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Students meet Jesus face to face in the Gospel of Mark

“Jesus is a tough teacher. He is so loving, but he’s also a very tough teacher.” Mount Allison University student Anne MacLean pauses for a moment, then explains what she means by this discovery, uncovered through a week-long intensive study of the Gospel of Mark.

“The reason he is so tough is because he wants you to truly learn and truly understand for yourself. He encourages you to seek him with all you have.”

Seeking to know Christ – what he taught, what he did, what he said – is the focus of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship’s annual Gospel of Mark manuscript study camp for university students.  There are three held each spring across Canada – MarkEast, in eastern Canada, CityScript in Ontario and, in the west, MarkWest. 

The camp can be somewhat daunting, says Debbie Chute, another Mount Allison student, who first learned about it from a group of western Canadian students she met at the Urbana 09 Missions Conference this past December. “They told me how it was daunting at first to think about studying the Bible for a week, but that it helped them grow and was insightful and enjoyable.”

Were they right?  Absolutely, says Debbie. “I’ve learned a lot. Mark is so inter-connected and because we are reading it in order I see how Jesus tried to teach the same lesson over and over again – that you have to have faith in him and trust him in order to follow him.”

The Gospel of Mark is divided into two sections for the purpose of the camp. First-year attendees study the first half of the Gospel and second-year attendees, the second half. Students who come for a third year move from Mark back into Genesis, which gives them the foundation for a Biblical world view.

Although this is the first time the camp has been held in eastern Canada, it has been held for several years in Ontario and Alberta, drawing hundreds of students deeply into scripture. On each day of the camp, students spend between six and nine hours studying Mark or Genesis. The passages are printed out on white paper with all of the verses, chapters and marginal notes removed. This allows students to read it in a way that is close to its earliest form. 

A significant part of the study time is given over to students’ questions – what do they see as they read the text? What do they wonder about?  What makes sense to them and what doesn’t make sense? How does it apply to their lives?

While the camp is all about Bible study, manuscript study teacher and Inter-Varsity Ministry Director Andrew Karram describes the camp as much more than this.  “This study of Mark is a movement in young people’s lives across Canada,” he says.  “We want (students) to walk away from this week as people who are marked as Jesus’ followers in this world.”

Yvonne Tan, a fourth year University of Waterloo student, knows exactly what Andrew means because she’s seen a shift in her own understanding of why it is important to study scripture.  “I have a growing interest in apologetics, learning scripture in order to prove that God is who he says he is. But I’m getting a little more than just apologetics. Being here, having the scripture in front of me, it’s not just for me to explain it to other people, but for myself, to understand how God works in my life.”

Yvonne stops, thinking about what she’s just said, then gives an ironic smile. “I should have expected that. It’s amazing.”

Third-year Waterloo student Philemon Tsang agrees. “At first it was a distant study, analyzing. The more we study, though, the more you realize how much it hits home and how much we put ourselves in different positions, how we posture ourselves like a Pharisee or a disciple.”

This lesson came to life for Philemon during one of the non-scripture study activities of the camp. In order to help the students understand that the gospel is relevant today, Halifax, N.S. staff worker Rachel Davison organized an afternoon outing in the city centre. The goal was for students to walk around as if they lived on the street. With just 50 cents in their pockets, they were encouraged to look for places to eat, to sleep, to get help with finding a job. 

Walking around Halifax gave Philemon the context he was seeking as he studied the Gospel of Mark.  “It isn’t just for the sake of knowing God more, or for being filled with blessing for ourselves, but that we should be a channel of the blessing outwards.”

Peter Conley, a second-year University of New Brunswick student, shares Philemon’s insights. Peter came away from the scripture study and the Halifax experience thinking more concretely about Christ’s love for people. “I have a better understanding of the compassion Jesus had for people, how he really loved people who were in a lower place in society. I hope it will help me be more compassionate myself.”

For Katie Pazia, a third-year Mount Allison University student everything about Jesus became more tangible through the Mark study.  “I was thinking about the fact that this is real. This isn’t something you do at Mount Allison Christian Fellowship on Monday nights. Jesus is very real and tangible today and he’s radical.

“Jesus isn’t boring. Nothing he does is boring so I’m wondering why church is boring and why we’ve let ourselves be boring.”

Studying scripture for eight or nine hours a day initially sounded boring for fourth-year Acadia University student Rebecca Bradley but, she says, “that’s definitely not what I have discovered. It just gets more and more exciting.”

Fourth-year Crandall University student Janet Nicholson understands Rebecca’s discovery and has thought about what changed as the week progressed. “At the beginning of the week I’d get to the point where I didn’t want to study anymore. I was ready to quit. A couple of times I actually stopped and said to Jesus ‘I’m hitting a wall here, my humanity doesn’t want to do this anymore….keep me here, you want me to keep learning things.’”

MarkEast, says Janet, “really taught me a lot about this coming to Jesus thing. We are not meant to do this on our own. The bigger lesson is how often I have just stopped short in life, when if I’d stuck with it, I would have gotten what Jesus wanted for me.”

Posted: June 17, 2010

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