GOD ISN'T WHO YOU NEED HIM TO BE:

Because Mark's Gospel was the first one written, probably about 70 A.D., it is essential for understanding the other Gospels. Scripture scholars believe that Matthew and Luke had a copy of Mark's Gospel on their desks as they were writing their own Gospels. They used parts of Mark's story, editing and rearranging them, then added new material. This is why these three Gospels are referred to as the synoptic Gospels, because they include many of the same stories.

Mark's Gospel, the shortest, has no infancy stories. It begins with the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist.

Mark's message is unrelenting. You must accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Absolute commitment is required. His repeated message is that no one understands Jesus. No one gets him. Not the Apostles, not even his mother.

He ends his Gospel not with the appearances of the risen Jesus, but with a young man (perhaps representing Mark himself) in the empty tomb telling the women that Jesus has been raised. "Go and tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.'"

But what do the women do? They run away. "Then they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." The end. 

Later editors added to Mark's Gospel an appearance of the risen Jesus, but that is not in the original. 

Mark believed in the resurrection, but he ended his Gospel this way in order to emphasize to Christians that they did not understand Jesus and therefore could not see him. Even confronted by the message of the resurrection, the disciples don't get it.

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