Mark’s gospel is generally agreed to be the first written gospel and to have been used by Matthew and Luke in their accounts.  It is also a popular with radical urban mission writers such as Ched Myers and John Vincent, but few if any one seems to have noticed what a serious gospel it is.  By serious I mean lacking in joy - and not merely lacking in joy but being positively suspicious of it. 

Why is joy missing from Mark?  For a start this can be put down to the lack of nativity and resurrection stories.  Especially in Luke these stories account for a number of the occurrences of joy.  Mark also lacks the parables of losing and finding, where joy is a predominant theme.  The account of the mission of the seventy mentioned above in Luke 10 is also missing from Mark.  This might lead us to conclude that the lack of references to joy in Mark is purely accidental.  But there are two key passages where the other gospel writers use the word joy but Mark avoids so doing.  The first is the story of the triumphal entry: 

Luke 19: 36-38

And as he went, they were spreading their garments in the highway.  And as He was drawing near, already to the descent of the Mount of Olives, all the multitude of the disciples began rejoicing, to praise God with a loud voice concerning all the might works that they saw. Saying

Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord, the King.  Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

Mark 11: 8-10

And many spread their garments on the highway, and others were cutting branches from the trees and were spreading them on the highway.  And those going before, and those following after, were crying out

Hosanna!  Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David in the name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!

In Luke we have the picture of a happy crowd of disciples rejoicing and praising God.  The Markan picture is subtly different.  The people are not disciples, just those going before and after.  There is no praising of God, just a rabble rousing focus on the anointed one coming to re-establish the Kingdom of David.  There is no rejoicing amongst the people - just a mutilation of the trees!  In Mark there is clear evidence of a focusing, almost desperate in its vehemence, on Jesus as their coming saviour - certainly no sense of joy.

The second passage is the account of the women at the tomb after the resurrection.  Here transliteration brings out the slight changes between Matthew and Mark. 

Matthew 28: 8

And going away quickly from the tomb with fear and joy great they ran to announce to the disciples of Him

Mark 16: 8

And going away quickly they fled from the tomb and having them trembling and ecstasy and no one nothing they told for they were afraid

In Matthew we have a mixed picture. The women are both joyful and fearful.  It is a dramatic experience for them but they are still sufficiently under control to go and tell the disciples what has happened.  In Mark the account begins with the same four words but we begin to sense a different tone when Mark adds that the women do not merely go away but flee away.  This prepares us for the most dramatic difference in the accounts, any sense of joy is absent; the women are traumatised by their experience.  The word translated ecstasy can be more fully rendered as 'a displacement of the mind from its ordinary state and self possession'.  This is emphasised by the failure of Mark's women to tell anyone about their experience.  In the Markan account any idea of joy is swept away by a description of a far more traumatic and uncomfortable experience.

So we have seen that Mark seems to deliberately avoid making use of the experience of joy when describing religious experience.  We might therefore conclude that it was an experience alien to his particular Christian culture, or even that the word was not part of his limited Greek vocabulary.  This however is not the case for there are two mentions of joy in Mark.

Mark 4:16

Others, like seeds sown on rocky places, hear the word and at one receive it with joy.  But since they have no root they last only a short  time.  When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

Mark 14:11

Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve went away to the chief priests, that he might betray Him to them.  And hearing, they rejoiced and promised to give him silver.

These two passages finally confirm our suspicions that Mark was deeply sceptical about the value of joy as a Christian experience.  Those who respond with joy to the gospel are shallow and do not last.  Joy is a characteristic of the enemies of Jesus.  The writer of Mark had a very serious notion of what discipleship was about.

The cursing of the fig tree

Finally I want to look at a passage which seems to typify the unruly character of Mark's narrative

He saw in the distance a fig tree covered with leaves, so he went to see if he could find any figs on it. But when he came to it, he found only leaves, because it was not the right time for figs.  Jesus said to the fig tree, "No one shall ever eat figs from you again!" And his disciples heard him.  ...

Early next morning, as they walked along the road, they saw the fig tree. It was dead all the way down to its roots.  Peter remembered what had happened and said to Jesus, "Look, Teacher, the fig tree you cursed has died!"

Mark 11:13-21

There is no passage in the Bible which I find more perplexing.  Commentaries are full of words like 'difficult' and 'perhaps' but generally can't explain why Jesus seems to be so arbitrary and destructive.  The context is certainly instructive - the cleansing of the temple fills the gap between the beginning and end of the story. It makes Jesus look like Samson - a wild man bringing a holy chaos into a situation where oppression has created an unchallenged equilibrium.  Watch out everyone! The tornado of the Spirit is about to descend ...small wonder that the orderly Luke quietly leaves this story out of his gospel of joy and the new community.