Utumishi Blog

“She has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly I say to you, whenever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” (Mark 14:8-9)

Is that true? Is the story of the jar of perfume and the anointing of Jesus retold every time the gospel is preached? Of course not. What is Jesus talking about? Doesn’t he know that the gospel is simply, “Repent and believe”, “Jesus has died for your sins”, “Give your life to Christ”?

Mark 1:1 has been revolutionary for me recently.

“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” 

Mark is not putting his book in a basket marked ‘The Gospels’ – most likely his was the first of the four.  He is using the word ‘gospel’ the same way Jesus used it and all the early Christians used it.  He is saying that his whole book is a proclamation of the gospel.  What does that tell us about the gospel?

• The gospel is not a short formula – Mark is 11,304 words – an hour and a half to read out loud. There’s a lot to the gospel. While it is possible (thank God) for someone to be led to Christ in five minutes, maybe Mark should make us pause and think, when did we last take the time to sit with someone for an hour and a half to discuss the gospel?
• The gospel is Jesus – As we keep on saying it’s all about Jesus. Just read Mark and you find Jesus mentioned in almost every verse.  The camera follows him everywhere.  He fills the screen.
• The gospel is historical – Mark is telling us about stuff that is past –probably at least 30 years past even when he first wrote it.  It is not a testimony of transformation in Mark’s life. In fact most of the people in the story are not transformed.  The disciples are hardened, confused and Christ-denying to the end.  The last words are “trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8). The good news, for Mark, is not our transformation now but what Jesus did then. 
• The gospel is a story – That’s the thing I want to emphasise here. It’s a narrative. For Mark, the way you tell the gospel is “Jesus went here and he did this and then immediately he left and went over here and he said this and he did that and then…”  Often we rip a few verses out of Mark or Luke and treat it as a teaching floating around in the Bible somewhere.  It’s really worth sitting down sometime and reading a big chunk of one of the Gospels, or even the whole book (if you’re a fast reader you can get through Mark in 45 minutes) and it just comes alive as a story – characters, plot, action, dialogue – a gripping story, a constantly surprising story, the best story in the world.

It’s not only the four ‘Gospels’ that do this. Look at how the apostles preach the gospel in Acts. Again and again they tell the story of the signs, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus (Acts 2:22-36; 3:13-26).

“As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, Lord of all: you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.  And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree,but God raised him on the third day and caused him to appear,not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach…” (Acts 10:36-42)

Gerald Mwangi recently pointed me towards the Maasai Creed developed in the 1960s. Its great strength is the way it tells the story:

“God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes… God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies.”

We are often told that Africans love stories – that Kenyan congregations love to hear stories from the pulpit.  In fact I think it’s universal – all cultures love stories.  The question is what sort of stories do we love listening to?  What stories do we get excited about?  Is it the story of Jesus?  Is that the story being preached each Sunday? Is that the story capturing our minds and hearts and shaping our lives?

Let’s fulfil Mark 14:9. Let’s preach the party, the perfume, the passion, the shock and scandal and waste and worthiness… the story of Jesus.