Category: Mark

  • Jesus is Compassionate: A Sermon on Mark 1:29-45

    Jesus is Compassionate: A Sermon on Mark 1:29-45

    Does Jesus really care about us? Often it seems like he doesn’t – even in the accounts of Jesus’ life here in Mark’s gospel. But the strange things Jesus does here points to a great truth: that Jesus is, in fact, far more compassionate than we can imagine.

  • His shame, my shame

    His shame, my shame

    Something always strikes me when I come to read the written accounts of Jesus’ final hours before his death. The Gospels do not dwell on the physical suffering in any kind of gory detail. Rather, what comes to the fore in these accounts, again and again, is Jesus’ shame and humiliation.

  • Jesus at work: trading places

    From the Sola Panel Here’s something really interesting in Mark’s Gospel that my lovely wife Bronwyn noticed when she was reading the Bible the other day. Close to the beginning of Mark, in chapter 1, Jesus meets a man with a skin disease: And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to…

  • The Syrophoenician woman

    From the Sola Panel: One of Jesus’ most jarring statements occurs in the story of the Syrophoenician woman, Mark 7:24-27: And from there [Jesus] arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately…

  • What makes you angry?

    What makes you angry?

    There was a surprising level of anger in our Bible study group the other night.