NuancesMK1 PDF

1:1 Beginning In the Greek text of Mark, the word “beginning” has nothing in front of it, neither “the” nor “a”; the Gospel starts abruptly with the simple word “beginning.” by this device Mark calls attention to this word and emphasizes it. In this way he recalls the opening of the Hebrew...

1:1 Beginning In the Greek text of Mark, the word “beginning” has nothing in front of it, neither “the” nor “a”; the Gospel starts abruptly with the simple word “beginning.” by this device Mark calls attention to this word and emphasizes it. In this way he recalls the opening of the Hebrew bible— “In the beginning”—the moment of creation. In Jewish tradition the word “beginning” was equated with Wisdom, because in the book of Proverbs personified Wisdom says, “The LoRd made me the beginning of his way” (Prov 8:22). So some Jewish teachers paraphrased Genesis 1:1 to read, “In Wisdom God created the heavens and the earth.” Mark’s opening is thus rich in meaning, identifying the gospel (or “good news”) of Jesus with Wisdom, and that Wisdom with a new creation. 1:2-3 As it is written Mark brings together here three voices from the Hebrew Scripture. The messenger who “goes ahead” suggests the angel God sent to lead his people to freedom in the story of the exodus (23:20). The messenger sent to “prepare the way” suggests the figure whom God promises through the prophet Malachi and who will purge the people of their sins (Mal 3:1). The “voice of one crying out in the desert” is the herald described by Isa iah who is to give “comfort” to God’s people (Isa 40:1). In just two verses Mark sums up a biblical tradition whereby angelic or human figures are sent to draw the people to God through preparation, through purgation, and through comfort. The messenger here is John the baptist, who ap pears, in the next verse, as Isaiah’s “voice... crying out in the desert.” 1:4-8 John the Baptist The description of John in 1:6 makes him resemble Elijah, who is similarly dressed in the Second book of Kings (1:8). It was said that Elijah never died but ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kgs 2:11). By interpreting John as another Elijah, Mark indicates John’s greatness as a prophet. Elijah passed on his gift as a prophet to a successor, elisha; so here, Mark introduces Elijah as a prophet who will be succeeded by another—Jesus. In the elijah-elisha stories, however, elijah is pictured as the greater prophet; here, John’s proclamation about Jesus reverses that order. The elijah-elisha context places Jesus in the tradition of the prophets, with their long habit of pressing for religious reform 1:9-11 The baptism of Jesus The scene that Mark portrays reinforces the idea that creation is happening again: as in Genesis 1, God’s spirit hovers over the waters. In describing the opening of the heavens, Mark uses an unusual word for that opening that means “rend”* or “split apart”*; he uses the word again near the end of his Gospel when he describes the splitting open of the sanctuary veil after Jesus’ death (15:38). The echoing word links the two scenes, suggesting that Jesus is opening up God’s dwelling place. In a Jewish writing of the time (The Testament of Judah) the heavens are opened “to pour out the spirit as a blessing of the holy Father.” Here God’s spirit descends “like a dove,” a term used for the beloved in the Song of Songs. The idea of God’s beloved becomes explicit here in the “voice from the heavens” saying, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” The phrase “beloved Son” also brings to mind the story of Isaac, where God asks Abraham to “take your son, your only son, your beloved son” and offer him up as a sacrifice (Gen 22:2). In ancient Passover liturgy, Isaac’s sacrifice is referred to as a voluntary act on Isaac’s part; Isaac merges with the Passover lamb as it is said that Isaac’s blood was placed on the doorposts so that the angel of death would spare the Israelites. So the echo here points to Jesus’ sacrificial death and its saving consequences. 1:12-13 Temptation in the desert As the baptism scene recapitulates the opening of Genesis, so the reference to temptation for “forty days in the desert ” encapsulates the key experience of Israel in the book of exodus. There is no suggestion here, however, that Jesus’ encounter with Satan involves a struggle. Rather, Mark gives us a static picture, the human figure of Jesus steadfast between “wild beasts” and ministering angels. It is an icon of original humanity, only this time not sinning. 1:14-15 “The gospel of God” Jesus’ ministry picks up where John leaves off; “the gospel of God” suggests their continuity. While we tend to restrict the term “gospel” to the story of Jesus, Mark uses the term to refer to the broader narrative of all God’s deeds among his people; it is the gospel or “good news” of God that both John and Jesus proclaim. Jesus, like John, calls the people to repentance. In both Greek and Hebrew the word translated here as “repent” carries the sense of “turning” or change of heart. Jesus calls people to this change not as a warning but as a promise: it is the “time of fulfillment,” the time of God’s “kingdom.” In biblical thought, God’s kingdom is not a particular place but a condition of living according to God’s will. While it tends to be projected into the future, it can also denote a timeless state of being. Similarly, the “time of fulfillment” is not restricted to a particular moment but designates a realization of God’s presence. both these ideas are further unfolded in Mark’s story. 1:16-20 The call of the first disciples In the ancient world, it was not customary for teachers to seek their disciples; on the contrary, teachers attracted disciples. Jesus’ action here is therefore striking, for it suggests the action of personified Wisdom, who, in the book of Proverbs, does go about calling her followers. Wisdom calls those who are in need of her—“the simple ones” (Prov 1:22). So Jesus here calls simple fishermen. As Wisdom promises her followers a higher life, so Jesus promises his disciples that they will do a more advanced kind of “fishing.” The response of those called is equally striking. Without inquiry or hesitation, they leave both livelihood and family. Their quickness to respond is enhanced by a word omitted in most translations: Mark says that “Straightway* they left their nets and followed him” (1:18). As we noted in the Introduction (pp. 11–12), the word “straightway” echoes the message of the voice crying in the desert, telling the people to prepare for God’s coming by making “straight” his “ways” (1:3). The ready commitment of Simon and Andrew, James and John is thus shown to be the ideal response of anyone called by God. It is worth noting that we never see any of these disciples make this ideal response again. Throughout most of Mark’s Gospel they are singularly slow to understand or to follow Jesus. but Mark sets up this opening scene to suggest their ideal capabilities. 1:21-45 Three miracles of healing Studies of the structure of Mark’s Gospel have shown that he likes to link events, teachings, and sometimes words together in a pattern of three. When he does so, the middle event, teaching, or word always functions as the key one, shedding light on the other two. So here, at the conclusion of Mark’s opening chapter, when we find three miracles of healing, it is important to notice how and for what purpose they are linked together. 1) The casting out of “an unclean spirit” (1:21-28). Although the NAb caption speaks of the “cure of a demoniac,” Mark’s text does not use the word “demon” here but “unclean spirit.” The use of this term indicates the perception that possession by evil is an unnatural or pathological state, a perception that predominates in Mark’s Gospel. In chapter 3, as we will see, Jesus implicitly contrasts possession by an unclean spirit with possession by God’s holy spirit (3:29-30). Here in the synagogue, it is because he sees the man’s natural state to be a holy one that Jesus heals the man by simply commanding the unclean spirit to leave him. The unclean spirit, for its part, knows itself to be destroyed by the simple confrontation of “the Holy one of God” (1: 24). It is significant that Jesus commands the unclean spirit to depart with the same word that he later uses to command the storm to “be still” (4:39). The incident is enclosed in descriptions of the people’s reaction to Jesus’ power. They speak of his act of exorcism as “a new teaching” (1:27). Mark seems to imply that there is something new in Jesus’ perception that possession by evil is reversible. The word that Mark then chooses to describe the crowd’s state at seeing the cure (here in verse 27 translated simply as “amazed”) is also part of a pattern of three. Mark uses it again to describe the feelings of the crowd that sees Jesus immediately after his transfiguration (9:15) and again to describe Jesus’ own disturbed emotions in Gethsemane (14:33). It might best be translated as a state of “shock” or enhanced consciousness. 2) The raising up of Simon’s mother-in-law (1:29-31). Short as this incident is, it is the middle and therefore key event of these three healings. Unfortunately, its full drama is obscured by the translation. The Greek word used to describe the woman’s condition (1:30) is frequently used to describe someone already dead, and the Greek word used to describe her cure (1:31) is best translated as “raised up.”* (It is the same word used to describe Jesus’ own resurrection in 16:6.) Finally, the phrase translated as “waited on them” would more accurately be rendered “served”* or “ministered to”* them (the Greek verb used is related to the word for “deacon”). So translated, the incident distills the essence of what Jesus is about: he takes a dead woman by the hand and raises her up, not only to new physical health but to a new spiritual status. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says repeatedly that he has come “not to be served but to serve.” This woman is the first person in the Gospel to act as Jesus does. 3) The healing of the leper (1:40-45). In his first miracle Jesus heals a man within the synagogue; here he heals a man who has been ostracized from the synagogue because of his illness. Jesus’ relation to the synagogue here is complicated. On the one hand, by touching the leper he violates a religious prohibition against touching the “unclean”; on the other hand, Jesus sends the man back to the priests and the prescribed rituals for lepers. To complicate matters further, Jesus tells the healed man to “tell no one anything” (1:44) and yet suggests that the man’s healed body will serve as a “proof” or “witness.” And in fact the man does become a witness, spreading the word of Jesus’ action. Jesus thus heals more than the man’s body—he restores him to his community and changes him from someone who was alone and alienated to one who, it seems, cannot help bearing witness to God’s healing power. Summary of the healing miracles (1:21-45) In the first instance, the unclean spirit within the man cries out upon being confronted by Jesus’ holiness; in the second instance, friends bring Jesus to the woman who is sick; in this third incident, the sick man himself approaches Jesus and asks for help. both the first and last healings in volve bringing someone back to acceptance within the synagogue. In the first, Jesus touches uncleanness within; in the last, he touches uncleanness without. The first and last healings involve people who, because they are considered “unclean,” are forced to live on the fringe of Jewish religious society. What point, then, is Mark trying to make by placing the miracle of Simon’s mother-in-law in between them? Is he not suggesting that the place of women in this society is on a par with them? The woman, it may be noted, does not even have a name; she is only known by her relationship to a man—in this case, not even her son but her son-in-law. Situated between a demoniac and a leper, the caricature of “the mother-in-law,” we might guess, was an ancient joke. but Jesus, we have noted, not only cures her but changes her: he “raises her up.”* By his use of this language, Mark signals to us that all of these miracles of healing are forerunners of Jesus’ resurrection. or to put it another way, Jesus’ resurrection comprehends the raising up of all humanity. 1:32-39, 45b A rhythm of healing, preaching, and prayer In between the healing of the mother-in-law and the leper, Mark tells us that Jesus continually healed the sick and drove out demons, and, when he could, withdrew to “a deserted place” to pray. Yet he also tells us that when Simon and others came to tell him that everyone was looking for him, he returned to the villages to preach, noting that this was his purpose. In this way, Mark indicates a tension in Jesus’ life between outreach and withdrawal, or a rhythm of action and prayer. In the last part of the final verse, Mark suggests that this division collapses and that even in the desert Jesus is not away from the crowds that need healing.