Sunday Reflection with Fr Terry Tastard - 4 December 2011

Each of the gospels has its own characteristics. For this new liturgical year we focus particularly on the gospel according to Mark, which is written in a deliberately brisk and straightforward style. You can see this in the very opening words: 'The beginning of the Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.' A direct, no-nonsense launch into the deep, you might say, and how much is packed into these few words!

The beginning … now here is something thought-provoking. For although the Gospel according to Mark has a clear beginning, it has no clear end. If you look at the end of the gospel, you will see that it ends with the resurrection, but in a rather puzzling way. The women who have discovered the empty tomb run away in perplexity and fear.

This is because the story of God's initiative to the world does not fit neatly into any human way of thinking. It will always stretch our best understanding. Moreover, the account of what God does in Christ does not end with the resurrection. Rather, it goes on right up to the present moment, to ourselves and all people who respond in faith to the message of God's love.

So remember that today we hear the beginning, but the story of Christ and his people includes us and the present moment. This beginning has never ended for God is making all things new. He renews even us, in our tired, crowded lives. Every day people will gather courage, strength and hope from Christ. Every day the beginning continues, for God's initiative in Christ carries forward through time.

Then we are told that this is Good News. I wonder what would be good news for us today. Promotion? Winning the lottery? Someone saying, 'I love you'? Yes, of course, but each of these would be special for us alone. It would necessarily exclude others. Truly good news would be good news for everybody. The best of good news would be something which everybody could count a blessing. The coming of the Christ is good news because it says that God's love is given freely and will never come to an end. It is redemptive love: that is to say, it will win us back from death and despair, from fear and immobility. God encourages, strengthens, challenges us to build the kingdom, even as he forgives. Jesus will show us this.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God … Many people around us assume that Christ is the surname of Jesus, but it is his title. It means the Messiah, the anointed and chosen one sent by God in fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah and others. There was a clear understanding in Middle Eastern society (it still exists today) that a man may send his son to represent him in a difficult situation. Sometimes the son goes into a situation where he is at risk, as a demonstration of the good will of the father. Today we hear that Christ comes into our world, a world of risk and compromise, a place of vulnerability and suffering. Christ will share these things with us. And as he does so, we will come to realise that the promise of the ages is fulfilled in him: God is with us and God is for us. Only God can save us and he does it by coming among us as uniquely God and man.

In the simple, opening, direct words of the gospel according to Mark there is a depth of meaning.


Fr Terry is Parish Priest at St Mary's in Finchley East, north London. Fr Terry's latest book: Ronald Knox and English Catholicism is published by Gracewing at £12.99 and is available on Amazon, on ICN's front page. To read Sr Gemma Simmonds' review on ICN see: www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=16114