Elijah Mark

193:6.1Act­ing upon the in­struc­tion of Pe­ter, John Mark and oth­ers went forth to call the lead­ing dis­ci­ples to­gether at the home of Mary Mark. By ten thirty, one hun­dred and twenty of the fore­most dis­ci­ples of Je­sus liv­ing in Je­ru­sa­lem had for­gath­ered to hear the re­port of the farewell mes­sage of the Mas­ter and to learn of his as­cen­sion. Among this com­pany was Mary the mother of Je­sus. She had re­turned to Je­ru­sa­lem with John Zeb­e­dee when the apos­tles came back from their re­cent so­journ in Gal­i­lee. Soon af­ter Pen­te­cost she re­turned to the home of Sa­lome at Beth­saida. James the brother of Je­sus was also pres­ent at this meet­ing, the first con­fer­ence of the Mas­ter’s dis­ci­ples to be called af­ter the ter­mi­na­tion of his plan­e­tary ca­reer.

194:0.1About one o’clock, as the one hun­dred and twenty be­liev­ers were en­gaged in prayer, they all be­came aware of a strange pres­ence in the room. At the same time these dis­ci­ples all be­came con­scious of a new and pro­found sense of spir­i­tual joy, se­cu­rity, and con­fi­dence. This new con­scious­ness of spir­i­tual strength was im­me­di­ately fol­lowed by a strong urge to go out and pub­licly pro­claim the gospel of the king­dom and the good news that Je­sus had risen from the dead.

187:6.2Af­ter the death of the Mas­ter, John sent the women, in charge of Jude, to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they tar­ried over the Sab­bath day. John him­self, be­ing well known by this time to the Ro­man cen­tu­rion, re­mained at Gol­go­tha un­til Joseph and Nicode­mus ar­rived on the scene with an or­der from Pi­late au­tho­riz­ing them to take pos­ses­sion of the body of Je­sus.

188:3.2Late Sat­ur­day night, John Mark sum­moned the eleven apos­tles se­cretly to come to the home of his fa­ther, where, just be­fore mid­night, they all as­sem­bled in the same up­per cham­ber where they had par­taken of the Last Sup­per with their Mas­ter two nights pre­vi­ously.

189:4.1As we ap­proach the time of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus on this early Sun­day morn­ing, it should be re­called that the ten apos­tles were so­journ­ing at the home of Eli­jah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the up­per cham­ber, rest­ing on the very couches whereon they re­clined dur­ing the last sup­per with their Mas­ter. This Sun­day morn­ing they were all there as­sem­bled ex­cept Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few min­utes late Sat­ur­day night when they first got to­gether, but the sight of the apos­tles, cou­pled with the thought of what had hap­pened to Je­sus, was too much for him. He looked his as­so­ciates over and im­me­di­ately left the room, go­ing to the home of Si­mon in Beth­page, where he thought to grieve over his trou­bles in soli­tude. The apos­tles all suf­fered, not so much from doubt and de­spair as from fear, grief, and shame.

189:4.13Af­ter these women had re­cov­ered from the shock of their amaze­ment, they has­tened back to the city and to the home of Eli­jah Mark, where they re­lated to the ten apos­tles all that had hap­pened to them; but the apos­tles were not in­clined to be­lieve them. They thought at first that the women had seen a vi­sion, but when Mary Mag­da­lene re­peated the words which Je­sus had spo­ken to them, and when Pe­ter heard his name, he rushed out of the up­per cham­ber, fol­lowed closely by John, in great haste to reach the tomb and see these things for him­self.

192:4.5This was a sad home-com­ing for John Mark. Just a few hours be­fore he reached home, his fa­ther, Eli­jah Mark, sud­denly died from a hem­or­rhage in the brain. Al­though the thought of the cer­tainty of the res­ur­rec­tion of the dead did much to com­fort the apos­tles in their grief, at the same time they truly mourned the loss of their good friend, who had been their stanch sup­porter even in the times of great trou­ble and dis­ap­point­ment. John Mark did all he could to com­fort his mother and, speak­ing for her, in­vited the apos­tles to con­tinue to make their home at her house. And the eleven made this up­per cham­ber their head­quar­ters un­til af­ter the day of Pen­te­cost.

192:4.6The apos­tles had pur­posely en­tered Je­ru­sa­lem af­ter night­fall that they might not be seen by the Jew­ish au­thor­i­ties. Nei­ther did they pub­licly ap­pear in con­nec­tion with the fu­neral of Eli­jah Mark. All the next day they re­mained in quiet seclu­sion in this event­ful up­per cham­ber.

182:0.1It was about ten o’clock this Thurs­day night when Je­sus led the eleven apos­tles from the home of Eli­jah and Mary Mark on their way back to the Geth­sem­ane camp. Ever since that day in the hills, John Mark had made it his busi­ness to keep a watch­ful eye on Je­sus. John, be­ing in need of sleep, had ob­tained sev­eral hours of rest while the Mas­ter had been with his apos­tles in the up­per room, but on hear­ing them com­ing down­stairs, he arose and, quickly throw­ing a linen coat about him­self, fol­lowed them through the city, over the brook Kidron, and on to their pri­vate en­camp­ment ad­ja­cent to Geth­sem­ane Park. And John Mark re­mained so near the Mas­ter through­out this night and the next day that he wit­nessed ev­ery­thing and over­heard much of what the Mas­ter said from this time on to the hour of the cru­ci­fix­ion.

191:1.1It was near half past eight o’clock this Sun­day evening when Je­sus ap­peared to Si­mon Pe­ter in the gar­den of the Mark home. This was his eighth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion. Pe­ter had lived un­der a heavy bur­den of doubt and guilt ever since his de­nial of the Mas­ter. All day Sat­ur­day and this Sun­day he had fought the fear that, per­haps, he was no longer an apos­tle. He had shud­dered at the fate of Ju­das and even thought that he, too, had be­trayed his Mas­ter. All this af­ter­noon he thought that it might be his pres­ence with the apos­tles that pre­vented Je­sus’ ap­pear­ing to them, pro­vided, of course, he had re­ally risen from the dead. And it was to Pe­ter, in such a frame of mind and in such a state of soul, that Je­sus ap­peared as the de­jected apos­tle strolled among the flow­ers and shrubs.

193:3.1Early Thurs­day morn­ing, May 18, Je­sus made his last ap­pear­ance on earth as a mor­ontia per­son­al­ity. As the eleven apos­tles were about to sit down to break­fast in the up­per cham­ber of Mary Mark’s home, Je­sus ap­peared to them and said:

183:2.1Af­ter Ju­das so abruptly left the ta­ble while eat­ing the Last Sup­per, he went di­rectly to the home of his cousin, and then did the two go straight to the cap­tain of the tem­ple guards. Ju­das re­quested the cap­tain to as­sem­ble the guards and in­formed him that he was ready to lead them to Je­sus. Ju­das hav­ing ap­peared on the scene a lit­tle be­fore he was ex­pected, there was some de­lay in get­ting started for the Mark home, where Ju­das ex­pected to find Je­sus still vis­it­ing with the apos­tles. The Mas­ter and the eleven left the home of Eli­jah Mark fully fif­teen min­utes be­fore the be­trayer and the guards ar­rived. By the time the ap­pre­hend­ers reached the Mark home, Je­sus and the eleven were well out­side the walls of the city and on their way to the Oli­vet camp.

179:1.2As the twelve en­tered this up­per cham­ber, they no­ticed, just in­side the door, the pitch­ers of wa­ter, the basins, and tow­els for lav­ing their dusty feet; and since no ser­vant had been pro­vided to ren­der this ser­vice, the apos­tles be­gan to look at one an­other as soon as John Mark had left them, and each be­gan to think within him­self, Who shall wash our feet? And each like­wise thought that it would not be he who would thus seem to act as the ser­vant of the oth­ers.