Mark: Turning Toward Golgotha

Halfway through Mark's Gospel suddenly the penny drops ... partly.

"You are the Messiah," says Peter, but promptly loses the plot when Jesus talks about dying.

Jesus has been proclaiming good news to the poor, has been gathering in the lost and the outcast, has cast out demons and healed the sick, and has provoked reactions wherever he went. Pretty convincing behaviour for a prophet and a holy man.

But Jesus has also calmed a storm, fed five thousand with five loaves and a couple of fish, then walked across a lake and fed four thousand more with seven loaves and a few small fish. What sort of prophet does these things? The disciples were confused and didn't understand. Then Peter makes a mental leap.

At once Jesus' mission changes direction, and the pace drops. Now Jesus is headed toward Jerusalem and to death. Poor old Peter is left bewildered again. “Get behind me, Satan!” seem harsh, but maybe something strong was needed to start to get past Peter’s mental block?

Peter thought he'd got it sussed: he knew what the story was now, and where things were going. When Jesus goes off in another direction he is lost and confused.

Mark was writing for readers who were lost and confused. Their world had turned upside down: in persecution, rebellion and civil war there seemed to be no justice, no peace, no hope. What comfort could Mark offer them? Or us?

What Mark offers is mystery. A mountaintop experience, where Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah - symbolising the Law and the Prophets fulfilled in Jesus. God's voice again comes down affirming Jesus, this time for the disciples to hear too: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!”

Jesus is not starting a new religion. What he is doing reveals the proper understanding of the Hebrew scriptures. The Scribes and the Pharisees had lost their way; Jesus calls them, and us, to a true understanding of what following God means. And part of that understanding involves dying to the old and being raised for the new.

Part of that ‘new’ is a new approach to importance, to status and power. “Who is the greatest?” The one who seems least and serves most is the greatest!

What sort of Messiah, of King, is Jesus? Maybe more to the point, how much regard and reputation can his followers expect. Status, respect, authority – the disciples weren't the only religious leaders to want such things; now they are being told the price.

Just as the one who seeks their own life will lose it, so the person who seeks status and authority will not be important in God’s eyes and in God’s kingdom. It is only those who throw away such things who will gain them.

Mark is generally believed to have got the material for this Gospel from Peter, several years later. Maybe the way Mark portrays the disciples' confusion, and Peter's continual cluelessness, reflects that Peter has finally learnt this lesson. How happy are we to look like idiots, if it helps others see more clearly?

The first half of Mark leads us to this point of confused recognition; from here onward the road leads to suffering and death ... and beyond that to new life.

Maybe this was hope for the suffering Christian community in the late 60's AD; maybe it is hope for us now when life goes badly wrong. But that hope remains shrouded in mystery and confusion.

Son Of God

Back to Mark's Gospel:

"The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God."

That 'Son of God' bit is odd in all sorts of ways, one of which is that it is in some but not all of the best early manuscripts.

Many New Testament documents start with an introduction which is in two parts: an initial title, to attract people's interest and say what the document is (the equivalent of the Subject line of an email), followed by a prologue, to introduce the main themes and/or characters of the document. Mark 1:1 above is clearly a title, attention catching in the Roman Empire of the 60s, in a scary kind of way, as discussed in an earlier post. In Greek this title is cumbersome, three genitive clauses ('of' or 'about' in English) end to end, so most expert opinion is that the 'Son of God' phrase was in the original but got tidied out by some later scribes.

When Mark was written this phrase would have been seen as a direct reference to a title claimed by Roman Emperors from Augustus to Nero: each emperor would be declared a god after their death, so the next emperor would be a 'son of god', expecting to be declared god himself in due course (when Vespasian was dying he is said to have joked: "Oh dear! I think I'm becoming a god.").

Augustus was the first to claim the title 'divi filius' - the son of God. An inscription from 9 BC, found in Priene, speaks of Augustus as 'saviour' and his birth as 'the beginning of the good news'. So Mark is clearly making a political point in his title, but later scribes might have felt it ... unwise ... to offend their emperor quite so obviously.

The title 'Son of God' also had political implications for Jews. In the Jewish scriptures (the 'Old Testament') the title is used for Israel as a whole, and for her princes and leaders, but most especially for kings thought to be divinely anointed (ie Messiahs), epitomised by David.

So Mark's initial use of 'Son of God' is profoundly political, to both Jewish and Roman hearers, claiming Jesus' rule over Jew and non-Jew alike.

Later in the prologue there is a more personal introduction to this theme: as Jesus comes up from his baptism, he hears God's affirmation and commission:

"You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."

In the first half of Mark's Gospel it is only demons and evil spirits who recognise Jesus as God's son. It is not until the pivot point in the story, at the end of chapter 8 and the beginning of chapter 9, that the disciples begin to grasp that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one. Jesus promptly starts talking about suffering, rejection and death, horrifying Peter.

In chapter 9 God repeats his affirmation of Jesus, this time for Peter, James and John to hear:

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

From then on the road is to Jerusalem, to Golgotha and to the tomb.

At Jesus' trial he is challenged by the High Priest:

"Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?"

"'I am,' said Jesus. 'And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.'" 

Enough for the religious leaders to find Jesus "worthy of death".

Finally, at Jesus' death the centurion on guard exclaims:

"Surely this man was the son of God." 

In Mark (unlike John, say) the use of the title 'Son of God' for Jesus is not explicitly Trinitarian. It is about the rule of God: about God, through Jesus, beginning the process of taking the reigns of political and religious control over the world. Not in a top-down, coercive way, but by being recognised and trusted by ordinary people as Lord and Saviour.

Religious and secular rulers conspired to murder Jesus, ordinary Jews and Romans, even a centurion, trusted in him, By the time Mark wrote this Gospel, Jesus' followers had been suffering unjustly, just as Jesus had suffered.

Now Mark is asking the question of his readers (including you and I): will we follow Jesus, even through hardship, or do we continue in the ways of a corrupt and ultimately doomed society, where might is right and justice makes way for expedience?

What is your choice?