The following are excerpts of a sermon given yesterday by the Rev. Christopher S. Esget at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Alexandria.
Many saints are larger than life; many saints seem holier than we can ever become. … Some saints are, like us, not as impressive. St. Mark is a saint for the rest of us. Mark is one of the four Evangelists. What — or rather Who — they esteemed was Christ, who showed kindness, in their eyes, even to such miserable sinners as themselves. Matthew, for example, will not let you forget that he was a tax collector. John refuses to even mention his own name, calling himself instead “the other disciple” or “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” which is not a boast but, as he sees it, surprising. So it is with Mark. He’s there in his own Gospel, but not named.
Mark is, many believe, the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus asking, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” Jesus points him to the Law, the Ten Commandments. “All these things I have kept from my youth,” he replies. Then we have this astonishing statement in the face of such hypocritical arrogance: “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” … Now also this rich young ruler comes under the sphere of Jesus’ love. And that means that the love of Jesus extends even to you. Jesus shows this rich young ruler (who thinks he has kept all the Commandments) that he has another god, another idol, named “Mammon.” Jesus tells him to sell his possessions, give to the poor and take up his cross to follow Jesus. Educated, cultured and a moral man, he nevertheless cannot get that involved. Some things are too precious to him.
So he walks away in sorrow. It was Mark’s home, we believe, where Jesus ate the Passover with His disciples on the night when He was betrayed, when He instituted the Sacrament of the Altar. When the disciples all left with Jesus to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, Mark dressed in haste and followed them.
Soldiers came, and things got rough. They grabbed his expensive linen shirt, but he slipped out of it and ran away naked. … The story of Mark, along with all the other sinners in the Gospels, should make us ever mindful of the mercy God has shown to us; a mercy we then transmit to our neighbors.
That Gospel, that message of mercy from the God who judges and condemns sin, is the message the Apostles are sent out to proclaim: Jesus of Nazareth, truly God come in the flesh, was crucified to atone for our sins, and rose again. That has changed everything for us, for by it, the entrance to the kingdom of God is opened.
That Gospel of forgiveness is what makes a greedy, useless coward like Mark a great saint. By that definition you, too, are a saint, for a saint is not so by his own achievements, but by the grace of God. Mark the coward is now accorded the symbol of the lion, one of the four winged creatures in the book of Revelation that represent the four Evangelists: a man, an eagle, an ox and a lion. Mark is the lion.
He becomes Peter’s scribe, takes careful note of his sermons, and compiles the second Gospel. He gives us these words from the mouth of Jesus: “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake … will save it.” Martyred in that other Alexandria — the one in Egypt — Mark should be remembered neither for his martyrdom nor his previous cowardice, but for his Gospel, the true, faithful, accurate, inspired account of the words, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, Mark is the good publisher.
Even when Mark was overcome by his greed and hypocrisy, the Lord still looked upon him and loved him. Thus it is with you as well. For you cling to the same Gospel that Mark published and preached, and in the end, was martyred for: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it.”
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