Series Introduction
Fear. 2022 seems to be another big year for fear: fear of COVID, of vaccines, of government overreach, of chronic undersupply, fear of not having enough toilet paper… again. Fear even of each other. This pandemic has revealed that we all have a complicated relationship with fear.
Yet fear is nothing new to the human condition. We all fear. Always have. Part of being human, this side of the Fall, is to fear. Since Adam and Eve’s first fear of missing out, fearhas long wrapped its tail around anxious hearts like ours.
But in a sense, becoming a Christian and working out our faith is partly about the taming of our deepest fears. When we begin to follow Jesus our worst fears become a bit like the much-loved family dog – a beast, which untamed and in the wild could rip our little children to shreds yet now sits quietly in the corner, or at the end of our bed, or eating gently from our children’s hands. How does this wild beast become a family pet? By being put properly in its place by a much more powerful force – by knowing who its master is.
About Mark
The Gospel of Mark is all about fear. My fear and yours. In fact, fear even seems to have the last word in Mark: ‘terrified’ (Mark 16:8). Mark is about what we think are our greatest fears. But better, it’s about their taming, by a much more powerful master, a God-come-man that even death itself has learned to fear. As Lucy says of Aslan in the Narnia chronicles, “He’s not safe, but he’s good.” As Christians, we now know this man is ‘Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God’ (Mark 1:1). As Jesus draws near to us, he says, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Mark 6:50).
Part of what’s so unique about Mark’s gospel is its setting: the atmosphere, the scenery and ‘vibe’. When we think of John’s gospel, we remember the Jewish festivals. With Matthew’s gospel we think of mountains, with Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. With Luke it’s a journey setting, with Jesus teaching ‘on the way’ to Jerusalem. But with Mark, it’s dark. As readers of Mark, we find ourselves following Jesus in the desert, among the tombs, across the sea. He faces demons, death, disease and denials. Mark gives us a privileged viewing of Jesus’ baptism, and Jesus’ prayers, and Jesus’ solitary reflections – tired and alone. Perhaps
the scenery that will most stay with us from this series is of the Sea of Galilee with wild and stormy waters. For in Jewish thinking, the sea was an evil place, a dangerous place, a place first and foremost to be feared.
Another part of what’s unique about Mark’s story is its great ending (Mark 16:8). Have you noticed how each of the gospels ends with something ‘Great’? Most famously, Matthew ends with ‘The Great Commission’.
John’s gospel? ‘The Great Reinstatement’ of Peter. Arguably, Luke ends with ‘The Great Fulfilment’, where Jesus explains (Luke 24) that the whole Old Testament was ‘all about me!’ But what’s great about Mark’s ending? The answer is, ‘The Great Question’! To understand what this question is, you’ll need to come on the journey in this series. (A hint though – it’s related to the main graphic for this series: Who is looking, and from where?) To be clear at the outset, what we’ll definitely see in the climax of Mark’s gospel is thetaming of all our fears, as we see our God ‘Up Close’.
About this Series
As your pastors, we’re stoked to be taking you through this series in Mark, over the first two terms of 2022. We’ve called it ‘Seeing God Up Close’. It’s a series about what happens to us as readers as we journey through Mark to its climax and the question the author poses for us all, at the end.
Here’s our Big Idea (main teaching point) for this series from Mark:
‘We look upon Jesus from a distance but when he comes close, we can see him for who he really is: the God we fear, calling us to follow Him.’
We’ll be taking all 16 chapters in turn, teaching them the way Mark wrote them – as a story. A true story. In fact, Mark deliberately writes his biography of Jesus as a true, fulfilment story.
We’ll see that Mark himself makes this clear from the beginning, showing us how Jesus fulfils so many prophecies about him from the Old Testament. And by the end we’ll see how Mark shows Jesus fulfilling his own prophecies about himself – something very much neglected in much modern-day teaching of Mark’s gospel.
The series will be covered in two terms, with a short break in the Easter school holidays. We’ll cover Mark’s 16 chapters in 19 episodes: 10 in term 1, and 9 in term 2.
To help guide us through Mark we’re including some short videos in our services. These are narrated by Dr Peter Bolt, a world-class theologian and leading commentator on Mark’s gospel. Peter directly lectured some of your pastors, and indirectly lectured the others by lecturing their lecturers! But we’re confident that you’ll enjoy his down-to-earth style and very Australian facial hair.
These videos have been made available to us free of charge, thanks to the generous heart of another sister church from the Presbyterian Church of Queensland (Living Church, formerly Creek Road Presbyterian) and Moore Theological College, who produced them in 2014.
Our teaching will be integrated across our services. This means that the songs we’ve chosen, the videos, the Bible readings and even these growth group studies, are all integrated with the main teaching point (‘big idea’) from the part of Mark’s gospel that we’re up to, in any given week. Following that, these studies are designed to be used in home/growth/discipleship groups that meet during the week following the weekly sermon. We hope you find them helpful.
About Us
Together we’ll be enjoying Mark’s biography of Jesus across the church families of our four sister churches: Biloela, Mackay, Rose City (Warwick) and Stanthorpe Presbyterian. The four pastors who have prepared this series together are, from right to left in the photo taken at our planning week last year: Rev Andrew Purcell, Mr Troy Wilkins, Rev Dave Bailey and Rev Peter Evans. Thanks go especially to Mr Nick Prins for his admin support to our little ‘band of brothers’ and Mrs Sarah Bailey for her assistance with recommending appropriate hymn and song options for each church to cust omise according to their own needs.
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