said this man was his Son.

Again and again, he corrected and challenged the religious authorities, the priests, the religious teachers, their elders, their priests and their chief priests.

He taught that the way they practised their religion was wrong, hypocritical, and dangerous.

So they killed him.

This man’s life was truly astonishing, ‘other’, unusual and different, but despite his unusual powers, his life was characterised by suffering, and the instrument of his execution and death is one of the most recognised signs and symbols throughout humankind.

Mark reads as the eyewitness account by one of Jesus’ closest followers – the man Jesus appointed as his leading Apostle.

We are left with this question – how can we adequately, properly and convincingly explain the effect that this man has had and continues to have on humanity without concluding that all that he claimed and taught is true?

Perhaps the final comment should be from Daniel: ‘his dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed’ – Daniel 7:14 (NIV).