I rarely enjoy writing papers all that often as my thought sometimes do not cohere well or follow sequentially in an organized way. However, I really enjoyed writing a couple papers recently. Here is one of them. It is necessarily boring at the beginning because of the assignment, but hopefully it picks up. At the risk of regretting putting it on here, here it goes:
Mark 1:1-11
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Just as it had been written in the prophet Isaiah, “Behold I am sending my messenger before your face who will prepare your way. A voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’ ” John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the Judean countryside went out to him and all of Jerusalem and they were being baptized in him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. And John was wearing camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist and eating locusts and wild honey. And he preached saying, “the one stronger than me comes after me, and I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen the strap of his sandals. I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.
And in those days it happened that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens tear open and the spirit came down like a dove toward him. And a voice came from heaven and said, “You are my son, the beloved, in you I delight.”
This passage gives the reader an introduction to the story of Jesus Christ. The first sentence is more of a title while the next 10 verses begin to set the scene as a prologue. While many of those who encountered Jesus during his life were unaware of the fullness of who Jesus was, the author of Mark holds nothing back. In the title Jesus Christ is described as the Son of God, which happens to be a significant textual variant, but its inclusion indicates that either Mark or an editor wanted us to be aware of this reality before we even entered the story. Apparently this information is necessary or at least helpful to grasp fully the weight of the narrative that will unfold. Though the reader is not lost without the inclusion of “Son of God” in the first verses as in the next 10 verses, we find four different revelations of the significance of this figure of Jesus Christ, as we have an Old Testament quotation, heavens tearing open, a dove descending and a voice speaking (Mark 1:2-3 and 10-11). To be spoken of as the Christ carries with it connotations of being the anointed one or the Messiah (Hooker, 34).
The function of this epilogue is not to create a mini-narrative in itself but to set the stage for the Christ event in the following chapters. The emphasis of this pericope is particularly Christological. This passage is peculiar because it is rare for Mark to have a divine intercession such as “tearing open the heavens” or declaring Jesus “My son, the beloved” (Hooker, 31). An account of John and Jesus, its importance as part of the larger body of the work is to invite the hearer into the narrative that follows. It is connected back to Old Testament writing and moves forward to new developments, but a first-time hearer of this text would take interest in this prologue not just as preparation for what is to come but as revelation in itself.
That this work begins with a prologue is worth noting. Much of modern literature does not function in this way. For Mark, it would have been unthinkable not to set the stage or the drama that will unfold. In the introduction they immediately receive the reason for waiting to hear the rest of the story. They hear, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God” (Mark 1:1).
The book of Mark in the Christian canon was recorded as a way of recounting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order to teach and preach this good news to others. This book would have been read aloud to a group of people, many of whom could not read and most of whom could not afford a copy of their own. This work would have been read to edify those gathered as the underlying belief of the author is that this story necessarily changes their stories because in the end, this good news of Jesus Christ is the story, their story. While this book is biographical, it is framed so as to evoke an awareness that “Jesus stands at the end of a line of salvation-historical fulfillment” following from Isaiah’s prophecy and through John the Baptist (Marcus, 137).
Following the title, verses 2-8 introduce John the Baptist, starting with an Old Testament prophecy that seemingly hearkens to the preparation for the Lord that is John’s work. Then we encounter this memorable figure of John with all the makings of a wild man attracting crowds who do not belong in this territory. John preaches and baptizes those who come to the Jordan, which then gives way to the particular baptism of Jesus. Jesus enters the scene as an outsider from Galilee, an ethnic other and perhaps a religious other as well, at least in the eyes of many gathered with John (France, 34). In this baptism we find peoples of different lands present for the announcement of God’s Son in human flesh, presumably by God.
In connecting John to the Old Testament and as the one who will prepare the way to Jesus, Mark also connects Jesus to the story of the people of Israel. Jesus is not just the Son of God that has appeared from Galilee, but he is the son who faithful (and sometimes unfaithful, or at long-suffering) Israelites have yearned for in our Scripture. Giving Jesus a context before introducing him is helpful, but giving him a context that will connect with a particular people is of great help in evangelizing or spreading this good news.
The word “euannelion” is rich with entendres. The verbal form is found in the Septuagint as a declaration of the good news of a military victory (2 Samuel 4:10 and Boring, 30). Good news comes by way of death, power, and conflict. Closer to Mark’s time and context, good news would have been about the peace and prosperity resulting from military victory (Donahue, 60). The Pax Romana would have been the arbiter of this good news. Finally, there would have been a usage of declaring the good news that today is the emperor’s birthday, and by the way, it is good news because the emperor is god (Donahue, 60). Caesar, your messiah, is the reason for your good news.
One can imagine the collision of worlds and of meaning when Mark proclaims this “good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.” Warfare, kings, genocide, booty, oppression, and idolatry-the whole messy lot-are alluded to in this one Greek word, “euannelion”. It tells us of the riches and peace that is made ours through the slaughtering of the ethnic or religious others. It tells us of the claim that abundance can only come at the expense of another, that scarcity always has been our ordering principle, and that if life is to be had, it must be frantically snatched out of the jaws of death. This is good news, right?
Now we turn to Jesus, a man whom Mark does not allow us to meet without meeting him as the Son of God. This Jesus who comes not to kill, to get rich, or to obtain power but rather to be the recipient of a baptism, the hearer of a divine word, and a wanderer in the wilderness. This Son of God does not employ great agency in this prologue nor will he in the passion narrative (Mark 15:33-41). Here he is baptized, the heavens are torn open, and he is declared the Son of God. There he is crucified, cries out having been forsaken, and the curtain in the temple is torn. In Mark’s telling of the crucifixion, Jesus is finally again declared the Son of God, and of all people, it is a Roman soldier, his mocker, persecutor, and executor, who makes this declaration. The scandal continues. The artistic genius employed is the striking parallel in the adaptation of this good news in reference Jesus of Nazareth. As the Son of God, Jesus wields a great yet subversive power and destroys most everything that is (or at least destroys our perceptions through their transformation) including death itself as he appears to his disciples and proclaims this good news, the good news (Mark 16:14-15).
“Erhmos”, while seemingly just a geographical term either speaking of a desert or a wilderness, carries with it much potential for resonance with the people of Israel. When Israel is freed from bondage under the oppressive hand of Pharaoh in Egypt, they flee to the wilderness (Exodus 15:22). They go to the wilderness just as they had pleaded with Pharaoh to let them do when they desired to worship and sacrifice to their God (Exodus 5:1-3). The wilderness is a place where the Israelites were never able to put down roots, constantly wandering. They lacked all of the resources that would allow them to survive without a Living God. Their neediness put them in a position that would likely engender radical obedience toward the one who provided for them. However, the outcome was quite the opposite. The people turned away from God even in the wilderness. Then, once God was on the verge of doling out some well-deserved punishment, they would remind God to take it easy on them because after all, he was the one who freed them from bondage and led them to the wilderness. Because God had provided for them before, they called on God to have mercy on them and provide for them again. God’s goodness was being used against God. So since this God was the one who led them out of slavery and into the wilderness, it would only be fitting that Mark introduces us to God’s Son (or God incarnate) in the wilderness. We are met by Jesus of Nazareth in the wilderness, our wilderness.
In the wilderness John puts on this religious event, but the wilderness is a tumultuous place, full of shifty-eyed folk or at least the likes of wild beasts and Satan (Mark 1:13). The wilderness is hardly safe. To encounter this text in a fresh way, we first must understand that it seems odd that Jesus is found in such a dangerous place, but for Mark (and Jesus) it might have been the only way. Where else could such a volatile, figure such as Jesus who cleanses lepers, heals the blind and sick, and in so doing challenges the Lordship of Caesar without even needing to use words, come to the stage (Mark 1:40-45, 2:1-12, and 6:53-56)? He is too dangerous himself to be located anywhere other than the wilderness. Once he goes to the cities, he will then be executed for not letting things remain as they are, the comfortable, familiar way (Mark 15:21-32).
“Metanoia” is the Greek word we translate as repentance in the Christian tradition, but it also has mundane evocations such as “turning around and walking the other way”. While we often think of baptism as new citizenship or a new vocation, both of which I value greatly, something else is revealed by seeing a “baptisms metanoias” in Mark 1. That very baptism does not change where one is or where one goes. The idea of turning around actually invites and calls us to traipse along the very terrain upon which the need for repentance, sin, has emerged. Our new vocation, like Jesus’, is not to go straight into the Promised Land but to go back into the wilderness (Mark 1:12). As we turn away from our sin and are cleansed of it, we walk right out of the Jordan River through the muddy banks and into the wilderness where danger lurks, where hardship befalls us, where we befall ourselves. Baptism is going back to the same territory with a new allegiance, walking into and through the internal and external dangers because the one before you has made that path straight (Mark 1:2-3). As we trek along, we do so with an acknowledgment that the government-sanctioned stories of war, wealth, and power are powerless because our journey in the wilderness is not just trodden but also redeemed. We walk in the light of Christ’s resurrection.
While Matthew offers a similar account of Jesus’ baptism, he stops short of actually telling us of John baptizing Jesus, perhaps because it is almost embarrassing; he only tells that it happened after reluctance (Matthew 3:13-16). Matthew creates a greater juxtaposition between groups by having John the Baptist dress down the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 3:7-10). While Matthew makes it abundantly clear that Jesus has come to disrupt the powers that exist, Mark pushes the theme of the universality in what is occurring and how Jesus breaks down these barriers of ethnicity, region, and maybe even religion, though the qualities are hardly distinct from one another (Mark 1:6-7). Luke connects this message of John and Jesus’ baptism with one of social commandments (Luke 3:10-14) and in turn directly links, if only chronologically, Jesus’ praying with the heavens opening (Luke 3:21-22). These three visions offer complimentary rather than necessarily contradictory accounts in which Jesus, in his good news, takes on a variety of vocations in subverting powers that be, speaking for the voiceless, and reconciling all to each other.
The scandal is that this particular good news collides with all other news that claims to be good. What John the Baptist was doing out in the wilderness was not unique. The Essenes had been baptizing people in the wilderness, effectually making this symbolic ritual tired and trite. Such repetition with expectations continually unfulfilled could just as likely create a greater anticipation as the people wonder, “Could this finally be the real thing? I cannot bear to bear my despair once more.” It is not novelty that gives us a desperate desire for hope but rather disappointment, hopes deferred or denied.
A western frontier man, two parts Paul Bunyan and one part John Wayne, wrangles the collection of distinguished and rag tag folks together: some Jews from New York City, Amish from Lancaster County Pennsylvania, and off in the distance a Catholic Mexican migrant appears and is baptized. The only functional part of the scene is that they would all be so dysfunctional were they not gathered in Nowhere, Appalachia. The only reason why Jesus is not told he does not belong there is because they do not belong there either, and also, because he does belong there. Meek, perhaps he is, but he is also dangerous, even in the wilderness, for he challenges all the prejudices informed by our particulars of culture and kingdom and our selective proof-texting of Sacred writings. National boundaries, ethnic background, language, and religious proprieties-he does not respect any of it simply because he shows up. Luckily after we are hit over the head with the insult to injury that he also happens to be the Son of God, he is cast off back into the wilderness where we wanted him to stay all along, where he has always belonged, where we, if we are honest with ourselves, have been since the beginning of things. Offensively, we find that this journey into the wilderness will culminate with someone having to atone for all of our business that we could not take care of ourselves. The one who did not belong among us is the same one who puts right what we cannot. His putting things right means that we could not, and we are not who we tell ourselves we are when we look in the mirror in hopes of making through another day with our masks in tact. The change he thrusts upon the world, upon us, feels as good as the refining of metal in burning away the impurities. He is dangerous enough to disrupt even the good news that Caesar or the President or the evening news gives us, and he does it all as this offensively insignificant farmer from Chiapas.
Perhaps the real scandal is that even more than it was all wrong, it was even more right. This Messiah stuff is all too embarrassing for Jerusalem or Rome. Let’s go to the wilderness where none of us lives, from which none of us can escape, that place where Danger lurks.
“Safe?… Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you” (Lewis, 86).
Holy Spirit: readings and poems
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As mentioned in an earlier post, this semester I taught an undergraduate
course on the Holy Spirit. There were some requests to post my reading list
– so h...
1 day ago
