Author: James

The sea change in God’s relationship with humanity becomes readily apparent in Luke’s tale of the many acts of the Apostles. There are a plethora of examples of God’s insistence and assistance during this fairly short period ( 15 years?)following the ascension of Jesus; so many in fact that Luke may have become frustrated in how best to describe them. The Holy Spirit comes upon those whom Peter and John lay hands (8:17). An angel of the Lord appears to Philip, sending him on the road to Gaza (8:26), where the Spirit tells him to go speak to the man in the chariot (8:29), after which the Spirit snatches Philip away where he finds himself in another town (8:39). But when the light flashed on Saul, blinding him, and Paul responded to the voice with “Who are you?”, the response was, “I am Jesus” (9: 3-5). No angel or Spirit in this case. And it was the “Lord” who spoke to Ananias in a vision, telling him to go to Saul and lay hands on him to fill him with the Holy Spirit (9: 10-17). Angels and visions return in the story of Peter and Cornelius in Chapter 10 with the Holy Spirit poured out on the Gentiles to whom Peter was speaking (10: 44-46). When Peter recounts these events he says the “Spirit” told him to go with Cornelius’ men (11:12). It was an angel of the Lord who escorted Peter out of prison (12:7), but the Holy Spirit instructed the church in Antioch to “set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (13:2).

In Luke’s account of these activities, God appears to humanity in visions during times of rest, by voice during consciousness and in the form of angels. God also enables the apostles to perform miraculous healing (9:34; 14:9)) and suffering (13:11). Most of all, God provides God’s Holy Spirit to those to whom the Apostles bring to faith. Clearly, in all these actions, God is the actor. God is the protagonist. As we read these various manifestations of God’s action, are Luke’s descriptions the result of his poetic literary license as author, or accurate accounts of the witnesses? And does it matter?

In the Jewish tradition, there is much evidence of God speaking directly to humans in their consciousness (Abraham, Moses, Elijah) and to the prophets in visions. The Holy Spirit was a new development embraced first by Luke, the Gentile. In the three synoptic gospels, the Holy Spirit arrives in John’s ministry as one baptizing with water in preparation for the one coming who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and leads him into the desert (Mk. 1:8,10,12; Mt. 3:11,16; 4:1; Lk. 3:16, 22: 4:1). But in Luke’s gospel, the Holy Spirit was an active force before Jesus was born. The Angel Gabriel tells Zechariah that his son John with be filled with the Holy Spirit (1:15), and Gabriel tells Mary that the Holy Spirit will come upon her (1:35). Both Elizabeth and Zechariah were filled with the Holy Spirit (1:41,67). The Holy Spirit rested on Simeon who identified the baby Jesus as the Messiah (2:25).

It occurs to me that Luke’s Gospel descriptions were likely influenced by the knowledge he gained from his experience with the Apostles after the ascension of Jesus. Luke knew there was a powerful, invisible force at work in the world that spoke to humans, directed humans, and caused humans to possess certain extra-human powers. Luke’s understanding was later confirmed in John’s Gospel reflections (Jn. 4:23-24; 14: 16-17). Luke may well have concluded that this invisible force would have been active in the parents of John and Jesus. Perhaps then, Luke’s seeming poetic license is more an attempt to describe God’s incredible continuing presence in the lives of humans through some indescribable force to which we would feebly ascribe the word “spirit.” And in the Jewish tradition, since this spirit is of God, the spirit is holy. Our God then is (1) God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, (2) Jesus the eternal Son who we knew on earth as man, and (3) the Holy Spirit that is with us forever as an invisible force. I’m not sure why it took 400 odd years for the Patristic Fathers to work this out.

As I return to my close consideration of scripture after a month of work re-locating our residence to a home in southern Wisconsin I am thinking about the acts of the apostles following the ascension of Jesus. Consequently, I am back to the subject of the Holy Spirit. And perhaps for the first time I am coming to a new understanding of the connection between the Christ and the Holy Spirit, reflecting together a sea change in God’s relationship with humanity.

Back in January I wrote three blogs concerning spirit in scripture. I think I have a handle on it for my own life. But in reading Acts again this past month, I am beginning to understand more fully God’s reconciliation with the human condition God created. While the book is entitled The Acts of the Apostles, the protagonist is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in the stories of Acts is not simply that elusive pneuma (breath, wind, spirit) that warms the heart in some inexplicable manner that signals the presence of God. No, this Holy Spirit is a different kettle of fish altogether. John reports in his Gospel that Jesus foretold the coming, at his request after his departure, of an Advocate or Helper, to be with us forever (Jn. 14:16). Jesus likened this Helper (parakletos in Greek) to a Spirit (pneuma) of Faithfulness (Jn. 14:17). Jesus told his disciples that God was going to act as their helper through God’s Spirit.

Then what happened? Again, you cannot make this up. Luke reports that God waited until the first big festival day after the ascension of the Son, a time when Jerusalem would be filled with Jews from all reaches of the Roman Empire. God had given a law to the Israelites instructing them to bring offerings from the spring harvest on the fiftieth day after the seventh sabbath following the Passover sabbath (Lev. 23:15-16). On that day in Jerusalem, God acted through God’s Spirit to fill the disciples and their colleagues with the power to speak in all the languages of the empire and caused them to speak of God’s “deeds of power.” (Acts 2: 1-12). These acts of the apostles on this day would have the maximum impact, but they were not planned by the apostles. God was the protagonist providing through the Holy Spirit the words and language of advocacy to the apostles and giving Peter scripture to quote in his speech to the crowd (Acts 2:14-36). God chose the day and the hour to act. Christians celebrate this day as Pentecost.

Seems to me this day we call Pentecost is the day God communicated to all the Jewish people in Jerusalem God’s continuing presence among the disciples of the Son. God acted in no uncertain terms, showing clearly to all that God would provide help through God’s Spirit to those mortals who would carry to all humanity the message of the Son, Immanuel, God with us. Seems to me the great sea change is God’s commitment forever to provide God’s Spirit to help each of us better understand God through the message of the Son. Where would we be if we had only the history of Jesus as a one time event without the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit? Isn’t it through the Holy Spirit that we in fact can experience a relationship with God? And therefore know that God loves us and wants a relationship with us? Amen.

I have missed two weekly posts and may be late next week due primarily to travel back to the Midwest to finish most of the moving and home organization in the residence we purchased last autumn. I have lacked the time to research and complete a cogent thought or two on Scripture. The one blog I wrote found its way to the trash as woefully insufficient and unworthy of your time to read.

When I started this blog last December, I wondered whether I would be able to write and post something every week. All went well for about eighteen weeks. For me, thoughtful comment on Scripture requires hours of quiet time in my library….which I thoroughly enjoy….but has been recently interrupted. I am going back to California next week and will bring my library with me to the Midwest for summer/fall, so hopefully there will be few interruptions.

JGR

As I was reading the end of Luke’s gospel (24: 36-49)and Peter’s speech in Solomon’s Portico (Acts 3:11-5) this weekend, I began to ponder the question above. For Jesus of Nazareth in his ministry, his acceptance of suffering and execution, and after his resurrection from the dead, his whole mortal experience is clearly that of an actor in God’s story.¹ He is the Son obedient to the will of the Father (Lk. 22:42), speaking the words his Father commands (Jn. 14:10). The resurrected Jesus iterates to his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that was written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms…..The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.” (Lk. 24: 44-47).

Now, there is much in scripture to support these statements attributed to the risen Christ, but to make a fine point, there is nothing in Scripture that definitively points to the Son of Man, Messiah, or Christ….terms conspicuously absent in the OT. Yes, God did tell Moses that God would raise up another prophet from the people (Dt. 18:15) which could apply to any number of men. The prophet Isaiah did point to a virgin birth (7:14), a child born, a son given (9:6), a servant leader to Jews and Gentiles (49:6-7), who will suffer rejection and death (52:13- 53:12). And Hosea did envision a rising of the people two days after being torn to pieces ( Hos. 6:2). But really, the fine points were not self-evident from scripture until Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures.”(Lk. 24:45) The story that Jesus acted in and fulfilled seems to have been Jesus’ story only as part of God’s grand story of God’s continuing steadfast relationship first with God’s chosen people and now “to all nations”. (Lk. 24:47)

Yet it seems to me that the greatest story ever told that launched a world-wide faith in God’s salvation of humankind through faith in the risen Christ, the story we read and reread every year during the Easter season through Pentecost is not God’s story. God isn’t telling it. Nor is God’s principal actor, Jesus, telling it. God had already told God’s story through Abraham, Moses, the prophets and finally the Son of Man, only to be rejected by the people God loved.

So, perhaps we might ask again, whose story is this? Who is telling this story and what are they reporting? Is it theology or something much more tangible, wholly mortal and historical? Isn’t this story, at its base, the simple testimony of witnesses to the most amazing, incredible series of events in all of human history? I think of the women who could not keep quiet, notwithstanding the enormous personal risk. I think of Peter and John who could not honor the Council’s demand that they keep silent, risking imprisonment and death. “We are witnesses!”, Peter shouted from Solomon’s portico. At the end of John’s gospel the scribes report, “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.”

These are not the statements of Greek philosophers, theologians or apologists who teased out the rational sense of Christ as the culmination of all truth and wisdom in the cosmos. These are statements of simple human beings who insisted that they were there, they saw, they heard and knew their eyes and ears were not deceiving them. We are witnesses. These are not prophets visited by the Holy Spirit in visions and dreams. This story actually happened. You had better believe it, because it is true. This is our story, and what’s more, we made sure it has all been written down.

It seems reasonable to assume that these men and women who told this story likely had no idea what to make of this story but were utterly compelled to tell it, proclaim it, and suffer both persecution and death for their efforts. Now, that effort was likely the work of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. But the story we read is the story of these witnesses to events that happened, incredible as they may seem. And when we retell this story as we have been doing for two thousand years, we are witnessing ourselves to the veracity of the story, proclaiming its truth because we know it to be true. In a meaningful way, then, the story becomes our story. So, perhaps when someone asks the question, “Whose story is this?”, I might answer, “It’s my story.” Thanks be to God.

1. In the introduction to Joel Green’s massive commentary, , The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans, 1997, the author argues persuasively that the gospel’s primary focus is on God and the fulfillment of God’s ancient purpose, and therefore can be considered an account of the life of Jesus in only a secondary sense.

Once again, I am reflecting on this frank teaching, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” (Mk. 8:34) Jesus’ statement is embellished in both Matthew and Luke (Mt. 16:34; Lk. 9:23). In each gospel, this statement is followed by the teaching that those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for Jesus’ sake will save it. Both Matthew and Luke iterate this teaching ( Mt. 10:38; Lk. 14:27), perhaps to emphasize the cost of discipleship. As John emphasized in his gospel, Jesus wanted a relationship with each of us — a relationship that would transform us to live near the kingdom of God. (see also Paul in Romans 12:2). It’s up to us to choose.

So, what does all this really mean in the daily lives of middle class Americans? One ubiquitous idiom in our culture is the phrase “cross to bear”, relating to some personal burden one must carry in life. Are we to live lives of guilt for the sins of our ancestors as some would argue? I don’t think so. Christ wished for us an abundant life. Are we to deny our blessings in search of suffering, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint….” (Ro. 5: 3-5)? Many Christians go in search of a cross to bear in service to God, but I have difficultly accepting this as an aspiration in life. Am I then destined to eternity in hell because there seems to be no cross at hand to take up? Maybe. Jesus did say the pathway to heaven for a rich man would be like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. But Jesus also said that what is impossible for mortals is possible for God. (See Lk. 18: 25-27)

I know that tens of millions of people carry daily the cross of want, pain, persecution and tyranny, thankful for the promise, through faith, of an eternal blessing when this mortal life ends. I have been blessed to live in middle class America where I am not persecuted (yet) for my faith, as were the early disciples who followed Jesus. Nor do I suffer poverty or oppression. Where is my cross to take up? True, I am expected to remain silent in the public square where my morals are seen as strangely antiquated and uncivilized. If I were to speak up, I would be perceived intolerant of the behavior or lifestyle of others. But this can’t be my cross because after all, we are to love our neighbor. I am now confused and more than a little lost. Where is the cross that I can take up?

For many years I felt that the only cross I had to bear was acceptance of loss, failure, misfortune and the vagaries of mortal life. I felt blessed. And of course, I did my part for my community. But I concentrated on my work, such that an understanding of this blunt teaching eluded me until recently in my old age. I now see the cross I am to take up. It is right there in plain sight and has been there all along; not on my back or lying on the ground, but right there on my neighbor’s back, weighing her down as a single mother raising young children. Or see the man over there raising his autistic child who does not speak; or the young parking lot attendant who can’t afford college, or the barista with the same yen. Crosses to bear abound. The landscape is littered with them, even in America. Maybe what Jesus is saying to me is to follow Him by taking up as many crosses as I can bear….a challenge I will certainly fall well short in meeting.

In reflection then, I can only trust in God’s mercy, knowing that all things are possible for God. Thanks be to God.

There is an illustrated children’s story of military roles by rank in the use of a cannon that goes like this: Private Parriage brought the carriage, Corporal Farrell brought the barrel, Sergeant Chowder brought the powder, Captain Bammer brought he rammer, Major Scott brought the shot, and General Border gave the order…..But Drummer Hoff fired it off. The big KABANG comes from the lowliest soldier.

In the greatest story ever told, the climax of which we revisited this past weekend, all the principal players were men. The ruler gave the order after being presented charges by local Jewish officials. The centurion took charge of the execution. And the disciples who scurried for cover in fear were all men.

But it was the lowly women who discovered the empty tomb, met the angels, and informed the male disciples hiding in fear behind locked doors. It is the testimony of these two women, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, fully corroborated by the testimony of Peter to Mark (Mk. 16: 1-8), John’s memory of that morning (Jn. 20: 1-9, 11-18), Luke’s exhaustive investigation (Lk. 24:1-10) and Matthew’s account (Mt. 28:1-2), that fired off the Gospel….the explosive good news of God’s glory bestowed on this pesky itinerant preacher from Galilee who called himself the Son of Man. How fitting! How persuasive!

These women had nothing to gain from such an outrageous story except ridicule. They had no standing in community nor did they seek any. Their place was to serve and keep quiet. Instead, they shouted their discovery. The only logical explanation for such outlandish behavior is that their testimony is true.

And for anyone experienced in taking testimony of eye witnesses, the story of the angels also rings true. Variously described by the gospel writers many years later, the commonality is striking…..one or two men, dressed in white, saying that Jesus is not here, but has been raised and will present himself to the disciples.

You can’t make this up. The notion that these women in their position in society would conspire to make up this story, risk their own safety in the telling, and for no reward, sticking to it for the rest of their lives is utterly nonsensical.

As J.R.R. Tolkien argued persuasively to a doubting C.S. Lewis, he should approach the New Testament with the same imaginative expectation that he brought to his beloved pagan myths, except Tolkien emphasized the decisive difference. The story of Christ is simply a true myth working on us in the same way as others but with the tremendous difference that it really happened.¹ We know this from the women. Thanks be to God.

1. From Alister McGrath’s biography C.S. Lewis

This year leading up to Holy Week I have been thinking quite a bit about the cross. Why is the cross symbolic of Christianity? What does it mean? Is there just one meaning to be learned and accepted? While I don’t have any answers, I do have some thoughts to share.
Historically, there are at least four slightly different theologies of the cross, all having a central theme of atonement (reconciliation). The oldest is the ransom theology expressed in Mark’s gospel, parroted verbatim in Matthew. Jesus lectured his disciples, “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” Mk.10:45; Mt. 20:28. God’s amazing steadfast love offered Jesus’ life as a ransom payment for the sins of the world, thus reconciling God to the human condition with a fresh beginning. Does this work for you? Frankly, I have never been able to figure out how Jesus’ death by crucifixion is the ransom payment offered by God to cover the sins of the world, including mine.

A second theology of the cross is the substitutional sacrificial victim model first mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Romans ( Ro. 3:25) and advocated by Anselm of Canterbury and John Calvin. This theology fits with the Passover event (blood of the lamb on the door frame Ex. 12:21-22) and Jewish theology of substitutional sacrifice spelled out in Leviticus Chapters 1-7. Christ’s sacrifice was necessary to atone for (reconcile God to) human sin. Predictions of this fate abound in the Psalms and the prophetic literature of the OT. Does this explanation work any better for you? It doesn’t help me much.

A third theology is attributed to Peter Abelard, an early 12th Century philosopher and theologian. Jesus presented the human model of moral behavior even unto death, thereby demonstrating how one might mimic the love of God. This “moral influence” theory might have influenced C.S. Lewis’ thinking when he wrote in Mere Christianity, “But supposing God became a man…then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God.” Christ could show us the way, not just in daily behavior, but unto death even under torture. Does this work any better? Seems to help me some.

The fourth theology picks up on the third, but adds an important wrinkle. The journey to the cross is not just a lamb to the slaughter, victim of a sinful world. Rather, the reconciliation God seeks is a new relationship with humanity through the incarnation, life, ministry and death of the Son of Man. Try reading closely John 12: 23-36. The grain must die to seed in order to bear much fruit. When lifted up from the earth, the Son of Man would draw all people to Him. Eternal life begins at death. A public death, rejected by rulers of the age, lifted on a cross for all to see, is the path to glory. ‘Follow me and be reconciled to God the Father forever in eternal life. God and I are about to show you. Just watch.’ Now, here is the important wrinkle. This reconciliation is not a free gift. Grace is not cheap. According to this fourth theology of the cross, each of us has to choose to accept Grace by believing (faith) and acting consistent with that belief (faithfulness). The faith community (the children of light Jn. 12:36) is the fruit of Jesus’ death.¹ Do we have to suffer? Maybe. This fourth theology of the cross seems to work best for me.

Yet it remains complicated. Jesus did sacrifice himself to show the way. And most of Christendom has concluded that this sacrifice atoned for the sins of the world. Even John, his gospel notwithstanding, wrote in 1Jn. 4:10, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Perhaps I can think that God determined out of love for humanity that an intervention was necessary to show us a way to break from the Law and death to sin. And God knew that this intervention would be disruptive and go very badly for the disruptor. Perhaps only God’s Son was suitable for the task. Thanks be to God.

Question: Which cross is the more appropriate or meaningful symbol: Christ crucified depicting the sacrifice of God’s Son, or a clean cross stripped of its power by God? Happy Easter.

1. Though I used several references for this little blog, I am indebted to the brilliant commentary on John written by Gail Radcliffe O’Day and published in New Interpreters Bible Commentary, Vol. VIII, Nashville, Abington Press, 2015. Ms. O’Day earned her BA from Brown, her Masters from Harvard and her PhD from Emory, with a career focus on the Gospel of John. She was afflicted with glioblastoma in 2015 and passed away in 2018 before her 64th birthday.
   

In my writing about Mark’s gospel last week, I tried to present the writer’s inability to comprehend a Messiah wielding the power of God while simultaneously suffering humiliation and death by human hands. John’s gospel addresses this issue head on. It would appear that John’s gospel was written well after Mark’s, and John probably had access to Mark’s account. He may have had access to the gospels of Matthew and Luke as well. That all appears likely to me because John’s gospel seems to be primarily a reflection on Jesus Messiah as fulfillment of scripture, attempting to make theological sense of all that occurred.
In the first chapter John writes that the Son was with God from the beginning, that life came into being through him, and the Word became flesh, lived among us, and we have seen the glory of the Son. John has Jesus beginning his ministry in the Jerusalem Temple followed by a night time theological discussion with Pharisee Nicodemus where Jesus asserts, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man [Me]. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:13-15)
John sees it all as the mission of the Father and Son from the beginning. The lifting up would be a sign for all to plainly see; just as God told Moses to fashion a bronze poisonous serpent and put it on a pole so all those stricken by the plague of snakes wrought on them by God for their mistrust could look upon the snake on the pole and be cured. (Num. 21: 5-9) Seeing the Son lifted up would provide the opportunity for eternal life to be granted to the believer.
John reports another visit by Jesus to Jerusalem for the festival of Booths where Jesus engages in a long series of dialogues with the people and Pharisees. (Jn. 7:10 – 8:59) He makes several Messianic assertions, but they do not understand that he is speaking about God as his Father who sent him to earth to do the Father’s will. At one point Jesus’ frustration seems to boil over, and he says, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize I am [he] ..” (Jn. 8: 28; note that the Greek omits the pronoun “he” so the statement reads, “you will realize I am”. The “I Am” is how God describes Godself to Moses in Ex. 3:14). Jesus is openly describing himself as of God eternally. Jesus further emphasizes the point by telling the Pharisees, “before Abraham was, I am.” (Jn. 8:58). Finally, when Jesus is back in Jerusalem for the Passover festival and his death, he announces to the crowds, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (Jn. 12:31-32)
These references in John’s gospel to being “lifted up” are Jesus’ only statements that could be construed as a prediction of his earthly fate. And, interestingly enough, the Greek verb is ὑψόω which translates as both “to lift up” and “to exalt.” So is Jesus predicting his ascension following his earthy life, or his manner of death on a cross, or both? Note also that these statements are not made to disciples as a warning of the Messiah’s fate as in Mark, but openly to the Pharisees and crowds. John sees Jesus in control at all times. “Should I say, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to his hour.” (Jn. 12: 27). There is no Gethsemane sweating and praying in the Gospel of John. Nor is there Mark’s cry of forsaken grief from the cross, but instead a farewell instruction to his mother and to young John his disciple.

Mark and John: Two strikingly different approaches to the cross, which have had a significant influence on Christianity and the church.
Next week: Four theologies of the cross, and something for you to think about on Good Friday. Perhaps you would pick one that works for you in your faith and send me a note of comment.

As we approach the Easter celebration, I have been thinking about the experience of the disciples and trying to take myself back in time to be with them as Jesus set his mind and his travel in the direction of Jerusalem. I will begin this week with Peter’s recollection, through the writing of Mark.
Though Mark’s gospel is long on facts and short on narrative, he interrupts the parade of miraculous healing and feeding of the thousands to dwell in pure narrative, telling Peter’s shocking story. Jesus has just healed a blind man at Bethsaida on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, before embarking on the long hike north to Caesarea Philippi. Along the trek Jesus engages the disciples in a discussion about Jesus’ identity among the people. While some say Elijah or one of the prophets, Peter responds to a direct question from Jesus with, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus does not deny Peter’s claim, but “sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.” (Mk. 8: 29-30)
Mark continues his story with Jesus’ explanation to Peter and the other disciples what is in store for God’s Messiah. Messiah is not to become ruler over all the region, thereby saving the Jews from Roman tyranny, as envisioned in Hebrew scripture. Rather, God’s mission for the Son of Man is to undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days to rise again. (Mk. 8: 31). There was open discussion among the group as they hiked north; all of which astounded Peter who took Jesus aside to rebuke him for predicting ignominy instead of glorious victory. After all, Peter and the disciples had witnessed Jesus exercising enormous, miraculous powers. How could any human have power over him? But Jesus rebukes Peter for having his mind set on human things instead of divine things. (Mk. 8:32-33).
Repetition was a common literary device used in ancient literature to convey emphasis. Mark provides unmistakable emphasis by repeating this prediction not once but twice. Mark reports a second time that Jesus was teaching his disciples, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” (Mk. 9:31). To this second teaching, Mark writes of the disciples, “… they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” (Mk. 9: 32). Finally, for a third time, Mark repeats Jesus’ prediction as they approach Jerusalem, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son Of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.” (Mk. 10:33-34)
The other two synoptic gospels follow Mark’s lead on this matter. Luke parrots Mark with three like passages (Lk. 9:22-27; 9:44; 18:31-33). Matthew recounts two of Mark’s passages and is the only writer to use the word “crucify” in the latter passage. (Mt. 16:21-28: 20:17-19)
Interestingly, none of the synoptic gospels offer meaning or reflection on Jesus’ prediction of his fate. Mark’s narrative recounts Peter’s surprised shock, inability to understand and fear of asking Jesus to explain. Luke writes that they understood nothing, concluding, “in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”(Lk. 18:34)
Imagine, if you will, how you and I would react to a human being we witnessed with miraculous power known to no person, and who refused to use it to wield that power in this life, but instead was willing to be humiliated, brutalized, tortured and killed by the very humans he could in fact dominate if he chose. And suppose he insisted that this was his Father’s will? Could we accept this teaching? What was it that we would fail to understand?
We would know from scripture that Elijah had been raised up in a whirlwind, so we know about rising from the dead into heaven. And we would know of Jesus’ miraculous healings and bringing life from death. Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days. Jesus had even made the reference to Jonah in predicting that the Son of Man would be in the earth three days and nights. (Mt. 12: 40). I am thinking that the rising from death after three days would have been understandable.
Rather, it would seem that the prospect of humility, debasement and torture by the ruling classes would have been utterly inconsistent with Hebrew scripture. The vision of the prophet Isaiah (Isa. 11) was of a Davidic ruler from the Root of Jesse, and the prophet Daniel’s vision was of the son of man coming in a cloud from heaven with everlasting authority over all humankind (Dan. 7: 13-14). I am thinking that the disciples rightly saw Jesus as the fulfillment of those visions and were therefore unable to grasp any meaning in what was to occur.
Can we feel the despair? What was the point, God? Why did you compel your Son to suffer so? What possible good can come out of this?
Now, we know that Peter accomplished much in the years following the first Easter. We know that Paul accomplished even more in the name of Jesus Messiah, and that Peter was with Paul and Mark. Yet nevertheless, when Peter tells Mark the story, there is no reflective ending, no mission for the twelve, no Holy Spirit to guide them. It seems as though Peter was reflecting for Mark his mental and emotional state on that third day after his Lord’s death. Perhaps, it would seem, that Peter wanted Mark to put us there to know how we would have felt. And so his story of what happened ends. (Mk. 16:8) Just the facts. Sometime later, a more satisfying ending was added (Mk. 16: 9-20). Next week….John’s Messiah.

I am still reading Mark these days to perhaps see a thing or two that I have missed all these years ignoring this seemingly bland gospel. This week I found a nugget I had missed which I thought interesting. Mark explains early on in his gospel that Jesus is estranged from his family. In an episode reported in all three gospels, Jesus mother and brothers are calling for him from outside a home so crowded with people, they cannot gain access. When someone tells Jesus his family is outside asking for him, Jesus replies, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”. Then looking at those who sat around him he said, “Here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Mk. 3: 31-35; Mt. 12:46-50; and Lk. 8: 19-21.

Jesus’ seeming rejection of his family in favor of his disciples is a hard teaching for me. Mark lets his readers know right away when the the crowds quickly become unmanageable, the local Pharisees fear for disorder and the scribes from Jerusalem come up to Galilee to challenge him. Mark reports the episode as part of a session with scribes accusing Jesus of being possessed by the devil casting out demons. Matthew’s report is somewhat similar, though it occurs in Chapter 12 after 22 verses of teaching (Mt. 12: 22-45). Luke sticks the episode amidst unrelated texts, such that it has no context.

In Matthew and Luke this hard teaching seems to stand on its own. The only family that is relevant are those who do the will of God. Why would Jesus estrange himself from his family for their lack of fervent discipleship? Why would Jesus say these things right after saying that people will be forgiven their sins and any blasphemies they utter except for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Certainly Jesus’ mother believed in him (Jn. 2:3-5) even if his brothers did not (Jn. 7:5).

I think Jesus’ family was embarrassed and likely afraid for their own acceptance in their community due to Jesus’ outrageous behavior. They may also have been afraid for him. And Jesus knew it. So he took the opportunity early on in his ministry to distance himself from his mother and brothers. There are two verses reported by Mark (my nugget for today), that are reported nowhere else. The verses are translated variously in all my Bibles. In my NRSV, the verses read, “Then he went home [to Peter’s mother’s house in Capernaum]; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it., they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.'” Mk. 3:20-21. My NIV says that they went to take charge of him. My Catholic Bible says when his “people” heard it they went to take hold of him. My KJV says that when his “friends” heard it they went to lay hold of him because he was beside himself.

Well, as you may have guessed, the Greek is unclear on who “they” are. The subject of the verb “heard” and the subject of the verb “to restrain” are both plural masculine pronouns (they) with no other identification. Also, it may be of interest to note that the verbs as translated to “restrain,” “lay hold,” and “take charge” are kind. The Greek verb is quite strong, translating to seize by force of physical strength. Modern Bibles conclude that it is his family that seeks to take hold of him, and that is why when 10 verses later in the same episode the mother and brothers seek him in the house, Jesus rebukes their call.

So, for me, this episode is no longer so much a hard teaching as it is an assertion of independence by Jesus to his family that he will not be restrained from his mission no matter what people say about him. He has a higher calling from his Father in heaven. And for Mark, who reports these facts early on, Jesus (and his disciples) chose the hard path giving up family and community. For so many of us, the hard reality comes when the family and community we know and love does not square with what we feel we must do or have come to believe. Do we support our children, grandchildren and neighbors in their ways different from our own? Hmmm. Something for me to think on.