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Place yourself, for a moment, in ancient Rome: not in the Forum or a palace or the Colosseum - that hasn't yet been built - but in a little house on a side street. Before you sits an older man, his hair white, his shoulders bent by years of hard work, but his manner confident and his voice strong.

Mark?
I don't know what I'd do without him.
He's as fine a young man as they come.
Hah! Did I call him a young man?
He's as much a young man
as I am still a fisherman -
and I haven't pulled a net these thirty years.
"Peter the Fisherman,"
that's how some still remember me.
"Peter, the Old Fisherman."

And I guess I remember Mark as I first met him -
a youth -
and forget he's mature now.
But I can't forget all he's done
in the service of Christ.
Yes, Mark had his failings.
He was with us in the garden
the night Jesus was arrested -
and he ran -
so did we all.
A soldier grabbed him by the robe
and he wiggled out -
ran away naked.
We were all scared that night -
and crushed the next day.
We didn't know Jesus would rise from the dead,
and that would make all the difference
in the world.

Mark and his mother knew the risen Christ.
When Herod threw me into jail,
it was in Mark's mother's house
the church gathered to pray for me.
Anyway, we all knew Mark,
and watched him grow
and rejoiced with him in the love of Christ.

Mark's first call to service became his big failure.
When Paul and Barnabas were set apart
for their first big missionary trip,
Mark went along to help them.
Barnabas was Mark's cousin, you know.
They started in Cyprus,
the easy part of the trip.
But when they got to Perga on the mainland,
Mark left and went home to Jerusalem.
That's when the trip became harder:
opposition,
driven out of town,
stoned and left for dead at Lystra;
Mark missed all that hard part.
Paul and Barnabas felt let down,
the church felt let down,
and Mark himself felt let down:
he knew he was a failure.
Worse yet,
when Paul and Barnabas planned a second mission,
Barnabas wanted to take Mark,
give him a chance to make good.
Paul absolutely refused.
Paul said this was no job for a loser, a quitter.
Mark is useless;
he showed that the first time.
It got so sharp it split Paul and Barnabas apart:
two great men who'd held each other up
all through great dangers, great opposition,
and they broke over Mark.
Paul found a new companion - Silas -
and started off on the trip that took the Gospel
to Macedonia and then to Greece:
the first teaching of Christ in Europe.

Most Christians agreed with Paul.
They gave up on Mark as a lost sheep,
gone on the wrong path,
and never going to amount to anything.
I can still hear the words of Jesus,
as clearly as the day when he said them,
Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends
and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Barnabas surely lived those words of Jesus.
He took Mark with him and went off to Cyprus.
On that new mission Mark showed his worth
as a man of God.
Yes, Mark failed on his first big test,
but Barnabas, bighearted as ever,
gave him another chance,
and by the grace of God, Mark made good.
The lost sheep made his way back, rejoicing.
Barnabas rejoiced,
the whole church rejoiced,
and Paul especially rejoiced.

Paul could be firm, very firm,
when he knew he was right,
but Paul also knew the redeeming grace of God,
and how Jesus Christ can change a man.
He never forgot how he himself
had persecuted Christians
and how God turned him around.
Paul was my friend;
he knew how I denied my Lord,
and he knew how Christ received me back
and commissioned me for service.
Paul rejoiced in Mark's new growth
and later took Mark with him on his travels.
When Paul was in prison here in Rome,
Mark cared for his needs.
Paul wrote to us all that Mark was a comfort to him,
and he sent Mark on a mission to Colossae
and to other churches.
Still later, when things when things were hard in prison,
Paul wrote to Timothy,
"Get Mark, and bring him with you,
for he is useful in my ministry."

That's a while ago.
Mark's older now; I'm much older,
and Mark is with me here in Rome.
He's doing something I should have done long ago -
if I could have.
He's writing down the story of Jesus.
There's not many of us left,
we who walked the hills of Galilee with Jesus
and heard him teach in the villages.
We are fewer still - I'm almost the only one left -
who broke bread with him in the upper room,
ran from the garden,
huddled together, broken,
when he was in the tomb,
and came to life again
when the risen Christ appeared in the room.
John's still alive, exiled to Patmos;
Matthew's in Judea,
Thomas went to the East,
and we haven't heard from him.
Someone has to tell the story
when our generation is gone.
That's why Mark is doing what I cannot do.
Fisherman I was, and never much of a scribe,
but in my mind's eye I can see Jesus
take a lame man by the hand,
and I can see - just as clearly as it was -
that lame man stand,
start to walk,
then run,
leap for joy!
And I can hear Jesus teach a crowd
or give a sharp answer to a hypocrite:
it's just as clear in my ears as it was
when he sat in my boat
and taught the people on the shore.
I tell it all to Mark,
just as I saw it, heard it, felt it,
and Mark is writing it down.
I don't think he'll get it all in his scroll.
No papyrus can hold the power of Jesus:
his life;
the health and strength and joy and healings
and bitter tears;
or our absolute amazement when we knew
he had risen;
but Mark will have as much as pen and ink
can carry.

Yes, Mark's as fine as can be,
and the whole church will owe him thanks.
When John and I and all the rest who saw
the risen Christ are gone,
the church will still have the story,
given by the hand of Mark.

Aye. Yet sometimes, when he sits writing, I wonder.
As this church of our Lord Jesus goes on
through the years ahead,
what will happen
to other young Christians who fail?
Will they have a second chance?

In that far-off future day,
will there be a Paul in the church
big enough to say, "I was wrong.
I once judged you a failure,
but now I thank God for what you can become"?
Will there be a Paul with the insight to say,
"We have all failed God - once - and again -
and many times.
But God forgives,
and by the love of Jesus Christ,
God makes us new persons, able to start over"?
Will there be a Barnabas in that future church,
bighearted, a son of encouragement,
willing to take a chance on a dropout, a failure,
or the person who doesn't fit in?
Will there be a Barnabas,
ready to make some personal effort,
to give that person a start on the long road back?
How many young men will make a mistake
and be pushed aside,
and be afraid to try again,
or not be trusted,
not given a chance to prove themselves?
And how many - no matter what they have done -
will be held up in the arms of a Christian brother
and given a hug of assurance,
and grow to take their places in the ranks
of the faithful servants of our Lord?
How many young women will be put down
and made to feel ashamed,
so they feel they are unworthy
of our Lord's forgiveness,
and unwelcome in his church;
then they turn away
from the love of Christ entirely?
And how many - no matter what they have done -
will be held in the bosom of their sisters,
and lifted up in the healing grace of our Lord,
and become the honored fellow-workers
among the people of God?

One thing I know.
Christ
our Savior gave me a second chance,
a third,
a fourth;
he took me after I denied him.
He'll do the same for every Mark,
and Peter,
and Mary,
and Paul.
Will they have the faith to turn
to his restoring love?
Will the Church have the faith,
the love,
the courage,
the vision,
to accept them,
encourage them,
love them,
rejoice with them,
and bring them back,
giving praise and thanks to God?