Have you ever heard of King's Cross train station in London, England? It's the station made famous by the Harry Potter books.
The name of this station so perfectly captures the meaning of Jesus that I could not help but use it as the title of this book.
There is another reason why the Gospel of Mark best suits the purpose of this book.
The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus' life in two distinct parts.
One is Jesus' identity as the King of kings, and the other is the purpose of his death on the cross.
The structure of this book is as the title suggests.
It is divided into two parts, The King and the Cross, and each part consists of chapters analyzing major parts of the Gospel of Mark.
All books contain selective content.
The same goes for the four gospels.
So John concluded his gospel with these words: “Jesus did many other things as well. If they were written down one by one, I suppose that even the whole world could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
I have selected only those texts from the Gospel of Mark that I believe best capture the life of Jesus, especially his identity and purpose.
As a result, some well-known passages are not covered in detail in this book.
I believe that as you read this book, you will become more and more interested in the person of Jesus.
He is unpredictable yet trustworthy, gentle yet powerful, possessing both infinite authority and humility, and is both human and divine.
I hope you will also ponder the meaning of his life deeply in your own way.

As I read the Gospel, I truly met Him!
I went to church since I was young, but it was after I entered college that I truly believed in Jesus and my life changed.
One of the tools that awakened me spiritually was the Bible, especially the Gospels of the New Testament.
Before I explored the Bible
And analyzed it.
But after experiencing the change, it felt like the Bible, or rather, someone in the Bible, was exploring and analyzing me.
Not long before this happened, I came across an article in a magazine titled “The Book That Understands Me,” written by Emile Cailliet, a philosophy professor at Princeton Divinity School.1 When Cailliet was a college student in France, he was an agnostic.
He graduated from college without ever opening the Bible.
Then World War II broke out and I enlisted in the military.
“I was dumbfounded at how much I had misunderstood the human condition.
My friend was talking about his mother, who was shot in the chest and died right in front of me.
“What good is the philosophical debate of theological seminaries in the party?”
At that time, Kai was also hit by a bullet and was hospitalized for a long time.
But while I was reading literature and philosophy books at the hospital, a strange longing began to arise.
“It may sound strange, but I had a yearning for a book that would understand me.” Since he didn’t know of such a book, he decided to write one himself.
From then on, I read everything I could get my hands on, and whenever I found a passage that particularly suited my situation, I wrote it down carefully in a small leather notebook.
As time passed and the number of quotes accumulated, I looked forward to the day when I could look through them one by one.
“This is what I hope will lead me through many stages of fear and agony to complete liberation and joy,” he hoped.
One day, sitting under a tree in his garden, he opened his cherished leather notebook.
But the more I read, the more disappointed I became.
The situation hasn't changed at all.
“I knew it was all in vain.
That's because that book was the one I created."
At that very moment, my wife came back from her walk.
In his wife's hand was a French Bible she had received from a pastor she met on the street.
Kai took the Bible and opened it to the Gospel.
And from then on, I got deeply into it and read until late at night.
Suddenly, realization struck me.
“I can’t believe it! As I was reading this (the Gospel), the One who spoke and acted in it came back to life before me.
This is the book that understands me.”2
As I was reading this article, I realized that the same thing happened to me.
Even as a child, I believed the Bible to be the word of God, but I never personally met the author of those words.
Then, while reading the Gospel, I truly met Him.
Thirty years later, I began to lecture on the Gospel of Mark with the hope that others would also encounter the Jesus in the Gospel.
This book is based on that sermon and contains the hopes of that time.

---From the text