Mark 13:5-13

Be Still: - Holy Spirit, our Advocate and the One who comes alongside - please read with me today as I open your Word. Amen

Read: Mark 13:5-13

For the Good News must first be preached to all nations. But when you are arrested and stand trial, don’t worry in advance about what to say. Just say what God tells you at that time, for it is not you who will be speaking, but the Holy Spirit. (v10-11 NIV) 

Encounter: Happy Feast Day of St Mark the Evangelist! Let's take a moment to remember and reflect on the life of Mark, who (most likely) wrote the action-packed Gospel of Mark. 

Mark was direct and honest about the realities of following Jesus, and in today’s passage, Jesus is talking about how ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.’ He talks about famines and earthquakes, families turning against each other, and being arrested and flogged. It doesn’t make for cheery reading.

But Jesus emphasises, despite and because of all of this, how important it is to preach the gospel to all nations, and he reassures his followers that ‘it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.’ 

Mark experienced persecution and uncertainty, and he wanted to remind his readers of the realities of following Jesus, but also the promise of his presence and the indwelling of the Spirit.  

Apply: It’s astonishing that 2000 years later, the words Jesus wrote are so close to our present world reality, and yet the call from Jesus, through Mark the Evangelist's words, remains the same. We can’t predict the future, we don’t get any guarantees of a care-free life, but through it all, our task is the same as it was for the first disciples - to preach the Good News, lean into the Spirit and ‘stand firm to the end’. What does it look like for you today to:

– Preach the Good News, your words or actions? 

– Lean into the Spirit and let him guide your words and thoughts?

– Stand firm on Jesus despite whatever might be going on?

Devote: Today let’s pray the Collect for Mark the Evangelist, from the Book of Common Prayer.

Almighty God, who enlightened your holy Church through the inspired witness of your evangelist Mark: grant that we, being firmly grounded in the truth of the gospel, may be faithful to its teaching both in word and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, whom by the power of the Spirit you raised to live with you, his God and Father, for ever and ever. Amen.