Day by Day

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Mark 8:11-21

THE SIGNS WE ALREADY HAVE

I once knew a woman who could not quite believe that her husband loved her.  He was very tender toward her and showed her every consideration.  He provided her with a lovely home and continually showered her with manifestations of affection.  Yet nothing—none of his gifts and expressions of love—was ever enough.  She constantly demanded new and more convincing proof.

It was the same with the Pharisees in their attitude toward Jesus.  He had recently performed two stupendous miracles in feeding the multitudes, and, if the hints in Mark are reliable, lived in a constant situation of wonder-working.  Yet, the Pharisees came seeking a special sign, perhaps some apocalyptic token in the skies, such as halting the sun in its course or turning the moon to blood.

Jesus’ deep sigh is a key to his disappointment and his resolution not to pander to such a desire for the merely sensational.  But the disciples were another matter.  They too were slow to perceive that it meant that the Messiah was in their midst.  In the boat, when he spoke to them about “the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod”—remember that yeast often symbolized pernicious influence—they suddenly remembered that they had forgotten to bring any bread and fell to discussing the matter.  Jesus interrupted them and chided them for their anxiety.

How many baskets of fragments had they collected after the first feeding?  Twelve.  And after the second feeding?  Seven.  There in the boat with them was the breadmaker himself, the one whom the Fourth Gospel would eventually identify as the very Bread of Life.  Why were they worried?  Had their eyes not seen what passed before them, or their ears heard the exclamations of the crowds?

Jesus himself was the sign of the heavenly realm.  How could anyone ask for more?

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Mark 8:22-26

THE MIRACLE THAT JESUS DID TWICE

This story is in some details similar to the one in Mark 7:31-37, which also followed a feeding narrative.  Interestingly, the first story was about the healing of a deaf man, and this one is about the restoring of a blind man’s sight—with Mark 8:18 between them asking, “Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?”

Above and beyond recording the two incidents as bona fide healings by Jesus, the Evangelist obviously uses them in a symbolic sense as well. They clearly bespeak Jesus’ power to make us hear and see a spiritual insight we have been missing.

One of the most captivating details of this particular story is Jesus’ asking whether the man sees anything.  “I can see people”, he says, “but they look like trees walking” (v 24).  His sight is not perfect.  So Jesus again anoints his eyes with spittle, and this time the cure is complete.

This is the only instance in the Gospels of a healing miracle that is incomplete the first time.  It is so out of keeping with the usual peremptory character of Jesus’ miracles, in fact, that it prompts us to consider its special meaning here.

Surely it is Mark’s way of saying to those who have once been anointed with the vision of Christ but who still do not see all things clearly, “He will anoint you again, this time with perfect vision.”

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Mark 8:27-33

THE NECESSITY OF SUFFERING

At this point in the Gospel, Mark begins to build toward the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus by having the disciples define their understanding of who he is.  Their response to his question is identical to the information given in Mark 6:14-16, introducing the story of John’s death: Some say he is John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others that he is one of the prophets.  When Jesus presses them for their response, Peter answers, “You are the Messiah” (v. 29).

Now a strange thing occurs.  Jesus does not congratulate Peter, as Matthew’s Gospel represents him as doing (Matt. 16:17-19).  Instead, he “sternly” orders the disciples not to tell anyone about him.  Why?  Apparently we are still dealing with the so-called messianic secret.

It may be, too, that Jesus thinks the disciples know too little about what they have seen and heard, for he begins to instruct them about his death and resurrection.  Peter demonstrates how little they understand by protesting that this must not happen.

Then, in a flash, Jesus rebukes Peter, seeing in Peter’s words such temptation as he felt in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 33).  It seems an unkind thing to say to a friend who cares about your welfare.  But just as Jesus has seen Satan’s power at work in the ill persons he has healed, so also now he sees Satan behind the kindness of Peter.

It is not merely Peter’s understanding that is at stake; it is the whole battle with demonic forces.  The cross will be not only an unfortunate episode in which justice miscarries, but it will also be the last cruel effort Satan can make to avert the coming of God’s new realm!

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Mark 8:34-9:1

THE PRICE OF DISCIPLESHIP

Now Jesus widens the circle of those who must understand about his death and resurrection, calling in a crowd of followers.  He wants them to know the hardships facing them after he has left them.

Admittedly, it is questionable whether he would have used precisely this language, particularly about the cross, for such concepts would have had little meaning before he actually lost his own life on a cross.  Perhaps the statement is an amalgam of an actual warning spoken by Jesus and the later awareness on the part of the Christian community of the way Jesus had died.

At any rate, Jesus is depicted as a leader fully aware of the awful toll his people are about to pay in God’s battle with the demonic forces.  It is too late to back down, he says; the climax is inexorable.  Any who try to forsake him will effectually lose all they have.  But all those who pay with their lives will actually be saving their lives.

The last verse (9:1) testifies to the intensity to which Jesus sees matters as having come.  Some of those standing near him, he says, will still be alive when God’s realm will have come in power.  This word has led some scholars to think that Jesus was flatly mistaken in his apocalyptic vision; clearly, they argue, the new order did not come in the sense that he expected.

But we must remember that Mark was writing this years afterward.  What did he think?  Surely, if he thought Jesus’ expectations had been misplaced, he would not have added this verse.  He would simply have omitted it.  But he did not.  As far as he was concerned, Jesus had been right.  The new order had come in power.  If we do not think it has, that is because the quality of our experience of Christ is not what Mark’s was.  It is a test of what we see and understand!

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Mark 9:2-13

A FORETASTE OF GLORY

This is a dramatic passage with which Mark follows Jesus’ announcement to the disciples that he and they must suffer.  It is essentially a picture of Jesus transformed as he would be in the resurrection.  What could be more encouraging after the warning he has sounded?

Everything in the narrative conspires to depict the arrival of the heavenly realm.  First, Jesus’ clothing is transformed. Popular belief about the end of time was filled with the idea that people’s final glorification would extend even to their clothing.  Then there is the appearance of Elijah and Moses, who were popularly expected to reappear at the end of time to preside over the changes in the world.  And finally there is the matter of the cloud, reminiscent of God’s presence, which appeared as a cloud to the Hebrews in the exodus.

When the voice from the cloud testifies, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him! (v. 7), there can be no doubt.  The climax of Jesus’ ministry and the arrival of the new realm are at hand.

In the light of all this, Peter’s desire to build booths or tabernacles and stay on the mountain is more than the mere human desire to prolong an exciting experience.  It was widely believed that in the last days God would pitch a tent and dwell with Israel as the holy presence had in the time of the wilderness wanderings.  The disciples thought the end had come, and it was therefore, fitting to dwell on the mountain in tents.

But suddenly it was over.  It had been momentary—a vision out of time.  Jesus was alone.  His garments no longer shone.  Thoughtfully the men descended the mountain.  They were full of questions.  Jesus warned them not to speak of this until after his resurrection.  He must still “go through many sufferings” (v. 12).  Yet, through it all they would have this to remember.  It was an unforgettable experience.

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Mark 9:14-29

THE POWER OF BELIEF

This is the final exorcism story in the Gospel of Mark, and an absorbing story it is.  Jesus and the three apostles come back from the Mount of Transfiguration and find the other disciples being taunted by the scribes because the disciples were unable to heal a boy of an apparent case of epilepsy.  Jesus flares up, possibly at the demons possessing the boy, but certainly also at the disciples, who could not help him.  We must remember that these are the same disciples described in Mark 8:14-21, who could not see or comprehend.  “You faithless generation,” says Jesus, “how much longer must I be among you? (v 19).

Many sermons have been preached on this text suggesting that a positive attitude goes a long way toward helping any desperate situation.  But Jesus has more than this in mind.  He is surely thinking of the new order of God, and suggesting that anyone who truly believes it is at hand will see miracles in his or her life.

Why does the boy remain in a trance after the demon has left him?  It may be that Mark intended Jesus’ raising him by the hand to prefigure the way Christ shall raise all believers in the day of resurrection.

And what does Jesus mean, at the end of the story, when he tells the disciples that this kind of demon “can come out only through prayer”?  Weren’t they men of prayer?  What he undoubtedly means is that utter belief in God’s new order is necessary for this power, and that kind of belief results only from hours of practicing the presence of God.

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Mark 9:30-37

 

WHAT IT MEANS TO SERVE GOD

Jesus was passing secretly through Galilee so that the crowds would leave him alone and let him continue teaching the disciples, preparing them for his death.  Typically, the disciples were having a hard time understanding what he was talking about, but—and this is a warmly human note—they “were afraid to ask him” (v. 32).

Mark seems to have seen a connection between the suffering of the Messiah and the passage that follows.  The disciples had been arguing about who was the greatest.  When Jesus asked what they were talking about, they were embarrassed and kept their silence.  So he gave them an object lesson.  Taking a small child—perhaps the child was playing nearby or was borne in its mother’s arms—he held it up before them.  “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name,” he said, “welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me” (v. 37).

It was a wonderful lesson.  “If you want to be the greatest,” he was saying, “then be the humblest—put yourself down on the level of a child, where your reputation doesn’t mean a thing.  That way, you welcome the Savior of the world.  Not only that, you welcome God.”

Henri Nouwen tells in his book In the Name of Jesus how he left the world of the university to become the chaplain of a school for special children, called Daybreak.  The biggest adjustment he had to make was the loss of the status he had enjoyed as a professor.  The children at Daybreak didn’t recognize any of his attainments—his degrees, the books he had written, his renown as a lecturer all over the world.  All they cared about was whether he loved them and could be comfortable with them.

This is what Jesus was trying to get the disciples to see.  The only status that matters in God’s new realm is love and vulnerability.

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Mark 9:38-41

USING JESUS’ NAME

Some scholars do not believe that these verses are a genuine part of the early Christian tradition because they seem to conflict with the behavior of the Christians.  If the incident really happened, then why were the Christians so exclusivist?  Acts 19:13-17, which is about some Jewish exorcists who tried to use the name of Jesus, is clearly not sympathetic with such usage.

But such contradiction is all the more reason to accept the validity of this passage.  Surely no scribe would have undertaken to add to the tradition something that contravened the actual practice of the church.

It is probably another case of Jesus’ insight and understanding going so far beyond our own.  In his perception of the way the new order was breaking forth all around him, he was not worried about the presence of unauthorized wonder-workers who used his name.  It is when we lack faith in the overpowering nature of the heavenly realm that we begin to worry about the purity of our organization and its methods of operating.

Think of the guilt we bear for our prejudices regarding denominations and forms of church governance, modes of piety and patterns of worship.  We have often behaved as if our own forms and methods were the only ones, and all the others were less than Christian.  Yet, Jesus was tolerant of those who used his name though they had never been with him, and said, “Whoever is not against us is for us” (v. 40).

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Mark 9:42-50

 

SOME HARD SAYINGS

Jesus said early in the Gospel of Matthew that he had not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it.  Here Mark reminds us that despite our tendency to think of Jesus as a gentle, kind figure, he could be very hard and demanding.  The sayings are quite aphoristic, and may have been grouped together from a variety of utterances during his ministry.

First is a warning about doing anything to disturb the faith or hope of any of the “little ones” who believe in the Messiah.  This would appear to be a word of caution to any Jew who attempted to turn a weak Christian away from belief in Christ.  But it would also apply to a Christian who carelessly wounded or implanted doubt in another Christian.  It would be better, says Jesus, for that person to have a great millstone—the kind turned by a donkey, not one of the small ones turned by hand—tied around his or her neck and be dropped in the sea.  It would be a kinder judgment than the one awaiting the person.

The theme of judgment, then, becomes a pivot for the next series of verses—only this time it is undoubtedly the Christian who is threatened by judgment.  The “hell” that is mentioned is hardly an apt basis for a doctrine of eternal punishment.  The word used is literally Gehenna, the name of the valley southwest of  Jerusalem that had been desecrated by Josiah (2 Kings 23:10) and was afterward used as a place to burn refuse.  It was thus a dump infested with maggots and characterized by smoldering fires, and had become identified in Enoch 27:2 and 4 Ezra 7:36 as a place of divine retribution.

It is better, said Jesus, to lose a part of your life quite dear to you than to be led astray by that part and so lose everything.

The phrase “’salted with fire” is probably a reference to Leviticus 2:13 and other Old Testament passages indicating that Jewish sacrifices were to be accompanied by salt.  Christians in this time of persecution would be seen as human sacrifices purified by fire.  The word fire probably led Mark to place this saying after the one before it.  Unrelated sayings were often connected this way to make them easy to remember by certain catchwords.

The last saying, verse 50, is added for the same reason.  This time the catchword is salt.  It is a plea for Christians not to lose their saltiness—the heavenly quality in their lives—and so become useless to the world.

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Mark 10:1-12

 MARRIAGE AND THE HEART

The Pharisees come at Jesus again, this time with a question about divorce.  “What did Moses command you?” asks Jesus.  “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her,” they said (vv. 3-4).

The reference is to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, which speaks of a man’s divorcing his wife if he finds “some indecency” in her.  He is to give her a bill of divorce, which she can then present as proof of her divorce should another man wish to marry her.  One school of Jewish thought held that “some indecency” meant adultery; another said it meant any cause of displeasure the husband felt toward the wife, such as unattractiveness or inability to cook.

Although this was the text to which the Pharisees’ legalistic minds immediately flew, Jesus apparently was thinking about a more basic text in the law—the commandment “You shall not commit adultery.”  The more lenient ruling, he says, was given because of people’s “hardness of heart.”  But God never intended for male and female relationships to end that way.  God created a man and a woman, and in marriage they become one flesh.  What God has joined, then, let no one put asunder.

Jesus’ theology of the new order is obviously at work here.  In the heavenly realm, God will be so exalted that we will not sit around worrying about whether we are finding fulfillment with the man or woman we married.  Our hearts will simply be occupied by other things.

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Mark 14:26-31

A SAD PREDICTION

We can never overlook the importance of the psalms as a background for the final events in the life of Jesus.  It is almost as if the bittersweet music of the nation were distilled into life through the upper room, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.  The hymn Jesus and the disciples sang before leaving the upper room was almost certainly from the last of the great Hilltel psalms, possibly Psalm 118, which contains the words “It is better to take refuge in the LORD/ than to put confidence in mortals” (Ps. 118:.

It may have been these very words that led Jesus to say to the disciples, “You will all become deserters” (v. 27).  The Greek word used here is derived from skandalizein, “to scandalize” or “to cause offense,” and means “you will be offended.”  The corresponding noun, skandalon, means a trap or something that causes one to trip or fall.  The idea of tripping or falling because of something in the nature of the Messiah was common in Christian usage.  Mark is saying here that even the disciples were about to stumble in their understanding of the Messiah’s suffering.

The word about the shepherd and the sheep is from Zechariah 13:7-9, which says that after God allows the shepherd to be stricken, the sheep will go in many directions.  But eventually some of them will call on God, and God will answer them.  The disciples are entering a time of severe testing.  Even Jesus’ promise to be raised up and reunited with them in Galilee will not allay their deep fears and confusion.

Typically, Peter does not understand.  He thinks he knows himself well, and will not give way before Jesus’ enemies.  But Jesus knows better.  Before the cock crows twice, announcing the new day, Peter will have denied his Messiah three times.

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Mark 14:32-42

THE TESTING OF THE DISCIPLES

This well-known story is about Jesus’ wrestling with God over the death he is to die.  He has come to the crossroads—to the last possible moment of escape—and elects the hard way, laying down his life for the good of the world.  It is a beautiful and enduring picture of the greatest sacrifice in all human history.

But in one sense it is the disciples who are really tempted in the garden—not Jesus. He prays that the cup of his suffering may be removed; yet in the end he submits to what God has willed for him.  But the disciples face the cup, too.  Jesus earlier asked James and John, when they asked to sit at his side in the new realm, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” (Mark 10:38).  In Gethsemane, it is apparent that they are not ready.  Later they will drink it as martyrs for the faith.  But not now, when Jesus drinks his.  They do not yet understand all things.

Three times Jesus leaves them to watch and pray.  It is an eschatological picture the parable in chapter 13, with a man going on a journey, putting his servants to watch, and charging his doorkeeper to stay awake and watch for him at any hour.  Watching and praying and understanding are keys to salvation.

Do you see what a pointed message this was for Christians in the early centuries?  They, too, were being tested for faithfulness.  Like the disciples, they were often asleep when they should have been watching.  And what about us?  Isn’t it a message for us as well?

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Mark 14:43-52

THE PERFIDY OF A FRIEND

“Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,” says Psalm 41:9, “who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.”  Jesus had said that one of those close enough to dip bread with him in the dish would betray him.

Now it happens.  Judas comes forward and plants a kiss on Jesus’ face.  There is impudence in this act, an arrogance, for disciples usually waited for their master to kiss them.  It is as if he couldn’t wait to finish his treachery.

The other disciples make a brief stand.  One, as least—identified in John 18:10 as Simon Peter—strikes out with a sword and cuts off the ear of the high priest’s slave.  But as Jesus reprimands his enemies for the manner in which they have seized him, coming in with swords and staves in the garden instead of taking him among the crowds in the daytime, all the disciples take flight.

Verses 51-52 have long puzzled commentators.  It has traditionally been assumed that the “certain young man” was Mark himself, but there is not evidence to support the view.  If it had indeed been the author, he would surely have given a reason for his being clad only in linen cloth on a cold night.  Some think the verses are a reference to Amos 2:16, in which God says of the day of judgment against Israel that “those who are stout of heart among the mighty/shall flee away naked in that day.”

At any rate, the picture is of Jesus’ complete forsakenness.  Everyone, even the hapless young man, flees into the darkness, leaving Jesus alone with his captors.

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Mark 14:53-65

NO LONGER A SECRET

This passage is a climax in Mark’s narrative.  From very early in the Gospel, Jesus’ ministry has been depicted in terms of his conflict with Jerusalem.  It has also been characterized as a secret ministry, probably to avoid a final contest until Jesus is ready for it.  Now he is ready—his hour has come—and the conflict reaches its fulfillment in the encounter with the high priest, who is the embodiment of the Jewish religious system.

The report that Jesus said he would destroy the Temple, whether true or not, is important, for the Temple is the very symbol of Jerusalem.  It was from there that the scribes and Pharisees had come who showed up in the crowds when Jesus healed and taught in Galilee.  When he came to Jerusalem, he went straight to the Temple; and the next day he drove the moneychangers and pigeon sellers from the Temple.  It was while sitting on the Mount of Olives, where the view was dominated by the Temple, and he delivered his “little Apocalypse,” which had as a fundamental feature of the destruction of the Temple.  The Temple stood as a tangible reminder of Israel’s failure.  At the moment of Jesus’ death, Mark will observe that the veil in the Temple has been split completely in two, symbolizing the demise of Temple worship.

It is fitting, then, that the encounter with the high priest brings an end to the note of messianic secrecy.  “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?” asks the high priest (v. 61).  “I am,” says Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’” (v. 62).  It is a total announcement of his messianic identity.

The high priest reacts predictably.  The council of elders cannot pronounce the death penalty—they fear usurping the Roman prerogative—but they find him “deserving of death” and begin plotting how to accomplish it.

Jesus approaches his final humiliation.  The disciples could not understand that he is the suffering servant of God.

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Mark 14:66-72

THE FALL OF A LEADER

Ironically, at the very moment when Jesus is inside the house of the high priest confessing his identity as the Messiah, Peter is on the outside denying that he even knows Jesus.

What was Mark’s interest in this full account of Peter’s denial of Jesus?  Peter became a leader in the early church.  In Acts 2, he is portrayed as standing courageously before the Jewish populace and preaching Jesus as the Messiah of God.  In Acts 3:13, he even accuses others of denying Jesus in the presence of Pilate.  But Mark consistently shows Peter’s failure to understand and follow Jesus.  In 8:31-33, when Jesus spoke of his suffering and death, Mark pictured Peter as protesting, and Jesus even identifying him as Satan!  What point was Mark trying to make with his constant downgrading of the chief apostle?

Some scholars have suggested that Mark was probably encountering a tendency in the early church to deemphasize the suffering of Jesus in favor of his triumphal resurrection.  If so, Mark made Peter and the other disciples into models of misunderstanding in order to dramatize the unswerving way Jesus himself faced the humiliation of his trial and crucifixion.

Whether this theory is correct or not, Peter’s failure and brokenness have always been a great inspiration to ordinary Christians.  Here was the number-one apostle, the chief spokesman for the early church, floundering about like an unsure adolescent, denying his Master to preserve his own safety.  If Peter could be forgiven and make the recovery he made, there is hope for every faltering Christian in the world!