Mark's account of Easter Sunday is most valuable because he was one of the disciples there that day.

Saturday, 4/6/13

Today we have Mark’s account of Easter Sunday. It is the briefest Gospel account of Easter, but it is important in being the first account to be written. Matthew and Luke who wrote their Gospels ten years later borrowed heavily from what Mark wrote.

Mark is also important in that he was actually there. He followed the soldiers who took Jesus away from the Garden of Olives. He was there after the Resurrection when the disciples gathered at the house of Mary, Mark’s mother.

What moved Mark to write the first of the four Gospels was that people were saying Jesus could not be the Messiah because he was executed as a criminal. Mark gave over the first half of his Gospel to presenting all the evidence that initially convinced the disciples that Jesus was the Messiah. Then, half way through his Gospel, Mark presented  the story of Peter saying he was convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God.

Having established from miracles and prophesies that Jesus was definitely the Messiah, Mark went on in the second half of his Gospel to show how it was precisely from his suffering and sacrificial death that Jesus saves us.

In these final sentences of his Gospel Mark chided those disciples who were slow to believe the most obvious truth that Jesus is the Messiah.