Mark was a full-blooded Jew when he began his career. 'John, whose
surname was Mark,' like a great many other Jews at that time, bore a
double name--one Jewish, 'John,' and one Gentile, 'Marcus.' But as time
goes on we do not hear anything more about 'John,' nor even about 'John
Mark,' which are the two forms of his name when he is first introduced
to us in the Acts of the Apostles, but he finally appears to have cast
aside his Hebrew and to have been only known by his Roman name. And that
change of appellation coincides with the fact that so many of the
allusions which we have to him represent him as sending messages of
Christian greeting across the sea to his Gentile brethren. And it
further coincides with the fact that his gospel is obviously intended
for the use of Gentile Christians, and, according to an old and reliable
tradition, was written in Rome for Roman Christians. All of which facts
just indicate two things, that the more a man has real operative love to
Jesus Christ in his heart, the more he will rise above all limitations
of his interests, his sympathy, and his efforts, and the more surely
will he let himself out, as far as he can, in affection towards and
toils for all men.
This change of name, though it is a mere trifle, and may have been
adopted as a matter of convenience, may also be taken as reminding us
of a very important truth, and that is, that if we wish to help people,
the first condition is that we go down and stand on their level, and
make ourselves one with them, as far as we can. And so Mark may have
said, 'I have put away the name that parts me from these Gentiles, for
whom I desire to work, and whom I love; and I take the name that binds
me to them.' Why, it is the very same principle, in a small
instance--just as a raindrop that hangs on the thorn of a rose-bush is
moulded by the same laws that shape the great sphere of the central
sun--it is a small instance of the great principle which brought Jesus
Christ down into the world to die for us. You must become like the
people that you want to help. 'Forasmuch as the children were partakers
of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that
He might deliver them.' And so, not only the duty of widening our
sympathies, but one of the supreme conditions of being of use to
anybody, are set forth in the comparatively trifling incident, which we
pass by without noticing it, that this man, a Jew to his finger-tips,
finally found himself--or, rather, finally was carried, for it was no
case of unconscious drifting--into the position of a messenger of the
Cross to the Gentiles; and for the sake of efficiency in his work, and
of getting close by the side of people whom he wanted to influence,
flung away deliberately that which parted him from them. It is a small
matter, but a little window may show a very wide prospect.
II. The history of Mark suggests the possibility of overcoming early
faults.
We do not know why he refused to bear the burden of the work that he had
so cheerily begun. Probably the reason that I have suggested may have
had something to do with it. When he started he did not bargain for
going into unknown lands, in which there were many toils to be
encountered. He was willing to go where he knew the ground, and where
there were people that would make things easy for him; but when Paul
went further afield, Mark's courage ebbed out at his finger ends, and he
slunk back to the comfort of his mother's house in Jerusalem. At all
events, whatever his reason, his return was a fault; or Paul would not
have been so hard upon him as he was. The writer of the Acts puts Paul's
view of the case strongly by the arrangement of clauses in the sentence
in which he tells us that the Apostle 'thought not good to take him with
them who withdrew from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to
the work.' If he thus threw down his tools whenever he came to a little
difficulty, and said, 'As long as it is easy work, and close to the base
of operations, I am your man, but if there is any sacrifice wanted you
must look out for somebody else,' he was not precisely a worker after
Paul's own heart. And the best way to treat him was as the Apostle did;
and to say to Barnabas' indulgent proposal, 'No! he would not do the
work before, and now he shall not do it.' That is often God's way with
us. It brings us to our senses, as it brought Mark to his.
We do not know how long it took to cure Mark of his early fault, but he
was thoroughly cured. The man that was afraid of dangers and
difficulties and hypothetical risks in Asia Minor became brave enough to
stand by the Apostle when he was a prisoner, and was not ashamed of his
chain. And afterwards, so much had he won his way into the Apostle's
confidence, and made himself needful for him by his services and his
sweetness, that the lonely prisoner, with the gibbet or headsman's
sword in prospect, feels that he would like to have Mark with him once
more, and bids Timothy bring him with himself, for 'he is profitable to
me for the ministry.' 'He can do a thousand things that a man like me
cannot do for himself, and he does them all for love and nothing for
reward.' So he wants Mark once more. And thus not only Paul's
generosity, but Mark's own patient effort had pasted a clean sheet over
the one that was inscribed with the black story of his desertion, and he
became 'profitable for' the task that he had once in so petulant and
cowardly a way, flung up.
Well, translate that from the particular into the general and it comes
to this. Let no man set limits to the possibilities of his own
restoration, and of his curing faults which are most deeply rooted
within himself. Hope and effort should be boundless. There is nothing
that a Christian man may not reach, in the way of victory over his worse
self, and ejection of his most deeply-rooted faults, if only he will be
true to Jesus, and use the gifts that are given to him. There are many
of us whose daily life is pitched in a minor key; whose whole landscape
is grey and monotonous and sunless; who feel as if yesterday must set
the tune for to-day, and as if, because we have been beaten and baffled
so often, it is useless to try again. But remember that the field on
which the Stone of Help was erected, to commemorate the great and
decisive victory that Israel won, was the very field on which the same
foes had before contended, and _then_ Israel had been defeated.
So, brethren, we may win victories on the very soil where formerly we
were shamefully put to the rout; and our Christ with us will make
anything possible for us, in the way of restoration, of cure of old
faults, of ceasing to repeat former sins. I suppose that when a spar is
snapped on board a vessel, and lashed together with spun yarn and
lanyards, as a sailor knows how to do, it is stronger at the point of
fracture than it was before. I suppose that it is possible for a man to
be most impregnable at the point where he is naturally weakest, if he
chooses to use the defences that Jesus Christ has given.