David's Son or David's Lord?

The following is one of the lessons for the third week of Lent from the small group study we are doing at our church entitled Christ in the Psalms. You can purchase the entire study for 99 cents on Amazon.com at this link

Read Mark 12:35-37

            Psalm 110 is described as a Psalm “Of David.” In the lesson on Psalm 110, it was noted that this Psalm was about King David.[1] That is, someone else wrote a song praising Yahweh (“the Lord”) for sitting King David (“my Lord”) at God’s right hand. We can gather from Jesus’ words in Mark 12:35-37 that “Of David” was understood differently in the first century. Instead of being about David, Jesus speaks of this Psalm having been written by David about the coming Messiah.[2] Other writings from the time period suggest that this was not merely Jesus’ interpretation of Psalm 110 but one that was widely accepted by Jews in the first century. That means those whom Jesus is teaching in Mark 12 would have simply taken it for granted that Psalm 110 was talking about the promised Messiah.

            It also seems to have been widely accepted in the first century that this Messiah, the deliverer of Israel, would be a descendant of the great King David. When the crowds welcome Jesus into Jerusalem as their deliverer they shout “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” Likewise, the early Christians seem to have accepted this premise and spoke of Jesus as the “Son of David.” Matthew and Luke, for example, both go to great trouble to trace Jesus’ lineage through King David.

            In his quotation of Psalm 110:1, Jesus seems to accept the first of these premises but reject the second. That is, he agrees that “my Lord” in Psalm 110:1 is about the Messiah but he rejects the idea that the Messiah is David’s son. He says “David himself calls him (the Messiah) Lord. So how is he his son?” No one calls his son “Lord” so if Psalm 110:1 really is about the Messiah then the Messiah must not be David’s son if David calls him Lord.

            Why would Jesus reject the notion that the Messiah would be David’s son? And if he did, why did the gospel writers still bother to present Jesus as the “Son of David”? These are difficult questions for which there are not easy answers. However, it seems significant to me that Jesus makes this claim in the midst of his controversy with the religious leaders while he is still at the temple. Much of that controversy arises because the religious leaders do not believe that Jesus has the authority do the kinds of things he has been doing, especially his wild and reckless acts in the temple. I think that by posing this enigmatic question from Psalm 110 Jesus is communicating to the religious leaders that he is the Messiah but that they don’t completely understand what that means. They think that means a descendant of David who will rule as David did. Jesus is essentially saying that his identity as Israel’s Messiah is much greater than that. He is not merely David’s descendant. He is David’s Lord. Jesus’ authority is greater than David’s and that is why he can overturn tables in the temple and declare that its days are numbered.

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[1] Or possibly one of David’s descendants. Although the Psalm is “Of David,” most scholars don’t think it was written that early. Instead, it is usually considered to be “Of David” in the sense that it speaks about the promise God made to David now fulfilled in one of David’s descendants as he fills David’s kingly office.

[2] Your translation may have “Christ” rather than Messiah. Christ is simply the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah which means “anointed one.” 

The Mystery of the Message

Isaiah 6, often thought of as the commission of Isaiah as a prophet of God, begins with a vision of God.  It is a majestic vision of God's glory; the Lord sits on his throne and just the train of his robe is enough to fill the Temple.  Above God stand the seraphim who declare God's holiness. The thresholds shake.  The Temple fills with smoke. 

This majestic vision in turn leads Isaiah to confess his sin.  The overwhelming holiness of God reveals his own lack of holiness.  He says "Woe is me!  For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!"

Isaiah's confession in turn leads to his cleansing.  One of the seraphim flies to Isaiah with a burning coal which is touched to his lips, cleansing them of impurity.  The seraphim declares "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." 

Next Isaiah's cleansing leads to mission.  After his cleansing, he hears the voice of the Lord saying "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"  Isaiah answers "Here am I!  Send me."

A vision of God leading to confession leading to cleansing leading to mission.  If the passage just ended there or at least went on to tell of Isaiah's highly successful career as a prophet then we could box this up as the next great church growth strategy that will solve all the church's problems and I could retire and live off the proceeds of my book sales.  Alas, the passage does not end there.  Instead, Isaiah is told what his message will be.

"Go, and say to this people:  Keep hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing but do not perceive.  Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." 

Isaiah is told to preach a message that no one can understand; a message for which God's plan is rejection rather than acceptance. 

And it is not only Isaiah who speaks of his message in this way.  Jesus quotes these very same words in the Gospel of Mark.  Right in the middle of telling the parable of the sower, a story about how only some will bear fruit while many will have the gospel snatched away, withered, or choked out of their lives, Jesus answers with the words of Isaiah when someone asks why he speaks in parables. 

Churches often place enormous emphasis on their methods of sowing and finding good soil.  Enormous amounts of time, money, and energy are spent trying to create and implement "effective" ministry plans which will reach those we think are most likely to respond to the gospel message.  But it seems the sower depicted in this passage is anything but "effective".  Wasteful and reckless seem to be more appropriate terms.  Jesus plainly says that the gospel is simply not something that will take root in everyone's life.  And yet that doesn't keep him from liberally casting the seed of the gospel wherever it might fall, three-fourths of it on soil where it has no chance to grow if the proportions of the parable are any indication.  Maybe this is because the sower knows that where the seed does take root it will produce a crop so extravagant that it will more than make up for the "wasted" seed. 

Perhaps the intersection of Isaiah's vision and its quotation in Mark is where we find our calling as the Church.  Like Isaiah, we have had a vision of God that has led to confession, cleansing, and mission.  However, the mission is never as simple as going out and finding good soil in which to sow more seed.  In fact, the parable of the sower suggests that if we view the mission that way then we are not bearing witness to the character of the sower who sows the seed liberally. The mission is bearing the fruit of the Spirit, a fruit which itself contains the seed of the good news.  It is living and proclaiming the message we have been given, not because we believe that we have the power to make this message take root but because it is our very nature by virtue of the seed God has sown in us. 

Of Fruit and Temples

I planned to preach from Psalm 118 this Sunday and probably will still refer to it one way or another.  Since this is the Psalm the lectionary provides for every Palm Sunday and because it is quoted in the New Testament, I've already interacted with this Psalm a number of times before.  Some conglomeration of what I've written here, here, and here will probably all end up in my sermon this Sunday.  But for now I want to focus on one particular irony of the way this Psalm shows up in the Gospel of Mark.

It is especially striking to me the way quotations from Psalm 118 form bookends to a group of stories in Mark 11 and 12.  The (sort of) short version, without rehearsing too much of what I've said in those other posts, is that Jesus rides into Jerusalem during the week of Passover and the crowds welcome him with shouts of "Hossana!" and "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."  That is to say, the people are welcoming Jesus as their deliverer by using the words of Psalm 118, a psalm used at Passover as a celebration of the Lord's deliverance.  Jesus' procession stops at the Temple, much as the Passover procession in which Psalm 118 was recited climaxed as the temple, but Jesus' procession is sort of anti-climatic in that after arriving at the Temple he simply leaves.

On the following day, he is on his way back to the Temple when he spots a fig tree.  Upon closer examination, Jesus finds that the tree is not bearing fruit and curses it.  This seems a little unfair for the poor fig tree since Mark notes that it was not even the season for figs.  Apparently still grumpy about missing out on his fig-breakfast, Jesus then enters the Temple and does his whole righteous anger thing, kicking out all those buying and selling.  Upon leaving the Temple, the disciples notice that the fig tree Jesus cursed has withered.  It is here that we see a piece of Mark's masterful story telling on display: the fig tree is a symbol for the Temple in that it too has failed to bear fruit and is now out of season.  As a result, Jesus cursed it just as he did the fig tree.

Naturally, the religious leaders want to know where Jesus gets his authority for all this cursing and carrying on.  So they ask him.  And naturally, Jesus answers with an enigmatic question of his own and a story.  The story is about some tenants who refuse to give the landowner his share of the harvest.  The tenants beat and reject the owner's servants and even kill his son.  At this point even the religious leaders agree that those tenants are in trouble.  Jesus then responds with more words from Psalm 118; "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes."  Mark notes upon the conclusion of this story and quotation that the religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus but were afraid to do so because of the people.

So we have this pattern:
Quote from Psalm 118
A tree that fails to produce its fruit
A temple that fails to produce its fruit
Tenants that fail to produce their fruit
Quote from Psalm 118

It would seem Mark wants us to read these stories about failures of fruit bearing within the framework of deliverance celebrated in Psalm 118.  When we do so, these stories become thick with irony.  In Psalm 118, it was Israel which was the stone the builders (the other nations) rejected but that God made the chief cornerstone of his plan.  The religious leaders saw themselves as protecting Israel's place in that plan.  However, Jesus has declared their efforts fruitless and proclaimed that he is now God's chosen cornerstone; that it is through himself that the deliverance of Psalm 118 will come.  The words of the very same Psalm can be used in the people's celebration of Jesus' deliverance and the religious leaders rejection of him.  And in doing that rejecting, the religious leaders show themselves to be exactly the fruitless tenants who reject God's chosen one that Jesus has said they are.  They fulfill his prophecy about them in their rejection of him as a prophet.

Despite the literary intricacy and skill involved in Mark's telling of these stories, I suppose the question for us is still a relatively simple one.  Do our lives bear the fruit of God's deliverance?  However, if the question is simple, Mark's telling of the story cautions us against a simplistic answer.  For we must remember that the religious leaders would have readily answered this question with a clear and resolute "Yes!  Of course, we are bearing the fruit of God's deliverance.  We are God's chosen, after all!"  It might be just as tempting for us to say "Yes!  Of course, we are bearing the fruit of God's deliverance.  We are Christians, after all!".  Perhaps we too have confused certain labels and institutions with real fruit bearing.  May these final weeks of Lent be a time when we re-examine our assumptions about what kind of fruit it is that God desires.

"and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid."

The end of Mark's Gospel is disturbing. At least, what is probably the end of Mark's Gospel is disturbing. If you take a look at the end of Mark, you'll notice that many modern translations print v. 9-20 of chapter sixteen with parentheses, brackets, a footnote, or some other notation to point out that these verses were probably not originally part of the Gospel of Mark. It is thought that some later scribes who were copying Mark's Gospel probably added this verse to give the story a more suitable ending.

Why did these scribes feel they needed to add something to Mark's story about Jesus?

Well, if you read Mark with 16:8 as the ending, the reason becomes apparent. In Mark, similar to the other gospels, the women come to Jesus' tomb only to find that Jesus' body is not there. Instead, there is a man robed in white who tells them not to be afraid but to go and tell the disciples that Jesus is alive and will meet them in Galilee just as he promised. But this is where things get uncomfortable. If Mark ends at 16:8, then there is no record of this promise being fulfilled. Mark doesn't tell us that Jesus ever met with the disciples or that they ever saw him raised to life. In fact, Mark says that the women fled from the tomb for "trembling and astonishment were holding them and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid!"

That can't possibly be the end of the story! It is so unsatisfying. There is no closure. Worse than that, it seems that Jesus, who liberated so many from disease and sickness and was himself apparently liberated from his captivity to death, is unable to liberate three of his own followers from their fear. For Mark portrays their fear as a kind of slavery when he says not simply that they were filled with fear but that "trembling and astonishment were holding them". The story ends with these women held captive and unable to speak. With such an ending, we can begin to see why a scribe may have wanted to add his own more positive and triumphant conclusion.

But maybe that is Mark's point. Maybe in writing such an odd ending, he is inviting us to write our own. Or more precisely, he is inviting us to step into the story and make it our own since the story of Jesus' resurrection does not end with the empty tomb. It is a story continued by the Church. Perhaps Mark anticipates our question of "Wait! How does the story end?" and his response is "You already know and are continually finding out for yourselves because you are the recipients and messengers of this resurrection life."

Or to put it another way, the very existence of Mark's Gospel is testament to the fact that these three women were not held captive by their trembling and astonishment forever. After all, if they had been and they had kept the empty tomb a secret then, at least by Mark's telling of the story, the disciples would have never known about the resurrection. By Mark's account, the resurrection becoming known was entirely dependent upon Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Salome. Mark could not have written this final chapter and would not have written the rest of his story if Salome, Mary, and Mary were not eventually freed of their fear and able to speak about what they had seen.

Mark is inviting us to see that Jesus continues his mighty acts of liberation even as Mark's own telling of those acts has to come an end.

A Second Touch

It is at least partially because of passages of scripture like the 8th chapter of Mark's gospel that I love to study the Bible and am thankful that such study is an enormous part of my life's work. Mark 8 is a literary masterpiece.

At first glance, Mark 8 begins with the kind of story that we expect to find in the gospel. It is a story which many people who don't attend church or study scripture have probably at least heard before. In fact, this story is so common to accounts of Jesus' life that we've already heard a similar story once before in Mark gospel. Just a chapter and a half earlier (Mark 6:33-44) we heard a story about how Jesus fed five thousand men plus the women and children who were with them. Now at the beginning of chapter 8, Mark tells an almost identical story about a crowd of four thousand people. And therein lies the first clue that there is more going on in this passage than just another miraculous feeding.

This miracle begins much like the one in chapter 6. Jesus feels compassion for the people because they have been several days without food and are far from home. Now at this point, if we have been paying much attention at all to Mark's story, we should be able to anticipate what Jesus is going to do next. After all, he fed well over five thousand people not much earlier in the story. Certainly, he can handle four thousand. We would expect Jesus' disciples to anticipate this as well since they were there when Jesus performed the earlier miracle. But much to our astonishment, when Jesus states that he wants to feed the people the disciples don't say "Awesome! Jesus is about to do another miracle!" Incredulously, they say "Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?" What? Are you kidding me? Didn't you guys see what Jesus did before? I can only imagine Jesus rolling his eyes in strained patience as he says again "How many loaves do you have?".

After Jesus feeds this mass of people, Mark decides to show that the Pharisees aren't too far ahead of the disciples in their understanding of Jesus. The Pharisees come to Jesus and ask him for a sign from heaven. I suppose feeding four thousand people out of almost nothing wasn't quite good enough for them. Not surprisingly, Jesus refuses to show off for them when he has just done a miracle and they completely missed the significance of it.

Unfortunately for the disciples, Mark isn't quite done emphasizing their cluelessness just yet. Jesus and the disciples are headed to the other side of the lake in a boat. On the way, Jesus tells the disciples to be on guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. Yeast was seen as a corrupting agent in ancient Jewish culture. One's entire household had to be rid of leaven before the passover meal so that the unleavened preparation would not be contaminated by it. Therefore, Jesus is using leaven as metaphor for the disciples to guard against the corrupting influences of the Pharisees and Herod. He is saying that the house of Israel must be cleansed of their corrupt way of doing things. However, the disciples think that Jesus is scolding them for not bringing more than one loaf of bread with them for the journey. I have to imagine that even Jesus' patience wore thin that day. "Why are you talking about not having enough bread? Didn't you see what I just did? Twice!"

Next Jesus and the disciples encounter a blind man. Again, the healing of a blind man is exactly the kind of story we find in the gospels again and again but this particular episode has a twist. Apparently, Jesus' first touch of the blind man is not enough to heal him. When Jesus asks the man if he can see after he touched his eyes, the man says "I see men, for I see them like trees walking around" The man has sight now but its still a little fuzzy. Is Jesus suddenly experiencing a lack of healing power? Jesus places his hands on the man a second time and this time the man is able to see everything clearly? Why the need for a second touch?

The very next story that Mark tells is a conversation between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus asks them "Who do people say that I am?" They tell him "John the baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets." But then Jesus cuts to the chase and asks the disciples directly "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answers boldly "You are the Christ". This is a high point in Mark's gospel for the disciples. Finally, they seem to be getting it. After failing to grasp Jesus' amazing power in so many previous episodes, Peter finally gets it right. He is the first human character to recognize Jesus for who he really is.

But then Jesus begins to talk about how he must suffer and die. Peter isn't too fond of that kind of talk. And not just because Peter isn't willing to die for Jesus. He may very well be ready to do just that. But Jesus can not die. Peter has just proclaimed his belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the conquering hero whom God has sent to deliver Israel. Peter might die along side of Jesus in battle but Jesus can't die because if he does then that means that all of Peter's hopes and dreams for Israel will have failed. If Jesus dies, then its game over, there is no hope for Israel to be an independent nation with a God given king instead of the pagan Roman emperor and Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him as much.

Jesus' response is to actually call Peter Satan because he has his mind on man's interests rather than the interests of God. Once again, Peter has misunderstood who Jesus is and what his mission is all about. Peter's confession of Jesus as the Christ demonstrates that he has begun to see Jesus for who he really is but like the blind man in the previous story, his vision is still a bit blurry. Although, Peter is beginning to see, he will need a second touch, the touch of the resurrection if he is going to see Jesus clearly.

So it is with us as well. Most of us in the Church today have been following Jesus for a very long time; many of us our whole lives. As a result, we think we know Jesus. But incredulously, when we come to difficult points in our lives or the life of our church, times very much like ones that Jesus has carried us through before, we wonder how Jesus could possibly do anything for us. Jesus response: Give me what little you have and watch me multiply it just as I have done for you time and time before. But even when we are obedient to that command, even when we finally see Jesus in all his glory and power and like Peter we are eager to confess Jesus as the Christ, the savior who has come to deliver us, even then our vision of Jesus is not yet complete. We need a second touch of healing for we need to see that Jesus is not all glory and power; that he is also compassion, mercy, brokenness, and weakness. And he calls us to be the same if we are to be his followers. Only when we take up our own cross and trust in Jesus to lead the way no matter the costs will we really be able to see him clearly.

Contagious Holiness

Cleansing is central to the episode recorded in Mark 1:40-45. A leper comes to Jesus and says "If you are willing, you can make me clean". Jesus responds "I am willing, be cleansed". Mark then tells us that "Immediately, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed". Finally, Jesus tells the former leper that he must go show himself to the priest and offer for his cleansing what Moses commanded.

In first century Judaism, it would have been difficult to find categories that were more important than that of clean and unclean. Ritual cleanliness and purity were almost synonymous with holiness and therefore with Israel's understanding of its mission as God's people. To be unclean, like the leper in this story, was to be excluded from participation in God's covenant relationship with Israel.

In this passage, Jesus seems to simultaneously challenge and uphold these notions of purity and cleanliness. As has already been noted, cleansing is central to the story. It is important that this leper be made clean. Furthermore, after the man is cleansed, Jesus tells him to go show himself to the priest and take actions in accordance with the law of ritual purity.

Nevertherless, Jesus' response to this leper is not completely in line with first century Jewish standards. The standard response would have been to avoid the leper completely. Instead, Jesus is moved with compassion and reaches out to touch the man. This contact with the leper should have made Jesus unclean but what actually happens is the reverse. Jesus makes the leper clean.

Passages like this one can and should go a long way in guiding those of us in the so called "holiness tradition." Too often, our ideas of holiness are much like those of Jesus' contemporaries. We try to maintain a certain level of purity by keeping ourselves separate from everything in the world that might make us unclean. While holiness is certainly an important and essential part of our mission as the Church, we should not underestimate the power of Jesus at work within us to make clean those with whom we come in contact. If Jesus' touch has been powerful enough to cleanse us, why shouldn't we assume that it will be powerful enough to cleanse all those to whom we reach out in Jesus' name? A truly scriptural holiness ethic should not lead us to separate ourselves from the world with all of its impurities. It should lead us to engage our world with the love and compassion of Jesus.

The Authority of Jesus' Teaching

This Sunday I'll be preaching from the passage (Mark 1:14-20) which I blogged about last week and intended to preach from last Sunday but was kept from doing so because of the snow. That means that I am slightly ahead of the game in looking at the passage I'll be preaching from on Feb. 8th which is Mark 1:21-28.

There are a lot of pretty weird things about this passage of scripture beginning with the fact that it is a story about a demon possessed man. Of course, there are stories of demon possession throughout scripture and such instances are mentioned in other ancient literature as well so its not weird in that sense. Its weird because most people today have never encountered anything quite like the story described in this passage. Of course, most Christians, myself included believe that there are evil forces at work in our world but rarely if ever do we encounter them in such a tangible form as described here.

But that's not all that is strange about this scripture text. It also seems odd that this demon possessed man is the first human being in Mark's gospel to make such a bold claim about Jesus. He designates him as the Holy one of God. You wouldn't think having fishermen follow you around and having an unclean spirit announcing who you are would be the best public relations move on Jesus' part at the very beginning of his ministry.

I also have to wonder what the story is on this guy with the unclean spirit. After all, this happens while Jesus is teaching in the synagogue which makes me wonder if this guy showed up just because Jesus was there or if he was a regular member of the synagogue? I've always assumed that his unclean spirit was obvious to everyone around him like the demon possessed man in Mark 5. However, on a closer reading, I wondered if this guy attended synagogue regularly and looked just like any of the other members of the synagogue and was able to hide his unclean spirit until Jesus showed up. In that case, he would be like an ancient version of the BTK serial killer arrested just a few years ago who had been an active member of a church without anyone in the church being aware of his evil practices.

Despite these oddities, the thing that the people in synagogue end up talking about is Jesus' teaching. Mark summarizes their reaction at the sight of Jesus' work of exorcism; "They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying 'What is this? A new teaching with authority!'" Jesus' teaching has just been summarized a few verses earlier as a proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand (v. 15) and I can only assume that the people consider this teaching to have authority because he has just driven out this unclean spirit. His power to drive out the unclean spirit is evidence of his claims about the kingdom of God. Jesus is viewed as having authority because he can do what previous teachers have only talked about. In the face of this unclean spirit, Jesus shows no fear of becoming unclean himself. Instead, he fearlessly drives out the unclean spirit, liberating the man from his devilish captivity.

Perhaps the reason so few people today consider the Church to be an authoritative source of teaching is because of the ways that we have failed to allow God to work in us so that he might deliver us and others from our devilish captivities. Of course, I'm not advocating that we renew an interest in exorcisms but there is no doubt that there are all kinds of unclean spirits which hold both those inside and outside the church in bondage; unclean spirits which we desperately need Jesus to drive out of our midst. May God purge us of all but a desire for his kingdom so that we might be a force of liberating love in our world.

Kingdom of Fishermen

Mark 1:14-15 tell us that after John the baptist was arrested, Jesus began to preach the gospel in Galilee saying "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel." This is how Mark chooses to sum up Jesus' proclamation and ministry. As the first words out of Jesus' mouth in Mark's narrative, they are paradigmatic for all that Jesus is about. Jesus has come to proclaim that God's reign has come to earth. The day for which Israel has been waiting has finally arrived. God would finally reign with his righteousness and peace over all the earth.

There could hardly be a more important announcement that could be made. God's reign coming to earth would be the most transformative, cataclysmic, and world-changing event in history. We would expect some pretty awesome displays of power from someone who is making such a major claim about himself. In fact, the few verses leading up to this point in Mark's story already lead us to expect pretty tremendous things. We've already seen the sky ripped open, seen the Spirit of God descend, and heard a voice from heaven. So now that Jesus has made the biggest claim of all, that God's reign itself is at hand, we might expect some unimaginable demonstration of Jesus' strength and authority to come next in Mark's story.

Instead, Jesus goes and calls some fisherman to follow him so that he can make them fishers of men. Where are the miraculous displays of power? Where are the world changing events? If Jesus is going to begin campaigning for the reign of God on earth by surrounding himself with a select group of disciples, he could at least find some people with more power and influence than mere fisherman! How are they going to help him change the world? How will they help Jesus bring God's reign to earth?

That is one of the things I find continually fascinating about God's kingdom as opposed to the fading kingdoms of this world. We build our kingdoms on power, wealth, fear, military might, and political influence but eventually someone else is able to accumulate more of those than we can and our kingdom fails. God builds his kingdom out of fishermen who follow the crucified and risen Lord and it is the one kingdom that will never fail.

Mark's Christology

Mark wastes no time in his gospel. Immediately, Mark wants us to know who he understands Jesus to be. The first eleven verses of Mark's gospel are jammed pack with Christology. Mark is presenting Jesus to us as the Spirit-filled Messiah, even the presence of God himself, who will deliver Israel from its exile.

The most explicit statement about Jesus is probably the one verse introduction of the gospel in which Jesus is descibed as Christ (which means Messiah) and the Son of God. However, in the following verses Mark continues to present Jesus as the Christ in more subtle and symbolic ways. This is true especially of the quotations from Isaiah and Malachi in verses 2 and 3 which Mark clearly uses to desribe John the baptist as the one who is preparing the way for the Lord, Yahweh, the God of Israel(You can read more about the quotation from Isaiah here.) The fascinating thing is that immediately after John the baptist finishes talking about the mighty one who will come after him, Mark inserts Jesus into the scene. Thus Mark presents Jesus as Yahweh himself, the one for whom John was preparing the way.

The barrage of Christology then continues with the short, two-verse description of Jesus' baptism. As Jesus comes up out of the water the heavens are torn apart (possibly a reference to Isaiah 64:1?), the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, and a voice declares from heaven "You are my beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased." Only eleven verses into Mark's gospel, there can be little doubt for Mark's audience that he intends to present Jesus as God's Spirit-filled agent of deliverance.

It was how Jesus would accomplish that deliverance that would have been scandalous to Jesus' contemporaries and a continual challenge for Mark's audience. But Mark makes an intentional link between his presentation of Jesus as Messiah and his death on the cross. Mark places three literary parallels to Jesus' baptism in his description of Jesus' crucifixion. First, the curtain temple is torn in two from top to bottom at Jesus' death just as the heavens are torn open at his baptism (these are the only two places this word is used in all of Mark's gospel). Second, the centurion who is standing in front of Jesus says "Truly this man was the Son of God!" echoing the voice from heaven at Jesus' baptism. Finally, Mark 15:37 says that Jesus breathed his last. In English, this has no apparent connection to the baptism passage but this Greek word is a combination of a preposition and the word for spirit. Read very literally, it says that Jesus "spirited-out", thus linking his death once again to his baptism when the Spirit first descended upon Jesus in Mark's gospel.

This has at least two imporant consequences for our understanding of Jesus, the Spirit, and the Church. The first is that Jesus' presentation as Messiah, deliverer, and Son of God can not be separated from his crucifxion. It's not that his crucifixion made him these things. After all, the Spirit descended upon him long before his crucifixion. However, it is to say that the all-powerful and glorious God of all creation has forever linked himself to the shame and profanity of the cross. We can not know the resurrected king of glory without knowing the peasant crucified as a rebel.

Secondly, the "bookends" of Mark's gospel communicate to us that the Spirit of God has been poured out on creation, let loose in the world. The Spirit of Yahweh which dwelt in the temple, the same Spirit which rested on Jesus and empowered him throughout his ministry, has now been breathed out by Jesus and ripped out of its place through the Temple curtain. That Spirit now rests on Jesus' disciples, empowering us to continue the same minsitry that he began.