The passion is the climactic event in each of the gospels. This volume elucidates the passion in its historical background and explores its theological breadth and depth. With scholarly finesse and pastoral awareness, the author sets the vibrant message of the passion speaking to our lives and times.Which came first: a coherent Passion story or the Gospel of Mark? Contemporary biblical scholarship is divided over this issue of how, exactly, the Passion story developed.Whatever the shape of the story prior to Mark, it must have been imprinted with Christian experience as well as historical memory. Mark, in turn, felt free to retell and reinterpret that story for his own time and place. The Passion of Jesus was not only a story from the past but also, in the sufferings and hopes of the Christians of Mark's time, a living reality of the present.The readers of this insightful work will find that the Passion of Jesus as told by Mark continues to hold meaning for the present.