Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Storytelling for Week 2: The Gospel of Mark


The Story of Mark from a Village person

I am a man by the name of Samuel from Jerusalem.  I keep hearing about the Son of God named Jesus but I only believe what I can see with my own two eyes.   I have never met this Jesus man, but I heard he has made miracles happen.  Miracles? Or magic tricks? Is this man trying to trick us all into believing that he is so much better than us? Half of the people worship the ground that Jesus walks on but the other half are set out to kill him.  What’s so great about this man and why is he such a big deal?  He’s just like any other man in my village…right?

Many people travel through my village, but recently, I heard a very interesting story that is hard to explain.  I heard Jesus healed someone that was blind.   Unless someone was tricking everyone that he was blind for his entire life, I don’t understand how a regular man could heal someone’s blindness.  Maybe this Jesus guy is pretty spectacular after all.  Although, I need more to convince me that Jesus is really the Son of God.

Jesus is coming to Jerusalem today!  Could this mean that Jesus is coming to make miracles happen in my village? Maybe I will listen to his teachings if I’m convinced.  After hearing the stories about the people he has healed, maybe this Jesus guy isn’t so bad after all?  I was able to sneak into the temple that Jesus rode his horse into today.  I tried to eaves drop on the conversations but I was unable to make out everything.  I overheard John talking about his baptism from Jesus, but they were deciding whether Jesus was from man or if he was from the Heavens.  Well this changes it all! I need to know this answer and I will tell all my village whether or not Jesus is the real deal or if he is a hoax. 



Many weeks went by and I still didn’t know my answer.  But how could anyone be so perfect and selfless?  He told us to follow commandments that will make us better and create a more peaceful world.  Who else would teach such a thing if there was nothing in it for them?  Questions raced through my head like a bullet coming out of a gun.  I was more confused about this than anything else I had ever been confused about.  For some reason this was more important.  After hearing about the prophecies, Jesus must be the Son of God.  There is not other explanation to explain the miracles that have happened and the teachings that he has taught and the things that only Jesus can do.  I must believe in him and follow his teachings and I know I will live a more peaceful life if I follow the footsteps of Jesus.  Suddenly, in that moment, everything became so clear.  This is what I needed to do to become who again.  I was confused and lost and now my mind is set at ease and I know exactly what to believe and understand.  This all makes so much sense.  I must go spread the word to the rest of my village and make disciples to teach about the wonderful and spectacular Jesus. 

 Author's Note:
I read the Gospel stories of Mark for my week 2 reading diary because this is something that is always very interesting to me.  I love reading the Bible and stories from the Bible so I chose to learn and dive more into Mark.  I wrote my story from the eyes of a normal villager.  Not someone that was particularly a follower of God or Jesus but someone who was very skeptical about the whole thing from the very beginning.  I wanted to write my story through this perspective because I feel like so many people these days are very skeptical about whether or not Jesus was real or if He was the Son of God.  Samuel, in my story, did not believe that Jesus was special in any way at the beginning of the story, but soon he was convinced.  

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6 comments:

  1. Mary TudtudSeptember 4, 2015 at 9:59 AM

    Hello Alyse, I really liked your take on the Gospel of Mark and your reasoning of doing so. Samuel's skepticism sounds like a realistic description of the people of Jerusalem's reaction to Jesus. This may sound really corny but your portrayal of the blind man being able to see again made me think of the saying, "seeing is believing". Over all good job, it makes me curious to read more about the prophesies.

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  2. UnknownSeptember 6, 2015 at 12:30 PM

    Hi Alyse! I really enjoyed the story that you chose.

    Overall, I think you are a good writer with a nice flow to your words! I really liked how you conveyed the thoughts of the Narrator and made him very relatable. He was not only intrigued, but confused and bewildered at some points, just as any person would probably be in this situation. The use of questions and exclamations made it feel like a real persons thoughts. No one just thinks in plain sentences. I also thought that your use of a simile was awesome when you were talking about questions coming out of his head like bullets from a gun!

    I think something that could have made the story run even smoother would be more paragraph separation. Sometimes the thoughts on something ended, and then a new part of the story started again and it would have been effective to start it in a new paragraph, rather than continuing on the same line.

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  3. AnonymousSeptember 6, 2015 at 9:46 PM

    Alyse,
    I really enjoyed the way that you wrote this and the point of view that you took. It is an interesting take on the well-known Bible story and it was quite and easy read. I like how you did not try to make it too complicated and the way you wrote made it seem like a person just casually talking rather than a stiff unemotional story. It almost seems as though it is his diary entry chronicling his journey trying to really decide his feelings about Jesus. Going in and looking at your first and last sentence, the first one is quite direct and it introduces that character well without any unnecessary fluff. Then I really enjoyed how your last sentence really shows how he has changed and that he is going to go tell the world of Jesus. It really encapsulates the story and the main theme behind it.

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  4. UnknownSeptember 7, 2015 at 4:22 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. UnknownSeptember 7, 2015 at 4:33 AM

    Hi Alyse!

    I like that you chose an ordinary villager to tell this story. You did a great job of describing Samuel's feelings, confusion, and doubt. If you could use his "first-account" of the events, I think your short story would have been more dramatic. Maybe Samuel could have seen the miracle with the blind man or you could have described the scene in the temple; the word’s Samuel heard, what he felt and saw.

    When I was reading through your story I thought it sounded a lot like a journal. I think that would have been a really creative way for you to tell Samuel's story. Since the story occurred over several weeks, it makes it difficult deal with tense consistently in the short story. By using journal entries with dates, you could have shown how Samuel’s feelings about Jesus changed over time.

    At the end of your story, Samuel talked about how this would change his life. I think you were on the right track in capturing his epiphany but I think you could have gave it a little more context. What does Samuel do for a living? Does he have a wife and family? Just a few words added to a couple sentences could bring Samuel to life and then you could use these details to show the dramatic impact Jesus had on his life.

    Overall I really like how you retold this story!
    Hi Alyse!

    I like that you chose an ordinary villager to tell this story. You did a great job of describing Samuel's feelings, confusion, and doubt. If you could use his "first-account" of the events, I think your short story would have been more dramatic. Maybe Samuel could have seen the miracle with the blind man or you could have described the scene in the temple; the word’s Samuel heard, what he felt and saw.

    When I was reading through your story I thought it sounded a lot like a journal. I think that would have been a really creative way for you to tell Samuel's story. Since the story occurred over several weeks, it makes it difficult deal with tense consistently in the short story. By using journal entries with dates, you could have shown how Samuel’s feelings about Jesus changed over time.

    At the end of your story, Samuel talked about how this would change his life. I think you were on the right track in capturing his epiphany but I think you could have gave it a little more context. What does Samuel do for a living? Does he have a wife and family? Just a few words added to a couple sentences could bring Samuel to life and then you could use these details to show the dramatic impact Jesus had on his life.

    Overall I really like how you retold this story!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Madison Beneda-BenderSeptember 10, 2015 at 2:12 PM

    Hello!
    I really like the approach you took for this story! The Gospel of Mark is written in such a way that the truth of Jesus seems obvious to Christian readers, but the overwhelming majority of people at that time were actually super skeptical, and you did a great job of depicting that! I can totally picture being a villager in the time of Christ who is completely unsure what to make of the miracles people keep talking about it. Your author’s note was also really helpful in making the reason for your approach clear. I would have loved to see you add in some dialogue from Jesus at some point in the story. I think His sermons and language throughout Mark is so evocative that it would have definitely added some depth to your description. I also think it would have been cool to see a title that related to the villagers transformation in Christ. Such a good job!

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