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Personal Response: Marked

Joshua J. Halim Preliminary HSC English Ms. Jennifer Hansen Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Personal Response: Marked The graphic novel, Marked, is such an intriguing depiction of the Gospel of Mark. It is catchy and extensively uses colloquial language, making it easier to be comprehended. In this particular text, a parallel to the scripture is made, where the life journey of Jesus from He was baptized until the time when He sacrificed Himself for the evil human beings is told. A value that is incessantly expressed throughout the graphic novel is power. Here, Jesus, who is a Son of God, revealed Himself as power; He could do every single thing He wanted to do, for sure. Even so, the way He view power is rather different than the way we view power. While we view power as a form of authority, He treated power as a tool to help us, helpless human beings. By way of illustration, Jesus is portrayed to have a power over disease; only with compassion and his powerful words, He is competent to heal a man full of leprosy. Not only He was able to heal, He had the power over death. As a case in point, Jesus, along with the power of the Holy Spirit, commanded over Lazarus dead body, and all of a sudden Lazarus is able to come out of the grave. Above and beyond, He could have ran away or cried or even got angry to God when He was about to be crucified. He did nothing wrong; He was flawless. He could have asked God: Why me? He had the power to do so, but He did not do that. Instead, He gave in, sacrificing His holy body for only one reason: to save all these lust and Page 1 of 2 !

Personal Response: Marked

impertinent human beings who are not even worthy enough to be saved. Surely He had set forth a very good example surrendering Himself for the guilt of the others. So that these people who did the wrongs and evils could live happily and eventually returned to the Kingdom of Heaven, where they are able to spend their eternity peacefully with God. For me, it sounds too good to be true. What kind of person would want to sacrifice him/herself for the sake of others, especially to those who are even turning their backs against him? Notwithstanding, Jesus Christ is one of those rare people. I just could not imagine myself helping others who had perhaps mocked me, or put me down. But through Jesus Christ, I realized how vulnerable I am now. I realized that I do need a savior somebody who could salvage me from this completely sinful world. And I know that savior is the one and only Jesus Christ. Because without Him, I know I would fall into this filthy world, get allured to do the same evil things that others have done. For every sinful thing we have done, somebody has to clean it up, just like how Jesus Christ died on the cross. Through power, we get an access to choose whether to help or to destroy others. The choice is entirely in our hands. We could enjoy ourselves while we let thousands of life struggling even to breathe; or perhaps, we could lend others, share what we have to others just to cheer them up. Probably right now we will not be realizing, but we could save life from the little good things we do. Or we can destroy others while we laugh at them. We might not even realize that this act is just like murdering our own kind, as a creature of God. Now that the choice is indubitably in our own hands, would we save others, those who are around us, or would we just let them crying, dying, screaming in their misery? But bear in mind that all of good deeds we do will never able to pay Jesus sacrifice on the cross.

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