John Mark

• Gospel of Mark › Jesus’ avoidance of writing delayed

121:0.1Act­ing un­der the super­vi­sion of a com­mis­sion of twelve mem­bers of the United Broth­er­hood of Uran­tia Mid­way­ers, con­jointly spon­sored by the pre­sid­ing head of our or­der and the Mel­chiz­e­dek of rec­ord, I am the sec­ondary mid­wayer of one­time at­tach­ment to the Apos­tle An­drew, and I am au­tho­rized to place on rec­ord the nar­ra­tive of the life trans­ac­tions of Je­sus of Naz­a­reth as they were ob­served by my or­der of earth crea­tures, and as they were sub­se­quently par­tially re­corded by the hu­man sub­ject of my tem­po­ral guardian­ship. Know­ing how his Mas­ter so scrupu­lously avoided leav­ing writ­ten rec­ords be­hind him, An­drew stead­fastly re­fused to mul­ti­ply copies of his writ­ten nar­ra­tive. A sim­i­lar at­ti­tude on the part of the other apos­tles of Je­sus greatly de­layed the writ­ing of the Gospels.

• associated with Peter; later, Paul
• Gospel of Mark › basis of all subsequent Gospel narratives; changed
• Gospel of Mark › completed in A.D. 68; is really Gospel by Peter
• Gospel of Mark › Jesus’ avoidance of writing delayed

121:8.31. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the ear­li­est (ex­cept­ing the notes of An­drew), briefest, and most sim­ple rec­ord of Je­sus’ life. He pre­sented the Mas­ter as a min­is­ter, as man among men. Al­though Mark was a lad lin­ger­ing about many of the scenes which he de­picts, his rec­ord is in re­al­ity the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Si­mon Pe­ter. He was early as­so­ci­ated with Pe­ter; later with Paul. Mark wrote this rec­ord at the in­sti­ga­tion of Pe­ter and on the earnest pe­ti­tion of the church at Rome. Know­ing how con­sis­tently the Mas­ter re­fused to write out his teach­ings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apos­tles and other lead­ing dis­ci­ples, was hes­i­tant to put them in writ­ing. But Pe­ter felt the church at Rome re­quired the as­sis­tance of such a writ­ten nar­ra­tive, and Mark con­sented to un­der­take its prepa­ra­tion. He made many notes be­fore Pe­ter died in A.D. 67, and in ac­cor­dance with the out­line ap­proved by Pe­ter and for the church at Rome, he be­gan his writ­ing soon af­ter Pe­ter’s death. The Gospel was com­pleted near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote en­tirely from his own mem­ory and Pe­ter’s mem­ory. The rec­ord has since been con­sid­er­ably changed, nu­mer­ous pas­sages hav­ing been taken out and some later mat­ter added at the end to re­place the lat­ter one fifth of the orig­i­nal Gospel, which was lost from the first man­u­script be­fore it was ever copied. This rec­ord by Mark, in con­junc­tion with An­drew’s and Mat­thew’s notes, was the writ­ten ba­sis of all sub­se­quent Gospel nar­ra­tives which sought to por­tray the life and teach­ings of Je­sus.

• Gospel of Mark › Luke had copy of

121:8.9As ma­te­rial for the com­pi­la­tion of his Gospel, Luke first de­pended upon the story of Je­sus’ life as Paul had re­lated it to him. Luke’s Gospel is, there­fore, in some ways the Gospel ac­cord­ing to Paul. But Luke had other sources of in­for­ma­tion. He not only in­ter­viewed scores of eye­wit­nesses to the nu­mer­ous episodes of Je­sus’ life which he re­cords, but he also had with him a copy of Mark’s Gospel, that is, the first four fifths, Isador’s nar­ra­tive, and a brief rec­ord made in the year A.D. 78 at An­ti­och by a be­liever named Cedes. Luke also had a mu­ti­lated and much-edited copy of some notes pur­ported to have been made by the Apos­tle An­drew.

• did not hold stringent ideas about divorce

140:8.14The fam­ily oc­cu­pied the very cen­ter of Je­sus’ phi­los­o­phy of life—here and here­after. He based his teach­ings about God on the fam­ily, while he sought to cor­rect the Jew­ish ten­dency to over­honor an­ces­tors. He ex­alted fam­ily life as the high­est hu­man duty but made it plain that fam­ily re­la­tion­ships must not in­ter­fere with re­li­gious obli­ga­tions. He called at­ten­tion to the fact that the fam­ily is a tem­po­ral in­sti­tu­tion; that it does not sur­vive death. Je­sus did not hes­i­tate to give up his fam­ily when the fam­ily ran counter to the Fa­ther’s will. He taught the new and larger broth­er­hood of man—the sons of God. In Je­sus’ time di­vorce prac­tices were lax in Pales­tine and through­out the Ro­man Em­pire. He re­peat­edly re­fused to lay down laws re­gard­ing mar­riage and di­vorce, but many of Je­sus’ early fol­low­ers had strong opin­ions on di­vorce and did not hes­i­tate to at­trib­ute them to him. All of the New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers held to these more strin­gent and ad­vanced ideas about di­vorce ex­cept John Mark.

• boy of all chores

152:2.5Philip had pro­vided a three days’ sup­ply of food for Je­sus and the twelve, which was in the cus­tody of the Mark lad, their boy of all chores. By af­ter­noon of this, the third day for al­most half of this mul­ti­tude, the food the peo­ple had brought with them was nearly ex­hausted. David Zeb­e­dee had no tented city here to feed and ac­com­mo­date the crowds. Nei­ther had Philip made food pro­vi­sion for such a mul­ti­tude. But the peo­ple, even though they were hun­gry, would not go away. It was be­ing qui­etly whis­pered about that Je­sus, de­sir­ing to avoid trou­ble with both Herod and the Je­ru­sa­lem lead­ers, had cho­sen this quiet spot out­side the ju­ris­dic­tion of all his en­e­mies as the proper place to be crowned king. The en­thu­si­asm of the peo­ple was ris­ing ev­ery hour. Not a word was said to Je­sus, though, of course, he knew all that was go­ing on. Even the twelve apos­tles were still tainted with such no­tions, and es­pe­cially the younger evan­ge­lists. The apos­tles who fa­vored this at­tempt to pro­claim Je­sus king were Pe­ter, John, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, and Ju­das Is­car­iot. Those op­pos­ing the plan were An­drew, James, Na­than­iel, and Thomas. Mat­thew, Philip, and the Al­pheus twins were non­com­mit­tal. The ringleader of this plot to make him king was Joab, one of the young evan­ge­lists.

• had loaves and fishes which fed the 5000

152:2.7Be­fore the apos­tles had an op­por­tu­nity to ex­press them­selves, Je­sus turned to An­drew and Philip, say­ing: “I do not want to send these peo­ple away. Here they are, like sheep with­out a shep­herd. I would like to feed them. What food have we with us?” While Philip was con­vers­ing with Mat­thew and Ju­das, An­drew sought out the Mark lad to as­cer­tain how much was left of their store of pro­vi­sions. He re­turned to Je­sus, say­ing: “The lad has left only five bar­ley loaves and two dried fishes”—and Pe­ter promptly added, “We have yet to eat this evening.”

• John Mark

152:3.3These words of Je­sus sent the mul­ti­tude away stunned and dis­heart­ened. Many who had be­lieved in him turned back and fol­lowed him no more from that day. The apos­tles were speech­less; they stood in si­lence gath­ered about the twelve bas­kets of the frag­ments of food; only the chore boy, the Mark lad, spoke, “And he re­fused to be our king.” Je­sus, be­fore go­ing off to be alone in the hills, turned to An­drew and said: “Take your breth­ren back to Zeb­e­dee’s house and pray with them, es­pe­cially for your brother, Si­mon Pe­ter.”

• Gospel of Mark › left out part of Peter’s night vision

152:4.4To Pe­ter this ex­pe­ri­ence was al­ways real. He sin­cerely be­lieved that Je­sus came to them that night. He only par­tially con­vinced John Mark, which ex­plains why Mark left a por­tion of the story out of his nar­ra­tive. Luke, the physi­cian, who made care­ful search into these mat­ters, con­cluded that the episode was a vi­sion of Pe­ter’s and there­fore re­fused to give place to this story in the prepa­ra­tion of his nar­ra­tive.

• walked around lake with Jesus

152:5.1Thurs­day morn­ing, be­fore day­light, they an­chored their boat off­shore near Zeb­e­dee’s house and sought sleep un­til about noon­time. An­drew was first up and, go­ing for a walk by the sea, found Je­sus, in com­pany with their chore boy, sit­ting on a stone by the wa­ter’s edge. Not­with­stand­ing that many of the mul­ti­tude and the young evan­ge­lists searched all night and much of the next day about the east­ern hills for Je­sus, shortly af­ter mid­night he and the Mark lad had started to walk around the lake and across the river, back to Beth­saida.

• desire of heart not denied

176:1.2Je­sus paused while he looked down upon the city. The Mas­ter re­al­ized that the re­jec­tion of the spir­i­tual con­cept of the Mes­siah, the de­ter­mi­na­tion to cling per­sis­tently and blindly to the ma­te­rial mis­sion of the ex­pected de­liv­erer, would pres­ently bring the Jews in di­rect con­flict with the pow­er­ful Ro­man armies, and that such a con­test could only re­sult in the fi­nal and com­plete over­throw of the Jew­ish na­tion. When his peo­ple re­jected his spir­i­tual be­stowal and re­fused to re­ceive the light of heaven as it so mer­ci­fully shone upon them, they thereby sealed their doom as an in­de­pen­dent peo­ple with a spe­cial spir­i­tual mis­sion on earth. Even the Jew­ish lead­ers sub­se­quently rec­og­nized that it was this sec­u­lar idea of the Mes­siah which di­rectly led to the tur­bu­lence which even­tu­ally brought about their de­struc­tion.

176:1.3Since Je­ru­sa­lem was to be­come the cra­dle of the early gospel move­ment, Je­sus did not want its teach­ers and preach­ers to per­ish in the ter­ri­ble over­throw of the Jew­ish peo­ple in con­nec­tion with the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem; where­fore did he give these in­struc­tions to his fol­low­ers. Je­sus was much con­cerned lest some of his dis­ci­ples be­come in­volved in these soon-com­ing re­volts and so per­ish in the down­fall of Je­ru­sa­lem.

• Gospel of Mark › included Selta apocrypha

176:2.8Of all the dis­courses which the Mas­ter gave his apos­tles, none ever be­came so con­fused in their minds as this one, given this Tues­day evening on the Mount of Olives, re­gard­ing the two­fold sub­ject of the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem and his own sec­ond com­ing. There was, there­fore, lit­tle agree­ment be­tween the sub­se­quent writ­ten ac­counts based on the mem­o­ries of what the Mas­ter said on this ex­traor­di­nary oc­ca­sion. Con­se­quently, when the rec­ords were left blank con­cern­ing much that was said that Tues­day evening, there grew up many tra­di­tions; and very early in the sec­ond cen­tury a Jew­ish apoc­a­lyp­tic about the Mes­siah writ­ten by one Selta, who was at­tached to the court of the Em­peror Caligula, was bod­ily copied into the Mat­thew Gospel and sub­se­quently added (in part) to the Mark and Luke rec­ords. It was in these writ­ings of Selta that the para­ble of the ten vir­gins ap­peared. No part of the gospel rec­ord ever suf­fered such con­fus­ing mis­con­struc­tion as this evening’s teach­ing. But the Apos­tle John never be­came thus con­fused.

• John Mark

176:2.9As these thir­teen men re­sumed their jour­ney to­ward the camp, they were speech­less and un­der great emo­tional ten­sion. Ju­das had fi­nally con­firmed his de­ci­sion to aban­don his as­so­ciates. It was a late hour when David Zeb­e­dee, John Mark, and a num­ber of the lead­ing dis­ci­ples wel­comed Je­sus and the twelve to the new camp, but the apos­tles did not want to sleep; they wanted to know more about the de­struc­tion of Je­ru­sa­lem, the Mas­ter’s de­par­ture, and the end of the world.

• approached Jesus with small basket

177:0.4Upon hear­ing these words, David and his armed guards with­drew; but as Je­sus started off alone, John Mark came for­ward with a small bas­ket con­tain­ing food and wa­ter and sug­gested that, if he in­tended to be away all day, he might find him­self hun­gry. The Mas­ter smiled on John and reached down to take the bas­ket.

177:1.1As Je­sus was about to take the lunch bas­ket from John’s hand, the young man ven­tured to say: “But, Mas­ter, you may set the bas­ket down while you turn aside to pray and go on with­out it. Be­sides, if I should go along to carry the lunch, you would be more free to wor­ship, and I will surely be silent. I will ask no ques­tions and will stay by the bas­ket when you go apart by your­self to pray.”

177:1.2While mak­ing this speech, the temer­ity of which as­ton­ished some of the near-by lis­ten­ers, John had made bold to hold on to the bas­ket. There they stood, both John and Je­sus hold­ing the bas­ket. Pres­ently the Mas­ter let go and, look­ing down on the lad, said: “Since with all your heart you crave to go with me, it shall not be de­nied you. We will go off by our­selves and have a good visit. You may ask me any ques­tion that arises in your heart, and we will com­fort and con­sole each other. You may start out car­ry­ing the lunch, and when you grow weary, I will help you. Fol­low on with me.”

177:1.3Je­sus did not re­turn to the camp that evening un­til af­ter sun­set. The Mas­ter spent this last day of quiet on earth vis­it­ing with this truth-hun­gry youth and talk­ing with his Par­a­dise Fa­ther. This event has be­come known on high as “the day which a young man spent with God in the hills.” For­ever this oc­ca­sion ex­em­pli­fies the will­ing­ness of the Cre­ator to fel­low­ship the crea­ture. Even a youth, if the de­sire of the heart is re­ally su­preme, can com­mand the at­ten­tion and en­joy the lov­ing com­pan­ion­ship of the God of a uni­verse, ac­tu­ally ex­pe­ri­ence the un­for­get­table ec­stasy of be­ing alone with God in the hills, and for a whole day. And such was the unique ex­pe­ri­ence of John Mark on this Wednes­day in the hills of Judea.

177:1.4Je­sus vis­ited much with John, talk­ing freely about the af­fairs of this world and the next. John told Je­sus how much he re­gret­ted that he had not been old enough to be one of the apos­tles and ex­pressed his great ap­pre­ci­a­tion that he had been per­mit­ted to fol­low on with them since their first preach­ing at the Jor­dan ford near Jeri­cho, ex­cept for the trip to Phoeni­cia. Je­sus warned the lad not to be­come dis­cour­aged by im­pend­ing events and as­sured him he would live to be­come a mighty mes­sen­ger of the king­dom.

177:1.5John Mark was thrilled by the mem­ory of this day with Je­sus in the hills, but he never for­got the Mas­ter’s fi­nal ad­mo­ni­tion, spo­ken just as they were about to re­turn to the Geth­sem­ane camp, when he said: “Well, John, we have had a good visit, a real day of rest, but see to it that you tell no man the things which I told you.” And John Mark never did re­veal any­thing that tran­spired on this day which he spent with Je­sus in the hills.

• overheard all that transpired in Gethsemane

177:1.6Through­out the few re­main­ing hours of Je­sus’ earth life John Mark never per­mit­ted the Mas­ter for long to get out of his sight. Al­ways was the lad in hid­ing near by; he slept only when Je­sus slept.

177:2.1In the course of this day’s vis­it­ing with John Mark, Je­sus spent con­sid­er­able time com­par­ing their early child­hood and later boy­hood ex­pe­ri­ences. Al­though John’s par­ents pos­sessed more of this world’s goods than had Je­sus’ par­ents, there was much ex­pe­ri­ence in their boy­hood which was very sim­i­lar. Je­sus said many things which helped John bet­ter to un­der­stand his par­ents and other mem­bers of his fam­ily. When the lad asked the Mas­ter how he could know that he would turn out to be a “mighty mes­sen­ger of the king­dom,” Je­sus said:

177:2.2“I know you will prove loyal to the gospel of the king­dom be­cause I can de­pend upon your pres­ent faith and love when these qual­i­ties are grounded upon such an early train­ing as has been your por­tion at home. You are the prod­uct of a home where the par­ents bear each other a sin­cere af­fec­tion, and there­fore you have not been overloved so as in­ju­ri­ously to ex­alt your con­cept of self-im­por­tance. Nei­ther has your per­son­al­ity suf­fered dis­tor­tion in con­se­quence of your par­ents’ love­less ma­neu­ver­ing for your con­fi­dence and loy­alty, the one against the other. You have en­joyed that pa­ren­tal love which in­sures laud­able self-con­fi­dence and which fos­ters nor­mal feel­ings of se­cu­rity. But you have also been for­tu­nate in that your par­ents pos­sessed wis­dom as well as love; and it was wis­dom which led them to with­hold most forms of in­dul­gence and many lux­u­ries which wealth can buy while they sent you to the syn­a­gogue school along with your neigh­bor­hood playfel­lows, and they also en­cour­aged you to learn how to live in this world by per­mit­ting you to have orig­i­nal ex­pe­ri­ence. You came over to the Jor­dan, where we preached and John’s dis­ci­ples bap­tized, with your young friend Amos. Both of you de­sired to go with us. When you re­turned to Je­ru­sa­lem, your par­ents con­sented; Amos’s par­ents re­fused; they loved their son so much that they de­nied him the blessed ex­pe­ri­ence which you have had, even such as you this day en­joy. By run­ning away from home, Amos could have joined us, but in so do­ing he would have wounded love and sac­ri­ficed loy­alty. Even if such a course had been wise, it would have been a ter­ri­ble price to pay for ex­pe­ri­ence, in­de­pen­dence, and lib­erty. Wise par­ents, such as yours, see to it that their chil­dren do not have to wound love or sti­fle loy­alty in or­der to de­velop in­de­pen­dence and en­joy in­vig­o­rat­ing lib­erty when they have grown up to your age.

177:2.3“Love, John, is the su­preme re­al­ity of the uni­verse when be­stowed by all-wise be­ings, but it is a dan­ger­ous and of­ten­times semi­selfish trait as it is man­i­fested in the ex­pe­ri­ence of mor­tal par­ents. When you get mar­ried and have chil­dren of your own to rear, make sure that your love is ad­mon­ished by wis­dom and guided by in­tel­li­gence.

177:2.4“Your young friend Amos be­lieves this gospel of the king­dom just as much as you, but I can­not fully de­pend upon him; I am not cer­tain about what he will do in the years to come. His early home life was not such as would pro­duce a wholly de­pend­able per­son. Amos is too much like one of the apos­tles who failed to en­joy a nor­mal, lov­ing, and wise home train­ing. Your whole af­ter­life will be more happy and de­pend­able be­cause you spent your first eight years in a nor­mal and well-reg­u­lated home. You pos­sess a strong and well-knit char­ac­ter be­cause you grew up in a home where love pre­vailed and wis­dom reigned. Such a child­hood train­ing pro­duces a type of loy­alty which as­sures me that you will go through with the course you have be­gun.”

177:2.5For more than an hour Je­sus and John con­tin­ued this dis­cus­sion of home life. The Mas­ter went on to ex­plain to John how a child is wholly de­pen­dent on his par­ents and the as­so­ci­ated home life for all his early con­cepts of ev­ery­thing in­tel­lec­tual, so­cial, moral, and even spir­i­tual since the fam­ily rep­re­sents to the young child all that he can first know of ei­ther hu­man or di­vine re­la­tion­ships. The child must de­rive his first im­pres­sions of the uni­verse from the mother’s care; he is wholly de­pen­dent on the earthly fa­ther for his first ideas of the heav­enly Fa­ther. The child’s sub­se­quent life is made happy or un­happy, easy or dif­fi­cult, in ac­cor­dance with his early men­tal and emo­tional life, con­di­tioned by these so­cial and spir­i­tual re­la­tion­ships of the home. A hu­man be­ing’s en­tire af­ter­life is enor­mously in­flu­enced by what hap­pens dur­ing the first few years of ex­is­tence.

177:2.6It is our sin­cere be­lief that the gospel of Je­sus’ teach­ing, founded as it is on the fa­ther-child re­la­tion­ship, can hardly en­joy a world-wide ac­cep­tance un­til such a time as the home life of the mod­ern civ­i­lized peo­ples em­braces more of love and more of wis­dom. Not­with­stand­ing that par­ents of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury pos­sess great knowl­edge and in­creased truth for im­prov­ing the home and en­nobling the home life, it re­mains a fact that very few mod­ern homes are such good places in which to nur­ture boys and girls as Je­sus’ home in Gal­i­lee and John Mark’s home in Judea, al­beit the ac­cep­tance of Je­sus’ gospel will re­sult in the im­me­di­ate im­prove­ment of home life. The love life of a wise home and the loyal de­vo­tion of true re­li­gion ex­ert a pro­found re­cip­ro­cal in­flu­ence upon each other. Such a home life en­hances re­li­gion, and gen­uine re­li­gion al­ways glo­ri­fies the home.

177:2.7It is true that many of the ob­jec­tion­able stunt­ing in­flu­ences and other cramp­ing fea­tures of these olden Jew­ish homes have been vir­tu­ally elim­i­nated from many of the bet­ter-reg­u­lated mod­ern homes. There is, in­deed, more spon­ta­neous free­dom and far more per­sonal lib­erty, but this lib­erty is not re­strained by love, mo­ti­vated by loy­alty, nor di­rected by the in­tel­li­gent dis­ci­pline of wis­dom. As long as we teach the child to pray, “Our Fa­ther who is in heaven,” a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­ity rests upon all earthly fa­thers so to live and or­der their homes that the word fa­ther be­comes worthily en­shrined in the minds and hearts of all grow­ing chil­dren.

• Last Supper was in upper chamber of parents’ home

178:2.8When the apos­tles reached the city, they met the man with the wa­ter pitcher near the gate and fol­lowed on af­ter him to the home of John Mark, where the lad’s fa­ther met them and showed them the up­per room in readi­ness for the evening meal.

178:2.9And all of this came to pass as the re­sult of an un­der­stand­ing ar­rived at be­tween the Mas­ter and John Mark dur­ing the af­ter­noon of the pre­ced­ing day when they were alone in the hills. Je­sus wanted to be sure he would have this one last meal undis­turbed with his apos­tles, and be­liev­ing if Ju­das knew be­fore­hand of their place of meet­ing he might ar­range with his en­e­mies to take him, he made this se­cret ar­range­ment with John Mark. In this way Ju­das did not learn of their place of meet­ing un­til later on when he ar­rived there in com­pany with Je­sus and the other apos­tles.

• John Mark

178:3.6John Mark had fol­lowed them all the way into the city, and af­ter they had en­tered the gate, he hur­ried on by an­other street so that he was wait­ing to wel­come them to his fa­ther’s home when they ar­rived.

• Last Supper was in upper chamber of parents’ home

179:1.1When the apos­tles had been shown up­stairs by John Mark, they be­held a large and com­modi­ous cham­ber, which was com­pletely fur­nished for the sup­per, and ob­served that the bread, wine, wa­ter, and herbs were all in readi­ness on one end of the ta­ble. Ex­cept for the end on which rested the bread and wine, this long ta­ble was sur­rounded by thir­teen re­clin­ing couches, just such as would be pro­vided for the cel­e­bra­tion of the Pass­over in a well-to-do Jew­ish house­hold.

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.

• overheard all that transpired in Gethsemane
• parents were Elijah and Mary Mark

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.

• knew Judas intended to betray Jesus

182:2.1The apos­tles were greatly shocked when they re­turned to their camp and found Ju­das ab­sent. While the eleven were en­gaged in a heated dis­cus­sion of their traitorous fel­low apos­tle, David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark took Je­sus to one side and re­vealed that they had kept Ju­das un­der ob­ser­va­tion for sev­eral days, and that they knew he in­tended to be­tray him into the hands of his en­e­mies. Je­sus lis­tened to them but only said: “My friends, noth­ing can hap­pen to the Son of Man un­less the Fa­ther in heaven so wills. Let not your hearts be trou­bled; all things will work to­gether for the glory of God and the sal­va­tion of men.”

• knew Judas intended to betray Jesus

182:2.9None of the apos­tles ex­pected any­thing out of the or­di­nary to hap­pen that night since it was al­ready so late. They sought sleep that they might rise up early in the morn­ing and be pre­pared for the worst. They thought that the chief priests would seek to ap­pre­hend their Mas­ter early in the morn­ing as no sec­u­lar work was ever done af­ter noon on the prepa­ra­tion day for the Pass­over. Only David Zeb­e­dee and John Mark un­der­stood that the en­e­mies of Je­sus were com­ing with Ju­das that very night.

• overheard all that transpired in Gethsemane

182:2.10David had ar­ranged to stand guard that night on the up­per trail which led to the Beth­any-Je­ru­sa­lem road, while John Mark was to watch along the road com­ing up by the Kidron to Geth­sem­ane. Be­fore David went to his self-im­posed task of out­post duty, he bade farewell to Je­sus, say­ing: “Mas­ter, I have had great joy in my ser­vice with you. My broth­ers are your apos­tles, but I have de­lighted to do the lesser things as they should be done, and I shall miss you with all my heart when you are gone.” And then said Je­sus to David: “David, my son, oth­ers have done that which they were di­rected to do, but this ser­vice have you done of your own heart, and I have not been un­mind­ful of your de­vo­tion. You, too, shall some day serve with me in the eter­nal king­dom.”

182:2.11And then, as he pre­pared to go on watch by the up­per trail, David said to Je­sus: “You know, Mas­ter, I sent for your fam­ily, and I have word by a mes­sen­ger that they are tonight in Jeri­cho. They will be here early to­mor­row forenoon since it would be dan­ger­ous for them to come up the bloody way by night.” And Je­sus, look­ing down upon David, only said: “Let it be so, David.”

182:2.12When David had gone up Oli­vet, John Mark took up his vigil near the road which ran by the brook down to Je­ru­sa­lem. And John would have re­mained at this post but for his great de­sire to be near Je­sus and to know what was go­ing on. Shortly af­ter David left him, and when John Mark ob­served Je­sus with­draw, with Pe­ter, James, and John, into a near-by ravine, he was so over­come with com­bined de­vo­tion and cu­rios­ity that he for­sook his sen­tinel post and fol­lowed af­ter them, hid­ing him­self in the bushes, from which place he saw and over­heard all that tran­spired dur­ing those last mo­ments in the gar­den and just be­fore Ju­das and the armed guards ap­peared to ar­rest Je­sus.

• hid in shed by olive press

183:0.3Fail­ing to dis­perse his fol­low­ers, the Mas­ter left them and walked down to­ward the olive press near the en­trance to Geth­sem­ane Park. Al­though the three apos­tles, the Greeks, and the other mem­bers of the camp hes­i­tated im­me­di­ately to fol­low him, John Mark has­tened around through the olive trees and se­creted him­self in a small shed near the olive press. Je­sus with­drew from the camp and from his friends in or­der that his ap­pre­hend­ers, when they ar­rived, might ar­rest him with­out dis­turb­ing his apos­tles. The Mas­ter feared to have his apos­tles awake and pres­ent at the time of his ar­rest lest the spec­ta­cle of Ju­das’s be­tray­ing him should so arouse their an­i­mos­ity that they would of­fer re­sis­tance to the sol­diers and would be taken into cus­tody with him. He feared that, if they should be ar­rested with him, they might also per­ish with him.

• escaped from soldier naked

183:3.9When Je­sus had been bound, the cap­tain, fear­ing that the fol­low­ers of the Mas­ter might at­tempt to res­cue him, gave or­ders that they be seized; but the sol­diers were not quick enough since, hav­ing over­heard the cap­tain’s or­ders to ar­rest them, Je­sus’ fol­low­ers fled in haste back into the ravine. All this time John Mark had re­mained se­cluded in the near-by shed. When the guards started back to Je­ru­sa­lem with Je­sus, John Mark at­tempted to steal out of the shed in or­der to catch up with the flee­ing apos­tles and dis­ci­ples; but just as he emerged, one of the last of the re­turn­ing sol­diers who had pur­sued the flee­ing dis­ci­ples was pass­ing near and, see­ing this young man in his linen coat, gave chase, al­most over­tak­ing him. In fact, the sol­dier got near enough to John to lay hold upon his coat, but the young man freed him­self from the gar­ment, es­cap­ing naked while the sol­dier held the empty coat. John Mark made his way in all haste to David Zeb­e­dee on the up­per trail. When he had told David what had hap­pened, they both has­tened back to the tents of the sleep­ing apos­tles and in­formed all eight of the Mas­ter’s be­trayal and ar­rest.

183:3.10At about the time the eight apos­tles were be­ing awak­ened, those who had fled up the ravine were re­turn­ing, and they all gath­ered to­gether near the olive press to de­bate what should be done. In the mean­time, Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee, who had hid­den among the olive trees, had al­ready gone on af­ter the mob of sol­diers, guards, and ser­vants, who were now lead­ing Je­sus back to Je­ru­sa­lem as they would have led a des­per­ate crim­i­nal. John fol­lowed close be­hind the mob, but Pe­ter fol­lowed afar off. Af­ter John Mark’s es­cape from the clutch of the sol­dier, he pro­vided him­self with a cloak which he found in the tent of Si­mon Pe­ter and John Zeb­e­dee. He sus­pected the guards were go­ing to take Je­sus to the home of An­nas, the high priest emer­i­tus; so he skirted around through the olive or­chards and was there ahead of the mob, hid­ing near the en­trance to the gate of the high priest’s palace.

• John Mark

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.

• kept apostles in touch

191:0.3Their iso­la­tion had much to do with their trou­bles. John Mark kept them in touch with de­vel­op­ments about the tem­ple and in­formed them as to the many ru­mors gain­ing head­way in the city, but it did not oc­cur to him to gather up news from the dif­fer­ent groups of be­liev­ers to whom Je­sus had al­ready ap­peared. That was the kind of ser­vice which had here­to­fore been ren­dered by the mes­sen­gers of David, but they were all ab­sent on their last as­sign­ment as her­alds of the res­ur­rec­tion to those groups of be­liev­ers who dwelt re­mote from Je­ru­sa­lem. For the first time in all these years the apos­tles re­al­ized how much they had been de­pen­dent on David’s mes­sen­gers for their daily in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the af­fairs of the king­dom.

• located Thomas in Bethpage

191:0.13The Mas­ter put off the first mor­ontia ap­pear­ance to the apos­tles for a num­ber of rea­sons. First, he wanted them to have time, af­ter they heard of his res­ur­rec­tion, to think well over what he had told them about his death and res­ur­rec­tion when he was still with them in the flesh. The Mas­ter wanted Pe­ter to wres­tle through with some of his pe­cu­liar dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore he man­i­fested him­self to them all. In the sec­ond place, he de­sired that Thomas should be with them at the time of his first ap­pear­ance. John Mark lo­cated Thomas at the home of Si­mon in Beth­page early this Sun­day morn­ing, bring­ing word to that ef­fect to the apos­tles about eleven o’clock. Any time dur­ing this day Thomas would have gone back to them if Na­than­iel or any two of the other apos­tles had gone for him. He re­ally wanted to re­turn, but hav­ing left as he did the evening be­fore, he was too proud to go back of his own ac­cord so soon. By the next day he was so de­pressed that it re­quired al­most a week for him to make up his mind to re­turn. The apos­tles waited for him, and he waited for his breth­ren to seek him out and ask him to come back to them. Thomas thus re­mained away from his as­so­ciates un­til the next Sat­ur­day evening, when, af­ter dark­ness had come on, Pe­ter and John went over to Beth­page and brought him back with them. And this is also the rea­son why they did not go at once to Gal­i­lee af­ter Je­sus first ap­peared to them; they would not go with­out Thomas.

• joined apostles

192:0.4Early this Mon­day morn­ing when the apos­tles de­parted for Gal­i­lee, John Mark went along. He fol­lowed them out of the city, and when they had passed well be­yond Beth­any, he boldly came up among them, feel­ing con­fi­dent they would not send him back.

192:1.1About six o’clock Fri­day morn­ing, April 21, the mor­ontia Mas­ter made his thir­teenth ap­pear­ance, the first in Gal­i­lee, to the ten apos­tles as their boat drew near the shore close to the usual land­ing place at Beth­saida.

192:1.2Af­ter the apos­tles had spent the af­ter­noon and early evening of Thurs­day in wait­ing at the Zeb­e­dee home, Si­mon Pe­ter sug­gested that they go fish­ing. When Pe­ter pro­posed the fish­ing trip, all of the apos­tles de­cided to go along. All night they toiled with the nets but caught no fish. They did not much mind the fail­ure to make a catch, for they had many in­ter­est­ing ex­pe­ri­ences to talk over, things which had so re­cently hap­pened to them at Je­ru­sa­lem. But when day­light came, they de­cided to re­turn to Beth­saida. As they neared the shore, they saw some­one on the beach, near the boat land­ing, stand­ing by a fire. At first they thought it was John Mark, who had come down to wel­come them back with their catch, but as they drew nearer the shore, they saw they were mis­taken—the man was too tall for John. It had oc­curred to none of them that the per­son on the shore was the Mas­ter. They did not al­to­gether un­der­stand why Je­sus wanted to meet with them amidst the scenes of their ear­lier as­so­ci­a­tions and out in the open in con­tact with na­ture, far away from the shut-in en­vi­ron­ment of Je­ru­sa­lem with its tragic as­so­ci­a­tions of fear, be­trayal, and death. He had told them that, if they would go into Gal­i­lee, he would meet them there, and he was about to ful­fill that prom­ise.

192:1.3As they dropped an­chor and pre­pared to en­ter the small boat for go­ing ashore, the man on the beach called to them, “Lads, have you caught any­thing?” And when they an­swered, “No,” he spoke again. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find fish.” While they did not know it was Je­sus who had di­rected them, with one ac­cord they cast in the net as they had been in­structed, and im­me­di­ately it was filled, so much so that they were hardly able to draw it up. Now, John Zeb­e­dee was quick of per­cep­tion, and when he saw the heavy-laden net, he per­ceived that it was the Mas­ter who had spo­ken to them. When this thought came into his mind, he leaned over and whis­pered to Pe­ter, “It is the Mas­ter.” Pe­ter was ever a man of thought­less ac­tion and im­petu­ous de­vo­tion; so when John whis­pered this in his ear, he quickly arose and cast him­self into the wa­ter that he might the sooner reach the Mas­ter’s side. His breth­ren came up close be­hind him, hav­ing come ashore in the small boat, haul­ing the net of fishes af­ter them.

192:1.4By this time John Mark was up and, see­ing the apos­tles com­ing ashore with the heavy-laden net, ran down the beach to greet them; and when he saw eleven men in­stead of ten, he sur­mised that the un­rec­og­nized one was the risen Je­sus, and as the as­ton­ished ten stood by in si­lence, the youth rushed up to the Mas­ter and, kneel­ing at his feet, said, “My Lord and my Mas­ter.” And then Je­sus spoke, not as he had in Je­ru­sa­lem, when he greeted them with “Peace be upon you,” but in com­mon­place tones he ad­dressed John Mark: “Well, John, I am glad to see you again and in care­free Gal­i­lee, where we can have a good visit. Stay with us, John, and have break­fast.”

192:1.5As Je­sus talked with the young man, the ten were so as­ton­ished and sur­prised that they ne­glected to haul the net of fish in upon the beach. Now spoke Je­sus: “Bring in your fish and pre­pare some for break­fast. Al­ready we have the fire and much bread.”

192:1.6While John Mark had paid homage to the Mas­ter, Pe­ter had for a mo­ment been shocked at the sight of the coals of fire glow­ing there on the beach; the scene re­minded him so vividly of the mid­night fire of char­coal in the court­yard of An­nas, where he had dis­owned the Mas­ter, but he shook him­self and, kneel­ing at the Mas­ter’s feet, ex­claimed, “My Lord and my Mas­ter!”

192:1.7Pe­ter then joined his com­rades as they hauled in the net. When they had landed their catch, they counted the fish, and there were 153 large ones. And again was the mis­take made of call­ing this an­other mirac­u­lous catch of fish. There was no mir­a­cle con­nected with this episode. It was merely an ex­er­cise of the Mas­ter’s pre­knowl­edge. He knew the fish were there and ac­cord­ingly di­rected the apos­tles where to cast the net.

• dressed fish for resurrected Jesus

192:1.8Je­sus spoke to them, say­ing: “Come now, all of you, to break­fast. Even the twins should sit down while I visit with you; John Mark will dress the fish.” John Mark brought seven good-sized fish, which the Mas­ter put on the fire, and when they were cooked, the lad served them to the ten. Then Je­sus broke the bread and handed it to John, who in turn served it to the hun­gry apos­tles. When they had all been served, Je­sus bade John Mark sit down while he him­self served the fish and the bread to the lad. And as they ate, Je­sus vis­ited with them and re­counted their many ex­pe­ri­ences in Gal­i­lee and by this very lake.

192:1.9This was the third time Je­sus had man­i­fested him­self to the apos­tles as a group. When Je­sus first ad­dressed them, ask­ing if they had any fish, they did not sus­pect who he was be­cause it was a com­mon ex­pe­ri­ence for these fish­er­men on the Sea of Gal­i­lee, when they came ashore, to be thus ac­costed by the fish mer­chants of Ta­ri­chea, who were usu­ally on hand to buy the fresh catches for the dry­ing es­tab­lish­ments.

192:1.10Je­sus vis­ited with the ten apos­tles and John Mark for more than an hour, and then he walked up and down the beach, talk­ing with them two and two—but not the same cou­ples he had at first sent out to­gether to teach. All eleven of the apos­tles had come down from Je­ru­sa­lem to­gether, but Si­mon Ze­lo­tes grew more and more de­spon­dent as they drew near Gal­i­lee, so that, when they reached Beth­saida, he for­sook his breth­ren and re­turned to his home.

192:1.11Be­fore tak­ing leave of them this morn­ing, Je­sus di­rected that two of the apos­tles should vol­un­teer to go to Si­mon Ze­lo­tes and bring him back that very day. And Pe­ter and An­drew did so.

192:2.1When they had fin­ished break­fast, and while the oth­ers sat by the fire, Je­sus beck­oned to Pe­ter and to John that they should come with him for a stroll on the beach. As they walked along, Je­sus said to John, “John, do you love me?” And when John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, with all my heart,” the Mas­ter said: “Then, John, give up your in­tol­er­ance and learn to love men as I have loved you. De­vote your life to prov­ing that love is the great­est thing in the world. It is the love of God that im­pels men to seek sal­va­tion. Love is the an­ces­tor of all spir­i­tual good­ness, the essence of the true and the beau­ti­ful.”

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

192:2.3Af­ter they had walked along a lit­tle far­ther, the Mas­ter turned to Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you re­ally love me?” And then said Si­mon, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” And again said Je­sus: “Then take good care of my sheep. Be a good and a true shep­herd to the flock. Be­tray not their con­fi­dence in you. Be not taken by sur­prise at the en­emy’s hand. Be on guard at all times—watch and pray.”

192:2.4When they had gone a few steps far­ther, Je­sus turned to Pe­ter and, for the third time, asked, “Pe­ter, do you truly love me?” And then Pe­ter, be­ing slightly grieved at the Mas­ter’s seem­ing dis­trust of him, said with con­sid­er­able feel­ing, “Lord, you know all things, and there­fore do you know that I re­ally and truly love you.” Then said Je­sus: “Feed my sheep. Do not for­sake the flock. Be an ex­am­ple and an in­spi­ra­tion to all your fel­low shep­herds. Love the flock as I have loved you and de­vote your­self to their wel­fare even as I have de­voted my life to your wel­fare. And fol­low af­ter me even to the end.”

192:2.5Pe­ter took this last state­ment lit­er­ally—that he should con­tinue to fol­low af­ter him—and turn­ing to Je­sus, he pointed to John, ask­ing, “If I fol­low on af­ter you, what shall this man do?” And then, per­ceiv­ing that Pe­ter had mis­un­der­stood his words, Je­sus said: “Pe­ter, be not con­cerned about what your breth­ren shall do. If I will that John should tarry af­ter you are gone, even un­til I come back, what is that to you? Only make sure that you fol­low me.”

192:2.6This re­mark spread among the breth­ren and was re­ceived as a state­ment by Je­sus to the ef­fect that John would not die be­fore the Mas­ter re­turned, as many thought and hoped, to es­tab­lish the king­dom in power and glory. It was this in­ter­pre­ta­tion of what Je­sus said that had much to do with get­ting Si­mon Ze­lo­tes back into ser­vice, and keep­ing him at work.

192:2.7When they re­turned to the oth­ers, Je­sus went for a walk and talk with An­drew and James. When they had gone a short dis­tance, Je­sus said to An­drew, “An­drew, do you trust me?” And when the for­mer chief of the apos­tles heard Je­sus ask such a ques­tion, he stood still and an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, of a cer­tainty I trust you, and you know that I do.” Then said Je­sus: “An­drew, if you trust me, trust your breth­ren more—even Pe­ter. I once trusted you with the lead­er­ship of your breth­ren. Now must you trust oth­ers as I leave you to go to the Fa­ther. When your breth­ren be­gin to scat­ter abroad be­cause of bit­ter per­se­cu­tions, be a con­sid­er­ate and wise coun­selor to James my brother in the flesh when they put heavy bur­dens upon him which he is not qual­i­fied by ex­pe­ri­ence to bear. And then go on trust­ing, for I will not fail you. When you are through on earth, you shall come to me.”

192:2.8Then Je­sus turned to James, ask­ing, “James, do you trust me?” And of course James replied, “Yes, Mas­ter, I trust you with all my heart.” Then said Je­sus: “James, if you trust me more, you will be less im­pa­tient with your breth­ren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the broth­er­hood of be­liev­ers. Learn to weigh the con­se­quences of your say­ings and your do­ings. Re­mem­ber that the reap­ing is in ac­cor­dance with the sow­ing. Pray for tran­quil­lity of spirit and cul­ti­vate pa­tience. These graces, with liv­ing faith, shall sus­tain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sac­ri­fice. But never be dis­mayed; when you are through on earth, you shall also come to be with me.”

192:2.9Je­sus next talked with Thomas and Na­than­iel. Said he to Thomas, “Thomas, do you serve me?” Thomas replied, “Yes, Lord, I serve you now and al­ways.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would serve me, serve my breth­ren in the flesh even as I have served you. And be not weary in this well-do­ing but per­se­vere as one who has been or­dained by God for this ser­vice of love. When you have fin­ished your ser­vice with me on earth, you shall serve with me in glory. Thomas, you must cease doubt­ing; you must grow in faith and the knowl­edge of truth. Be­lieve in God like a child but cease to act so child­ishly. Have cour­age; be strong in faith and mighty in the king­dom of God.”

192:2.10Then said the Mas­ter to Na­than­iel, “Na­than­iel, do you serve me?” And the apos­tle an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, and with an un­di­vided af­fec­tion.” Then said Je­sus: “If, there­fore, you serve me with a whole heart, make sure that you are de­voted to the wel­fare of my breth­ren on earth with tire­less af­fec­tion. Ad­mix friend­ship with your coun­sel and add love to your phi­los­o­phy. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you. Be faith­ful to men as I have watched over you. Be less crit­i­cal; ex­pect less of some men and thereby lessen the ex­tent of your dis­ap­point­ment. And when the work down here is over, you shall serve with me on high.”

192:2.11Af­ter this the Mas­ter talked with Mat­thew and Philip. To Philip he said, “Philip, do you obey me?” Philip an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I will obey you even with my life.” Then said Je­sus: “If you would obey me, go then into the lands of the gen­tiles and pro­claim this gospel. The proph­ets have told you that to obey is bet­ter than to sac­ri­fice. By faith have you be­come a God-know­ing king­dom son. There is but one law to obey—that is the com­mand to go forth pro­claim­ing the gospel of the king­dom. Cease to fear men; be un­afraid to preach the good news of eter­nal life to your fel­lows who lan­guish in dark­ness and hunger for the light of truth. No more, Philip, shall you busy your­self with money and goods. You now are free to preach the glad tid­ings just as are your breth­ren. And I will go be­fore you and be with you even to the end.”

192:2.12And then, speak­ing to Mat­thew, the Mas­ter asked, “Mat­thew, do you have it in your heart to obey me?” Mat­thew an­swered, “Yes, Lord, I am fully ded­i­cated to do­ing your will.” Then said the Mas­ter: “Mat­thew, if you would obey me, go forth to teach all peo­ples this gospel of the king­dom. No longer will you serve your breth­ren the ma­te­rial things of life; hence­forth you are also to pro­claim the good news of spir­i­tual sal­va­tion. From now on have an eye sin­gle only to obey­ing your com­mis­sion to preach this gospel of the Fa­ther’s king­dom. As I have done the Fa­ther’s will on earth, so shall you ful­fill the di­vine com­mis­sion. Re­mem­ber, both Jew and gen­tile are your breth­ren. Fear no man when you pro­claim the sav­ing truths of the gospel of the king­dom of heaven. And where I go, you shall pres­ently come.”

192:2.13Then he walked and talked with the Al­pheus twins, James and Ju­das, and speak­ing to both of them, he asked, “James and Ju­das, do you be­lieve in me?” And when they both an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we do be­lieve,” he said: “I will soon leave you. You see that I have al­ready left you in the flesh. I tarry only a short time in this form be­fore I go to my Fa­ther. You be­lieve in me—you are my apos­tles, and you al­ways will be. Go on be­liev­ing and re­mem­ber­ing your as­so­ci­a­tion with me, when I am gone, and af­ter you have, per­chance, re­turned to the work you used to do be­fore you came to live with me. Never al­low a change in your out­ward work to in­flu­ence your al­le­giance. Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never for­get that, when you are a faith son of God, all up­right work of the realm is sa­cred. Noth­ing which a son of God does can be com­mon. Do your work, there­fore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and bet­ter worlds where you shall like­wise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you.”

192:2.14It was al­most ten o’clock when Je­sus re­turned from his visit with the Al­pheus twins, and as he left the apos­tles, he said: “Farewell, un­til I meet you all on the mount of your or­di­na­tion to­mor­row at noon­time.” When he had thus spo­ken, he van­ished from their sight.

192:4.1Word of the ap­pear­ances of Je­sus was spread­ing through­out Gal­i­lee, and ev­ery day in­creas­ing num­bers of be­liev­ers ar­rived at the Zeb­e­dee home to in­quire about the Mas­ter’s res­ur­rec­tion and to find out the truth about these re­puted ap­pear­ances. Pe­ter, early in the week, sent out word that a pub­lic meet­ing would be held by the sea­side the next Sab­bath at three o’clock in the af­ter­noon.

192:4.2Ac­cord­ingly, on Sat­ur­day, April 29, at three o’clock, more than five hun­dred be­liev­ers from the en­vi­rons of Ca­per­naum as­sem­bled at Beth­saida to hear Pe­ter preach his first pub­lic ser­mon since the res­ur­rec­tion. The apos­tle was at his best, and af­ter he had fin­ished his ap­peal­ing dis­course, few of his hear­ers doubted that the Mas­ter had risen from the dead.

192:4.3Pe­ter ended his ser­mon, say­ing: “We af­firm that Je­sus of Naz­a­reth is not dead; we de­clare that he has risen from the tomb; we pro­claim that we have seen him and talked with him.” Just as he fin­ished mak­ing this dec­la­ra­tion of faith, there by his side, in full view of all these peo­ple, the Mas­ter ap­peared in mor­ontia form and, speak­ing to them in fa­mil­iar ac­cents, said, “Peace be upon you, and my peace I leave with you.” When he had thus ap­peared and had so spo­ken to them, he van­ished from their sight. This was the fif­teenth mor­ontia man­i­fes­ta­tion of the risen Je­sus.

192:4.4Be­cause of cer­tain things said to the eleven while they were in con­fer­ence with the Mas­ter on the mount of or­di­na­tion, the apos­tles re­ceived the im­pres­sion that their Mas­ter would pres­ently make a pub­lic ap­pear­ance be­fore a group of the Galilean be­liev­ers, and that, af­ter he had done so, they were to re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem. Ac­cord­ingly, early the next day, Sun­day, April 30, the eleven left Beth­saida for Je­ru­sa­lem. They did con­sid­er­able teach­ing and preach­ing on the way down the Jor­dan, so that they did not ar­rive at the home of the Marks in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til late on Wednes­day, May 3.

• death of father

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.

192:4.7On Thurs­day night the apos­tles had a won­der­ful meet­ing in this up­per cham­ber and all pledged them­selves to go forth in the pub­lic preach­ing of the new gospel of the risen Lord ex­cept Thomas, Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, and the Al­pheus twins. Al­ready had be­gun the first steps of chang­ing the gospel of the king­dom—son­ship with God and broth­er­hood with man—into the procla­ma­tion of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus. Na­than­iel op­posed this shift in the bur­den of their pub­lic mes­sage, but he could not with­stand Pe­ter’s elo­quence, nei­ther could he over­come the en­thu­si­asm of the dis­ci­ples, es­pe­cially the women be­liev­ers.

192:4.8And so, un­der the vig­or­ous lead­er­ship of Pe­ter and ere the Mas­ter as­cended to the Fa­ther, his well-mean­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives be­gan that sub­tle pro­cess of grad­u­ally and cer­tainly chang­ing the re­li­gion of Je­sus into a new and mod­i­fied form of re­li­gion about Je­sus.

• John 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.

• Gospel of Mark › retains something of human Jesus

196:2.3Mark, Mat­thew, and Luke re­tain some­thing of the pic­ture of the hu­man Je­sus as he en­gaged in the su­perb strug­gle to as­cer­tain the di­vine will and to do that will. John pre­sents a pic­ture of the tri­umphant Je­sus as he walked on earth in the full con­scious­ness of di­vin­ity. The great mis­take that has been made by those who have stud­ied the Mas­ter’s life is that some have con­ceived of him as en­tirely hu­man, while oth­ers have thought of him as only di­vine. Through­out his en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence he was truly both hu­man and di­vine, even as he yet is.