I love the Gospel of Mark. It’s so frank and fast. Do you know what Mark’s favorite word to use is? “Immediately.” Everything happens “immediately” after everything else. “Immediately Jesus was whisked into the wilderness by the Spirit; immediately he called them and they left what they were doing and followed; immediately the leprosy left the man.”

It is also most likely, (and we can say maybe almost CERTAINLY,) the earliest of the Gospel’s. In addition, it is also the shortest. There are many things that Mark doesn’t even record for us. For example: do you want to know what Gospel you’ll never hear from on Christmas or Christmas Eve? Mark. You wanna know why? No annunciation, no genealogy, no donkey, no manger, no shepherds, no angels, no wise men, no gold, frankincense and myrrh. There isn’t even any sort of “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was WITH God,” introduction like there is in the Gospel of John.

Nope. Instead we start with Jesus’ ministry. Right away. John the Baptist says “Here comes Jesus!” and then, there he is, getting baptized and, “immediately”, of course, being taken by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan in the wilderness for forty days.

-Aj Neugebauer LCMS pastor