PURPOSE: To help listeners understand why Mark doesn't focus on Jesus' birth.

Has it ever struck you that in singing our Christmas carols, we get no carols based on what Mark wrote? Why is that?

Why did Mark choose not to tell us anything about Jesus' birth?

I. Who was Mark?

From Acts 13:5 we learn that he was a helper to Paul and Barnabas, but he left them and returned to Jerusalem (13:13). In Acts 15:36-40 Paul and Barnabas split up over the question of taking Mark on another journey.

But later in 2 Timothy 4:11 Paul wants Mark to come to him in prison.

The very early church recorded that Mark traveled extensively with Peter.

The early church did not focus on the birth of Jesus; in fact, Christmas wasn't celebrated until the 300s.

II. Mark ignores Jesus' birth completely.

Do you think that Mark knew anything about Jesus' birth? Do you think it ever occurred to him that he was leaving out the first 30 years of Jesus' life? That raises the question: Why would he do that?

John the Baptist serves his purpose and then disappears from the story so as not to get in Jesus' way--which is what a servant does.

III. Matthew presented Jesus as a king; Mark wants to present Him as a servant.

No one is particularly interested in the genealogy of a servant.

Mark calls Jesus "the carpenter" (6:3). Matthew calls him "the carpenter's son" as if to draw back from seeing Jesus just as a tradesman.

Mark said that the Spirit of God drove Jesus into the wilderness, but Matthew and Luke said that the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness. Is "drive" more appropriate for a servant than for a king?

Jesus came as a servant. "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45).