The name of the sermon series we begin today, and which will carry us through the rest of the season of Lent, is “Mark’s Jesus.” Mark apostrophe-s Jesus. Now this isn’t the type of apostrophe-s that denotes ownership, like Virginia’s car or Steve’s house or Mellie’s backpack. Mark doesn’t’ own Jesus. Neither is it the type of apostrophe-s that implies creation, like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony or Monet’s Water Lilies. Mark didn’t create Jesus. It’s not even the apostrophe-s that indicates a family relationship, like Jeff’s wife or Vicky’s daughters. Instead, this is an apostrophe-s that signifies a particular telling or version: this is Mark’s version of Jesus’ life, Mark’s biography of Jesus. Most of us have at least some experience with biographies, the story of real people’s lives. The TV show “Biography,” I heard, was for years the most popular program on its cable network, telling the story of a different person’s life every weeknight. People who become suddenly famous get featured in rush-to-market paperback biographies—we’ll probably see in stores soon the life stories of Olympians Chloe Kim or Mikaela Shiffrin. And we all, I’ll bet, some time in our school careers, had to do a book report on a biography: what did we learn about the life of Abraham Lincoln, or Thomas Edison, or Harriet Tubman. […]