Mark of the Lion Trilogy by Francine Rivers

Picture of the trilogy I found on Pinterest

Have you ever had a book keep you up till 4:20am the next day? I have.

When I started this trilogy, like every other Francine Rivers book, it took me a while to get into. There is something about the way she writes that takes you a second to know what’s happening and who the main characters will be, but when I got into this, I was hooked.

If you don’t want to be spoiled, this is not the blog post for you because I intend to lay out my thoughts without exception.

Can we start with Marcus? When he was introduced, I was intrigued because I didn’t know if he had come to stay and coupled with the old Roman practices, a lot was happening that I didn’t understand but he stood out. You know … the way when the love interest is introduced and you’re already assessing him? That was me.

Marcus wasn’t a believer except in some Roman gods and when I saw that, it was quite uncomfortable, there was just this icky feeling and can you believe the first time he saw Hadassah―the love interest, he called her or thought of her as ugly? The nerve! Granted, she was starved and had been forced to shave her head but that was the first thing he noticed about her. That was irritating of him but if I can say anything about Francine, she knows how to show the good, bad and ugly of every character; there’s no sugar-coating with her and it kind of opened my eyes to see that even in my own writing, there should be that element of real to every character, but this isn’t about me.

Marcus’ journey to believing in Christ had to be entwined with love because if he hadn’t fallen as deeply in love as he had with Hadassah and then have all the questions he had, I don’t think he would have ever gone on a quest to find God and I mean that literally. He went to Jerusalem because he wanted to find out why God was unfair to his devotees. His thought process, not mine.

An echo in the darkness―the second book in the trilogy―took a couple of decades after the death of Jesus so things were still fresh. The Romans still hated the Jews and worse of all, they hated Christians; they viewed Christianity as a cult and Jews were more tolerable than Christians. It was the kind of thing that made me pause and give God thanks that I am born in this day and age because I can’t imagine letting everyone assume that I’m a Jew just because I can’t come out as a Christian fully. Anyway, Marcus went on his little quest to find Jesus and had an encounter that changed his life forever.

How many times have we had encounters and then trivialized the weight of what we just experienced. What I’ve seen as the problem for some of us Christians is that we have an encounter with Jesus or the Holy Spirit but after a while, we forget because we discarded it. Jesus told us, “Remain in my love.” (John 15:9). There is a reason as to why He said that and it was because Jesus was aware of how easily we could slip out of that space, especially in a world where everything is unfamiliar with what we experience with Jesus. Remain in that space…with Him.

Before I went on that tangent―forgive me because I can see that this isn’t going to be an organized post―I was talking about the encounter Marcus had and seeing as he was so desperate, everything shifted. He finally had something substantial he could hold on to and that changed everything for him and as an unbeliever, as a Roman, it was a turning point for him because he had come from believing that there were gods for everything and criticizing Hadassah for believing in a God “who had let his Son be murdered” to believing that He truly existed. Everything he saw in Jerusalem was leading him up to the moment that he found God and something I learned with his situation is that sometimes (most times even), God can take that which you hold higher than him away from you in order that you may get to know Him.

It reminded me of how much God continues to pursue every soul on this earth, whether you believe in Him or not. There was a quote that Marcus said that I saw that made me want to read the book in the first place and it says:

“Everything she did mirrored her faith. It was as though every waking hour of every day, she was devoted to pleasing her God by serving others. This God that she worshipped consumed her. He didn’t ask for a brief visit to the temple, or a small votive offering of food or coin, or a few prayers every now and then. This God wanted all of her.”

I had to make some adjustments to the quote because when he said these things, he was still an unbeliever and viewed God as “Hadassah’s God” with a small letter g even. Whew…Thank God for his salvation 😅.

But have you ever felt that? What he said? When I read it, I was drawn, I was like, this is who I want to be. This her that was being talked about was me and I wanted it to be that way in all that I did. Do you strive to be like this? To have your faith mirrored in everything you do? That is what God desires from all of us.

I didn’t expect to spend that long talking about Marcus but the star of the show, the main character, Hadassah? This woman of God right here! The struggles she went through made me question myself over and over again.

She was a victim of a massacre that the Romans carried out on the Jews. Her father, who was a fervent Christian and evangelist (if we were to put a title to what he was doing), died in the massacre and then her mother fell ill and coupled with starvation because there wasn’t food anywhere, died. Her brother died in her front by the sword of a Roman and she was left with her younger sister Leah who wasn’t even coherent half the time because of how hungry she was. Not to talk of Hadassah’s own hunger!!! Have you ever had to be hungry―not by choice but by circumstance―for weeks and there is nothing for you anywhere, nothing to even steal? That was Hadassah and her family.

The Roman was merciful to her and her sister and didn’t kill them but captured them and a day later, her sister died. Imagine seeing all of that and yet, you still have a knowing to give thanks to God and remain faithful. I had to ask myself time and time again if that would be me in such a situation. She still struggled you know, she still had doubts and she was plagued by fear but in all that, she took it to God always.

In this day and age, some people who see all that and what she went through subsequently would have said her God doesn’t exist and she was suffering for no reason. It would have been like Job’s wife when she told him to curse God and be done with everything but he persisted in the face of all the trials and one would think her foundation in Christ was so firm that even coming so so close to death, she wasn’t deterred.

It reminds me of that Proverb, “Train a child in the way he should go and when he grows, it wouldn’t depart from him.” (Proverbs 22:6). That was exactly that. Because she had seen how passionate her dad was for Jesus and with all the teachings instilled in her, there was a knowing she had that this God was real and He had come through for her family before. For her to be alive was for a reason. She recognized the truth of that statement.

“For her to be alive was for a reason.”

At some point, she’d have wanted to join her entire family because without them and with the massacre that had taken place, she was now alone. She didn’t know anyone and even after she had tried to make conversation with the other people that had been captured―Jews―when they found out that she was a Christian, they looked down on her and had this disgust and hatred of her. It was scary to think of. I don't know why I never thought Jews were going to hate Christians.

Hadassah, the love interest of Marcus, was brought into the Valerian family as a maid to Marcus’ younger sister, Julia and she served her so diligently even with how mean and self-centred she was. I’ve never met (or read of) a more selfish person than Julia. I wondered if it was possible for someone to always think of themselves so much that it was basically a sickness, but we’ll expand on that later. With all that Hadassah had to endure because of Julia’s selfishness, you would think she would have run away or something.

Nope, she stayed because she was aware that Julia was the person God had sent her to. God loved Hadassah but that story showed me that He didn’t love Julia any less than her even with everything she did that was bad. He sent one of His devoted lovers to one who basically insulted Him and made fun of Him. I can’t comprehend the goodness of this God we serve because omo…

Anyways, because of Julia, Hadassah with other Christians and Jews were thrown into a fighting arena where they were to be devoured by hungry lions―I’m not kidding―as entertainment for the Romans and all who were there to watch the match. Can you believe that?

When I was reading, I was like, “Okay, a miracle is going to happen and they’ll be saved. Maybe even God Himself will come down and save them.” Imagine my shock when none of that happened. They were literally eaten by the lions. It was a moment of ‘Excuse me God, um… I don’t know if You can see this but Your people are literally getting torn apart.’

I was bamboozled and it reminded me of how many times we expect God to show up in a certain type of way, especially for the ones who love Him so much and how disappointment always follows whenever He doesn’t show up in a way we expect. Hadassah hadn’t done anyone wrong, in fact, she lived a life of devotion and obedience to God, remember the quote I referenced earlier? Yes, that is who she was and yet, God still allowed it all to happen but in the end, it was for a reason. He works all things for the good of those who love Him.

Marcus didn’t know that his sister had done such a thing and was in the arena to watch a fight that was going to happen after the ‘tearing apart’ lol and was still an unbeliever at this point but when he saw her, his blood ran cold, I was like me too Marcus, me too. And he watched it all happen. He watched her “die” and that was what led Him on a quest to find God. If she didn’t He wouldn’t have had this anger towards God that made him essentially seek Him. See what I said about God loving us all equally?

Well, in the end, bless God, she didn’t die and it was a physician who was about to perform a dissection that saw her twitch because he had been watching from the side lines and immediately indicated that he wanted her for his procedure. Fellow med students, did you know that before they used to perform dissection on people who were still alive? It was called vivisection. Thank you Jesus for growth in the society. Essentially, the physicians were the ones who ended up killing the individuals. The thought of being a doctor wouldn’t have crossed my mind because hmm…

Anyways, God used this doctor to save her and instead of performing the vivisection, he ended up sneaking her out of the arena where he nurtured her back to life and now, Hadassah had to live with a section of her face all torn up… guess where the name Mark of the Lion comes from? Yeah! That was a lot. I can’t believe that she had to go through all that and then God still used it in the end to bring Him glory. God is too good and His ways are really too high.

As for Julia, she didn’t stop being self-centred, it led to her doing a lot, you’ll sit and wonder if a human can really be that wicked but in the end, it led to her downfall, she was left alone, sick and dying because of an STD―stay abstinent people!―and there was no one to help her because the only person who had ever truly cared for her apart from her family; Hadassah, she had thrown into the lion’s den… literally and she was left alone to deal with the consequences of her bad choices.

God sha didn’t desert her and He sent Hadassah back to her where she took care of Julia till the end and at the last moment, Marcus finally forgave his sister and after seeing Hadassah was alive, she gave her life to God, praise God.

Someone like her, someone people would stereotypically categorize as “the worst kind of person” was still on God’s agenda. God didn’t let her go just because the enemy had used her for most of her life. Her case was a literal representation of how God uses everything for good. Be you the best person on earth or the worst, whoever you are, God still turns everything for good.

The last book in the trilogy wasn’t about Marcus and Hadassah but about one of the men who Julia had treated badly and it was about his journey towards God. Atretes’ story was my least favourite but it was still good and his story showed me that sometimes, all you have to do is sow seeds and trust that God would water those seeds and eventually, they’ll grow into trees.

Hadassah had planted seeds continually in Atretes’ heart about Jesus and even though he was of the opinion that God was weak because He essentially allowed His Son to die for wicked people and He had no power. Eventually, because he had seen that the power of God made manifest in his very before, he gave his life to God immediately.

Something though that all the characters faced was that they had to sacrifice one thing or the other at some points in their lives. The new believers and the seasoned ones and in order to follow God we have to let go of various things. Hadassah had to literally let go of herself in every sense of the word. She was just a vessel for God to act through and her sacrifice and devotion to God was one that left me reeling and wondering if God saw us that way.

If you’re not deterred by spoilers and you’ve not read the Mark of the Lion trilogy, I encourage you to do so but if you’ve read it, please tell me what you got from it in the comments section because I would love to hear from you.

I have said too much…see you next time. Bye!

Much love,

Uche 🤍

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Would you be reading this series?

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  Yes, definitely!!
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  Nope, I've already read it!!