The Scripture texts I will be using today are scattered through several chapters in the Book of Acts, plus other locations in the New Testament. And so instead of simply reading passage after passage, let me put together a vignette, a character sketch, in order to make the life of John Mark available to you.
As you remember, I am working with the theme, "Broken People for a Broken World". I am building messages on the lives of people in the New Testament who seemed to be failures in one way or another, or who seemed to have insurmountable obstacles in their lives. But each of these found that Christ in their lives made the difference between failure and success.
Each one of these is being anchored in a different verse of the hymn, "Just As I Am". This hymn, authored by Charlotte Elliott in 1834, is both the testimony of a broken spirit who became disgusted at her own excuse-making and is also a wonderful collection of insights into the human condition.
So we’ve looked at Paul, without one plea; and at the woman at the well in Samaria, stained with one dark blot. Today we study John Mark, fightings within and fears without.
We first meet John Mark in chapter 12 of Acts, where he is closely associated with Peter. Peter had been arrested by King Herod, but had been miraculously released from prison. Peter’s first move after his release was to hurry to the home of a woman simply named Mary and her son, John Mark. Clearly Mark, as we generally call him, was tied in to the founders of the Christian movement very closely. In fact, Peter calls him "My son" in the first letter of Peter, and very strong tradition, in fact, very strong internal evidence, tells us that the young Mark recorded and shaped the memories of Peter into what we know as The Gospel According to Mark.
But the heart of our story concerning Mark is found in Acts 13. Two of the early church’s leaders, Barnabas and Saul ... Saul whom we know better by the name Paul … Barnabas and Saul were sent out on a missionary trip, and took John Mark along as their assistant. They went to the island of Cyprus and began preaching.
On the island of Cyprus at a town called Paphos, Saul encountered a magician named Elymas at work, and especially at work on the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, who had become a Christian. The missionaries were afraid that the magician would corrupt this Roman officer, and so Saul sternly rebuked the missionary, brought down God’s judgment on him so that he was blinded, and stabilized the officer Sergius Paulus.
The story then continues in Acts 13:13-14 with the ongoing work of Saul, now consistently called Paul, and his companion Barnabas ... but all of it without John Mark.
John Mark’s name appears next in Acts 15, when Paul and Barnabas are planning another missionary journey. Acts 15:36-41 ... strong words ... deserter is Paul’s word for Mark.
There isn’t much else about Mark in the New Testament, but what there is is quite significant. For this failure, this deserter, in the mind of Paul, is not forgotten. He may be an abandoner, but he is not abandoned.
In Colossians 4:10, one of Paul’s prison epistles, and in another prison letter, Philemon 23-24, and finally, in II Timothy 4:9-11, written toward the end of Paul’s life, we discover more.
How long does it take to grow up? How many years before a child becomes an adult, how much time before an immature person becomes mature?
I suspect there isn’t any mathematical answer to that question. It can’t be answered simply in terms of years. We used to look at age 21 as the time when you were supposed to be grown up ... when you could vote and buy alcohol and hold property and could accept that most wonderful of adult privileges, getting into debt!
Then we woke up to the fact that voting and drinking and creating debts were not the only adult things to do … and that we had been allowing people to do very grown-up things like drive a car at age 16, or get married, in some states, even earlier than that. And the most grown-up thing of all, to take a rifle in hand and go on to the battlefield, we let you … we made you do … at 18.
Obviously we didn’t have a clear picture as to how long it takes to grow up!
And we still don’t. We still are not very sure about who is mature and who is not. Our PG-13 movies are getting more and more pointed, and our NC-17 movies will jolt you at any age. Five-year-olds are caught threatening other children with knives, and seven-year-olds have to take care of their younger brothers and sisters while Mom and Dad leave them home alone. We don’t seem to know when maturity arrives.
Several years ago, a minor storm arose in our church when a couple of persons in their early thirties were elected as deacons. Somebody pronounced that we ought to make it a rule that no one under 35 ever be considered for the office of deacon. Then we proceeded to call to our pastoral staff someone who was age 29. We just don’t know when maturity arrives. But it cannot be measured mathematically. It cannot be described simply in numbers of years.
We do know that youth is a time of tremendous emotional upheaval. Young people are just naturally caught up in all kinds of feelings. It’s not hard to figure out why. Their bodies are going through biochemical changes ... yesterday the young man who was singing boy soprano today is singing adolescent squeak! There are chemical changes, there is the myriad of stuff that has to be learned, there is just the uncertainty of facing countless new situations. Pressure, pressure within.
Add to that parents and their need to have their children succeed where they did not ... add to that politics in the school systems ... add to that insidious destructive stuff on the street, and you don’t have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to figure out why youth is a tough time of life. There are pressures both within and without.
John Mark was a young Christian who seemed to start out well. He seemed to gain leadership very early in life. But at a critical point, he abandoned his upwardly mobile track, he failed. At an important crossroads, he lost out. But that was not the end of his story. His failure did not cripple him, it did not destroy him. In fact, it may well be that John Mark’s failure actually equipped him for later success.
So let’s walk through John Mark’s failure story. It’s a story of conflict and doubt, of fightings within and fears without.
I
John Mark started out with the support of his family, who wanted him to do well. A lot of the ingredients were in place for John Mark, just because his family supported him and provided a solid atmosphere.
There are some things we can infer from the Book of Acts. We can determine that his mother’s house was a spacious place, large enough to accommodate the gatherings of Christian believers who met there. They could even afford a serving-girl named Rhoda. It was a privileged, congenial atmosphere.
And more than that ... John Mark’s mother Mary must have been a courageous, committed woman. As the weeks and months went by it became more and more dangerous to be a Christian. There had been any number of vicious attacks. Deacon Stephen had been killed by the mob. James had been executed. Peter, one of the principal Christian leaders, had been arrested.. and, in fact, had come to Mary’s and John Mark’s home right after his release. John Mark’s mother ran a home deeply devoted to the Christian cause.
Besides that, John Mark’s cousin, Barnabas, was a leader in the church. Only Peter outstripped Barnabas in influence among the Christians in Jerusalem. John Mark grew up surrounded by the best Christian influences a young man could possibly have.
And so it is no real surprise, despite his youth, that Barnabas and the fiery new preacher Saul invited him to join them on their missionary journey. Toward this John Mark’s every exposure had been pointed.
But there was a failure. At a strategic point in the journey, John Mark just quit. He went home. Barnabas may have tried to put a good face on it, but for Saul it was desertion. It was abandonment. It was treason. No excuse for it.
Mark had given up on his family’s commitment. He had turned aside from his family’s expectations.
But isn’t that a part of the issue? His family’s commitment .. but who was interested in his own personal commitment?
Parents, as you raise your children, surround them with every positive influence, but do not be surprised when they decide to make up their own minds. Give that child every advantage you can. I don’t mean things or clothes or money ... I mean spiritual things, emotional things. Give that child love, give him or her an atmosphere of prayer, provide exposure to the great minds available to you ... but at the same time, don’t be surprised if the day comes when he or she will seem to desert you. Don’t be shocked if he or she seems to abandon everything you’ve taught. It’s just a natural part of growing up. It’s just as natural as breathing. It’s a matter of dealing with conflict and doubt, fightings within and fears without.
Some of you know that my wife is the daughter of one of Baptists’ finest theologians. Margaret’s father was sought after in universities, churches, seminaries, everywhere. During his career he produced some 14 books of theology. He was a brilliant scholar and a dedicated Christian.
So Margaret grew up in a home which offered every spiritual advantage. In fact, she says that whenever she had a question about the Bible or about life itself, her father would provide answers ... book-length answers! He overpowered her with information. So the day came when she was in her late teens that she had to work out for herself whether this Christian thing was something she really believed or whether it was just something she had been handed from her father.
Some resistance to what parents teach is just natural. It’s more than natural.. it’s healthy. It’s positive. It’s what young people have to do in order to hammer out their own values. It’s testing the boundaries to see how they feel. And so when John Mark left Barnabas and Saul, yes, it seemed like failure. It seemed like letting go of everything his mother had given him. It seemed like deserting his cousin Barnabas and the family. But it wasn’t .. not really. It was honest struggling with conflict and doubt, it was a genuine wresting with fightings within and fears without. And it was a key to John Mark’s ultimate success. You have to have room to breathe!
II
But we still have to ask why John Mark chose to leave Barnabas and Saul in the middle of that missionary journey. We still need to discover what was going on at that particular moment.
There are several things to look at.
One possibility is that John Mark had become sick of playing the subordinate role. Maybe he just got sick and tired of being the junior partner, of always being the second banana.
You see, the text says that they took John Mark along as their attendant. They took him as their assistant. Today we would say that he was a gofer. You know, go-fer something to eat. Go-fer some writing supplies. John Mark, go make arrangements for Barnabas to preach in the next town. John Mark, clean up the hurt feelings Saul left behind in the last town. It’s altogether possible that John Mark had just had enough of being treated as a juvenile.
And you know, young people do have a right to feel that. They do read it when they are being put down and talked down to. They do sense it when they are not being trusted. And some of us, sad to say, do it to them all the time.
I remember a church I served as interim pastor. I was asked to visit one of the children’s Sunday School classes. When I got there I saw all the children gathered around a table, with their hands behind their backs. They were watching the teacher carefully cut and paste and assemble Valentine cards. I found out that this teacher had made all the children put their hands behind their backs, so that they wouldn’t mess up the exquisitely perfect Valentines being constructed by the teacher, who then said, "If you let the children make they’ll just mess them up."
Well, yes, they will. They will mess them up. And hallelujah for that! They will, in fact, always mess up until they get their hands on to things and try them and learn .. and if you do not give them hands-on experiences now, later they will mess up in a big way, because they never learned for themselves!
John Mark may have left just because he could not get anything but a patronizing, distant, putdown assignment from Barnabas and Saul. Conflict and doubt. Fightings within and fears without.
Or, if you don’t like that theory, there is another possibility as to why John Mark deserted his mission. There is another way to read the text and sense the mind of this young man.
If you read very carefully the incident in Acts, chapter 13, just before John Mark’s abandonment is announced, you will see something. The incident reported is one in which cousin Barnabas’ coworker, Saul, gets hold of a magician of sorts. The magician is trying to woo away one of the church’s Roman converts, an official named Sergius Paulus. Saul succeeds in punishing that magician and thus succeeds in saving Sergius Paulus for the church.
Now watch the names in this little incident.
The preacher Saul, who has always had a Roman name, Paul, suddenly begins to use that name and to use it consistently, right after he has enlisted, or re-enlisted a Roman official, conveniently also named Paul. Sounds like he might be rather proud of having bagged a big fish for himself, huh? Sounds like he wanted to identify with his catch!
But guess who else had a Roman name? Why, John Mark, or John Marcus. He too had a Roman name. Do you suppose he had singled out Sergius Paulus for himself, but he got upstaged? Do you suppose he had planned, just because he could claim some Romanness, to get next to this official? People like to be thought intimate with prominent folks, you know? It’s great fun to drop names. Why, you know, Hillary said to me just the other day....
And more than that. Up until the incident in chapter 13 with the sorcerer and the Roman and Saul, it had always been Barnabas and Saul, Barnabas and Saul. The church sent out its missionaries, Barnabas and Saul. To the cities and towns of Asia went Barnabas and Saul, cousin Barnabas and Saul.
But after this spectacular incident, after this great triumph worked by missionary Saul, everything is Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas. No longer my cousin Barnabas, assisted by Saul. But now egotistical Paul, lording it over my cousin Barnabas. John Mark may well have left his mission just because he thought he was being oppressed by a towering ego. He thought that he and his family were being neglected and devalued. And so he got out. He quit.
All of this is guesswork, of course. But I tell you that insecurity is almost always the issue for young people.
If you do not feel secure, if you have not been able to make up your own mind about who you are and what you believe, you will not be able to stick by the task when the supervisor gets difficult. Whether it is slinging hamburgers at McDonald’s or whether it is serving in Christian missions, the issue is the same. Do you believe in yourself? Do you have confidence in the task which God has given YOU to do .. only you. Nobody else can do what you are supposed to do. If you do not believe in yourself, no one else will. There will always be a Paul, probing and challenging and pushing and insisting on his way. There will always be somebody who will seem to put you down, who will appear to be racist or sexist or agist or some other -ist .. there will always be a challenge against you. But young men and women, if you believe God has given you a gift, let no one take it away from you. If you think God has gifted you with a task to do, let no one, however vigorous, however forceful, take it from you. Hold on to yourself. Learn from John Mark’s petty little pouting. Do not let anybody strip you of your dignity.
John Mark … many a conflict, many a doubt. Fightings within and fears without. Conquer them or they will conquer you.
III
But now, as always, there is good news. I promised you that in every instance, as we study broken people for a broken world, Christ can turn failure into success and defeat into victory. What He did for John Mark He can do for you and for me.
When it came time to go off on another missionary journey, Barnabas asked Paul to take John Mark along again. But Paul wasn’t having any. Paul in his rigidity was not interested in signing up deserters. That’s exactly the way he put it: deserter.
But here’s the good news ... John Mark’s cousin Barnabas saw more deeply than Paul. Barnabas believed in John Mark, and actually split with his old traveling companion Paul over this issue.
The next missionary journey saw Paul going with Silas as his new partner; and off the way went Barnabas and his new partner, the failure John Mark.
We don’t have a record of what they did or where they went, exactly. There are only some fragments of information and some traditions. But skip with me some ten or twelve years... down to the time when Paul was in prison, scribbling off letters to his churches. And prisoner Paul, writing to the church at Colossae, says, "Mark, the cousin of Barnabas... if he comes to you, welcome him." That sounds rather positive, doesn’t it?
A little deeper... prisoner Paul, this time writing to a friend named Philemon, ends the letter, "Greetings to you from Mark my fellow worker." Things are changing!
And then, best of all, the older Paul, near the end of his life, knowing that death cannot be far off, in his second letter to Timothy... oh, listen to this and take heart. Paul says of himself, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race" .. in other words, I don’t have much time left ... but Timothy, come and visit with me, I have almost no
one. "Demas in love with this present world, has deserted me .. Crescens has gone ... only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry."
Get Mark and bring him .. he is useful!
Despite his conflicts and doubts, he is useful. Even though he was full of fightings within and fears without, and I sent him packing, get Mark, he is useful.
Oh, young people, don’t ever give up on yourselves. Don’t give up on yourself because somebody else gave up on you. Don’t do it because our gracious God will provide someone else who will love you, someone else who will affirm you, someone else to be your Barnabas and give you a chance. Don’t give up on yourselves, for Christ does not give up on you.
And men and women of the church, which would you rather be for our youth .. Paul or Barnabas? Would you rather be right or would you rather be understanding? Would you rather be correct or would you rather be compassionate? This is the day when our calling is to love young people, no matter what they do.. to care for them, even when they seem to desert us.. to invest in them, even when they seem to destroy.. to believe in them, even when they appear to betray.
For they can come to Christ, with many a conflict, many a doubt, fightings within and fears without .. but they can come, and they can succeed.
Get Mark and bring him ... for he is useful.
