Christmas

2 Christmas

Exploring the text
Mark’s Gospel provides slim pickings at Christmas time. Unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Luke it provides no run-up to the birth of Jesus and no account of the events surrounding his birth. It does not even, like John’s Gospel, provide a poetic introduction that summons our imaginations back to the dawning of time. Instead Mark catapults us into the start of Jesus’ adult ministry with his baptism by John in the river Jordan. This means that Jesus’ family is treated differently in Mark from the other Gospels....