Tommorow we begin our detailed look at the Passion of Jesus according to St. Mark, a journey that will take us through the 40 days of Lent. I thought that a final word of preparation would be in order; in a sense, a preview of the Passion in which we will immerse ourselves. Martin Kähler, a German biblical scholar who lived and wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, once called Mark “a passion narrative with a long introduction.” When you read through Mark up to chapter 14, the start of the “passion narrative” proper, you get a sense of what Kähler meant. Jesus predicts his death and resurrection at several points. The tension...