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.
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