Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease | Part 6: Lord over the Law

In describing this humble servant of God, Mark is not yet finished surprising us. In the middle of his book—at the core of it, we might say—he recounts several interactions Jesus had with natural forces, or the created order. I could say that each of these surprises us, but if we’re still being surprised by now, we simply haven’t been paying attention.

I’m going to present them outside the order in which Mark places them, because 4 of the 5 make sensible thematic or logical pairs.

The first such interaction Mark presents is with a storm on the Sea of Galilee. We’re all familiar with this story, of course; it appears in 3 of the 4 Gospels, and we’ve heard about it since childhood—and some of us, of a certain age, even had the help of little flannelgraph cutouts.

Jesus and his disciples are crossing the lake on a fishing boat—most likely owned by Peter and Andrew or by James and John, since both of those sets of brothers had fishing businesses. A storm arises—as storms often do on this lake—but this storm is so extreme that the disciples think they’re all about to die (Mk 4.38). Now, considering that 4 of them are professional fishermen based on this lake, men who have seen scores of storms here, we can only imagine how violent this storm must have been to convince them that they were done for.

And Jesus is asleep (Mk 4.38).

Have you ever been on a boat in a violent storm? Me neither. But I’m given to believe that a fishing boat is going to be doing quite the do-si-do on the waves in that circumstance. This is not the kind of environment where you just doze off.

I take from this fact that Jesus was exhausted. He was completely wrung out, unable to stay awake under the most anti-soporific of conditions.

He was likely as low, as weak, as he had been since the fasting and temptation in the wilderness of Judea.

With some effort, apparently, they wake him up.

What are you like when you’ve been violently shaken out of a sound sleep and are surrounded by multisensory chaos?

He stands up—in a violently rocking boat—and says simply, “Calm down” (Mk 4.39).

And he says it not to the disciples, but to the lake. Who talks to natural forces with that kind of directness and expects to be obeyed? And is obeyed?

The disciples are apparently more frightened now than they were during the storm (Mk 4.41). Just who have they gotten themselves involved with?

At the nadir of his servanthood, he speaks to the wind and the sea—the storm gods, if you will—and is immediately and visibly and unquestionably obeyed.

Some servant.

Mark gives us other examples (as if he needs to):

• When his disciples are in contrary winds later on the same lake, he walks out to them on the water and joins them in the boat (Mk 6.45-53). (Critics trying to “explain” this obvious miracle have suggested, among other things, that there were giant lily pads out there, which the experienced fishermen on the boat were unaware of. Do I even need to refute that idea?)
• Just before that event, he feeds 5000 men, plus women and children, with 5 buns and a couple of tilapia (Mk 6.30-44).
• Later he does it again, but this time with 4000 men, 7 buns, and “a few” fish (Mk 8.1-10).
• And just before his arrest, he curses a fig tree for being fruitless, and 24 hours later (Mk 11.12-14) the tree is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead. (For those who aren’t paying attention, I got those adverbs from another source.)

Who has this kind of authority over powerful natural forces?

Why, their Creator, of course.

Some servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil | Part 5: Lord over Disease

In Mark 2 we find a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees which ends with Jesus declaring himself to be “Lord of the Sabbath” (Mk 2.28). This is quite a statement. We, who have heard it since our Sunday school days, simply cannot grasp the megatonnage with which these words would have hit the Pharisees.

But before we can discuss that, we ought to look further back in the chapter to note the context in which Mark places this confrontation.

In an (apparently) earlier conversation, some of the Pharisees’ fanboys ask Jesus why his disciples don’t fast the way the Pharisees and John’s disciples do. Now this context is important; while the Law does not mention fasting, the Bible does command “afflicting your souls” on one holy day, the Day of Atonement (Le 16.29-31; 23.27-32; Nu 29.7)—which might well be an oblique reference to fasting. If Jesus kept the Law perfectly (and he did [Jn 8.46; 1P 2.22]), he would certainly have fasted at times when the Law required it.

We know that the Jews later developed fasting practices apart from biblical mandates. After the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the Jews began fasting on key anniversaries connected with that event (Zec 7.5; 8.19). In particular, the Pharisees developed the practice of fasting every Monday and Thursday (Didache 8:1; cf Lk 18.12).

Jesus’ response to the question indicates that he has no need to follow extrabiblical traditions, even those recommended by significant religious authorities. But in that conversation he hints at something far deeper; he says that he is putting “new wine” into “new wineskins” (Mk 2.22). What could that mean?

Mark shows us in the next paragraph. Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grainfield one Sabbath, and they take some heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands to separate the kernels to eat. Ah, but the Pharisees, the religious leaders, have decided that such an action is harvesting—work. And this is the Sabbath. Clear violation of the 4^th Commandment (Ex 20.8-11). This rogue rabbi is a danger to the social order.

At this point Jesus does not argue that he has a right to ignore the Law, because he’s God. Indeed, as we’ve noted, part of the purpose of his incarnation is to keep the Law perfectly, as a man, in the place of sinful men and women. Rather, he claims for himself the right to pronounce the true meaning of the Law, implying that he has perfect knowledge of the mind of the Law’s Author. There’s no denial of his humanity, or of his submission to the will of his Father, or of his submission to the Law as intended. He simply asserts that they, the experts in the Law (the Pharisees were a subset of the scribes), didn’t know what they were talking about.

He gives an illustration from the life of David, who ate the showbread from the Tabernacle—with the high priest’s assent—when he and his men were weak with hunger. You see, the Law was not intended to starve people, or to cause them harm; its purpose is their salvation, their rescue, their shalom. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mk 2.27).

Jesus implies that David did not in fact break the Law, though in principle the showbread was limited to the priests. How did Jesus know that? He knows the mind of the Author—or more bluntly, he is the Author.

And so he concludes by stating how he knows these things:

The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath (Mk 2.28).

Mark gives us other indications. He records the Transfiguration, where Jesus takes precedence over Moses (Mk 9.2-8). He records Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple (Mk 11.15-18), where he not only drives out the merchants but changes Temple policy on the spot  (Mk 11.16).

He is in charge of the holiest precinct in all of Judaism.

He’s no ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself | Part 4: Lord over Evil

After Jesus returns from his temptation in the wilderness, he continues to demonstrate authority. He begins to preach, calling the people to repentance (Mk 1.14-15). He calls his disciples, and they leave what they’re doing to follow him (Mk 1.16-20). He teaches in the synagogue at Capernaum, “and they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes” (Mk 1.21-22).

And then, as if to put an exclamation point on his defeat of Satan in the wilderness, he confronts one of Satan’s servants, “an unclean spirit” (Mk 1.23) who, it turns out, speaks of himself in the plural (Mk 1.24)—maybe there’s a whole legion of them in there—and who confesses freely, “We know who you are: the holy one from God.” Jesus wastes no time or words (this is my rendering): “Shut up and get out” (Mk 1.25).

Which the spirit does.

There are other such occasions that Mark recounts: Jesus exorcises a madman in Gadara (Mk 5.1-20) of what is confessedly an entire legion of demons, and he casts a spirit out of a young boy who had seemed beyond hope (Mk 9.14-27).

Incidentally, the first of these exorcisms is at the beginning of his ministry; the second is in the middle; and the third is at the end. His authority never wavers or wanes.

Are these examples of lordship over evil, which should have gone in the previous post, or of lordship over disease, which is the subject of this post?

Yes, they are.

But Jesus’ lordship is not limited to spiritual disease; he takes authority over physical ones as well:

• He heals Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever in Capernaum, just after casting out the demon (Mk 1.29-31). And not only does the fever leave immediately (which is odd, given that a fever is typically an indication that the body is battling an infection), but she is immediately restored to full strength (Mk 1.31).
• That evening he holds a healing service—a real one—and heals all comers, whether of physical or demonic conditions (Mk 1.32-34). Note that everything we’ve mentioned in this series so far, with the exception of the two later exorcisms, occurs in Mark’s first chapter. Jesus is spectacularly busy, “about [his] father’s business,” as he had put it all those years ago (Lk 2.49). Again, he’s a dutifully obedient servant even as he takes authority over all he meets.
• Soon after, he heals a leper (Mk 1.40-45). There’s a lot of discussion about just what biblical leprosy was; I’m not inclined to think that it was Hansen’s disease, but rather some sort of skin condition similar to eczema or psoriasis. But whatever it was, it wasn’t curable; if you had it, you had to isolate yourself and just wait it out, and for some (e.g. 2Ch 26.21) it never went away. Jesus healed it on the spot.
• A few days later he heals a paralytic (Mk 2.1-12)—and forgives his sins for good measure. Even today much paralysis is incurable, despite considerable research. So it’s no surprise to us that the onlookers say, as we would today, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” (Mk 2.12).
• A few days later he does it again—this time paralysis of just one arm (Mk 3.1-6). He does it with a word; he doesn’t even need to touch him. And—this is important—he does it on the Sabbath. The Lord over disease is also Lord of the Sabbath, a point he takes time to make here. And it goes a step further; he is angered—angered!—by the onlookers’ professed piety, by the fact that they’re more concerned with process than with people, more concerned with letter than with spirit. There seems to be no arena of life into which he does not step with authority.
• He heals a nobleman’s daughter and a woman with a hemorrhage (Mk 5.21-43).
• He heals a Gentile woman’s daughter (Mk 7.24-30).
• He heals a deaf-mute (Mk 7.31-37).
• He heals a blind man (Mk 8.22-26).
• And he heals another blind man, Bartimaeus (Mk 10.46-52). This man, this time, calls him “Son of David!” (Mk 10.47). We should recall what that title means. King. Lord. Absolute and eternal authority (2S 7.16).

No ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God | Part 3: God Himself

As far as the supremacy of this servant, Mark could end his account right here in the middle of chapter 1 and have made his point. But there’s much more to say.

Mark spends just 2 verses noting that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness (Mk 1.12-13). He chooses not to say much—unlike his fellow evangelists Matthew (Mt 4.1-11) and Luke (Lk 4.1-13)—but what he says comports perfectly with the theme he’s already established.

He uses the servant word—immediately—to begin the account. This man, who we’ve just learned is the Father’s Son, in whom he is well pleased (Mk 1.11), is under orders again, and he obeys. The wording is so strong that we wonder if he even had any choice:

Immediately the Spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness (Mk 1.12).

That’s the NASB. The ESV and KJV use the verb drove.

I learned in my childhood in the American West that you don’t drive people (especially Westerners!). You drive cattle; and nowadays you drive cars. But you don’t drive people. People are free, with a right to self-determination.

Not this person. Not on this mission. Not in this circumstance.

The Spirit drives him. He impels him. And Jesus, the servant, obeys.

This obedience is not easy. He driven out into “the wilderness”—specifically, the wilderness of Judea.

If you’ve ever been there, you know that it’s a hostile place. It’s a desert, thus dry, and it’s hot during the day and cold at night. Either one can kill you. In Jesus’ day, it was where he set the story of the Good Samaritan, in which robbers set upon a Jewish man walking the steep road downhill from Jerusalem to Jericho (Lk 10.30). So if the climate isn’t enough of a threat, there are always brigands to be concerned about. And, perhaps worse, the desert creatures—mammals, reptiles, insects—who can’t be reasoned with. Mark tells us, “He was with the wild beasts” (Mk 1.13). If you’re alone, and you obviously have to sleep at some point, what’s to protect you from them?

In the desert, time is your enemy. There’s no water, and no food, and the temperature extremes wear down your body. You can take a 10-minute walk in the desert and ordinarily be no worse for the wear. But if you’re planning to stay for a while, you’re going to need supplies.

Jesus stays for 40 days. And nights. No food, no water, and, as far as we know, no shelter. Any outdoor guide would tell you that that’s not wise.

But Jesus is a servant. He does what he’s told. He goes, and he stays.

Mark says very little about the actual temptation: “tempted of Satan” (Mk 1.13). We know, obviously, that he survived the testing, because the story continues for 15 more chapters. That leads us to think that he was successful in defeating the tempter—and of course Matthew and Luke, in their longer accounts, give us the details. We don’t find Satan being finally crushed there; that will have to wait for the cross (He 2.14) and the final judgment (Re 20.10). But he meets the tempter on his ground, at his best and strongest point, and he is not defeated.

The Bible says that Jesus was tempted “in all things as we are” (He 4.15). Some wonder how that can be, given that he is God, and God is unable to sin. There’s an area of theology that discusses that specific question, and conservatives are divided. In that discussion it’s been suggested that Jesus’ temptation was actually harder to endure than ours, despite his moral perfection—or perhaps because of it.

When we’re tempted, the temptation lasts only until we give in. But Jesus never gave in; he endured all the temptation there was, to the bitter end.

And he won.

This servant is Lord of evil, and of its greatest proponent, Satan. Even as he is a servant “driven” into the wilderness, he overcomes the one who continually and continuously defeats us.

He is no ordinary servant.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Part 1: The Surprise | Part 2: The Son of God

After his surprising opening sentence, Mark introduces us to John the Baptist, the prophet whom God has chosen to be the forerunner of the Messiah—whom we now know to be Jesus.

John is—unusual, to say the least. He’s very much in the mold of the Old Testament prophets—Amos, Micah, Hosea, Isaiah, and others—who denounce the corruption of Israel’s leaders and the mindlessness of the people. But despite—or perhaps because of—the edge on his behavior and his message, the people throng to hear him (Mk 1.5), responding positively to his call for repentance.

Mark introduces this character as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy himself—specifically, God’s last words to his people (Mal 3.1) before the four centuries of silence out of which Israel is now to emerge. John, he claims, is the promised messenger who will clear the way for God’s arrival.

Let’s not pass over that too quickly. He is preparing the way for whose arrival?

Malachi’s prophecy had said, “He will clear the way before Me”—meaning, not Malachi, but God himself; for “me” in this passage is identified at the opening of the book as “the LORD”—Yahweh—whose word to Israel Malachi is relating (Mal 1.1). The prophecy goes on to say, “the Lord [Adonai], whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” (Mal 3.1).

As if to double down on this claim, knowing that the hearers will reflexively resist believing it, Mark quotes a second prophecy, that of the highly respected prophet Isaiah:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight (Mk 1.3, citing Is 40.3).

The choice of this Isaianic prophecy is significant for at least two reasons. First, it is the opening of the second major section of Isaiah’s prophecy, where the message turns from judgment for sin to future gracious restoration—a shift in tone that perfectly parallels the movement from Old Covenant to New. And second, the prophecy is that the Coming One is “the Lord,” as it appears in Mark. In the OT prophecy, the word LORD is in ALL CAPS, signifying that the Hebrew name here is not “Adonai,” “Lord,” but “YHWH,” “Yahweh”—not the title of sovereignty, but the personal name of the covenant God of Israel, the Creator of the world.

John is preparing the way for Yahweh, the Coming One.

So who is Jesus, the Christ?

He is not only “the Son of God,” a title that some sceptics twist to imply someone less than God himself; he is Yahweh, God himself, all that God is, ever has been, or ever will be (He 13.8).

Now Mark adds John’s testimony to that of the two OT prophets:

There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (Mk 1.7).

Well, if the coming One is Yahweh, he’s certainly greater than John; that should go without saying.

But it doesn’t.

Further, the Coming One is going to baptize in, or with, the Holy Spirit (Mk 1.8), acting in concert with the very Godhead.

With John the Baptist’s pronouncement narrated, Mark now recounts John’s baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River (Mk 1.9-11).

And here we see explicitly what has just been implied: the Godhead’s embrace of Jesus as one of their (his? its?) own:

He saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Mk 1.10-11).

Father and Spirit act together to publicly recognize the Son and to announce his complete acceptance. Here again the relationship is expressed as sonship, but in context the full equality of the Son is clear.

This servant, it turns out, is God himself.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Part 1: The Surprise

How does Mark begin his Gospel, his telling of the story of this servant of God?

The very first sentence surprises us:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mk 1.1).

To a Jewish reader, this would be astonishing.

We learn first that this man has a typical Jewish name: Joshua. No real surprise there.

But then we learn that he’s specially anointed: that’s what the title Christ means. It’s the Greek synonym for the Hebrew Messiah, “Anointed One.”

Now, this isn’t necessarily surprising in itself. In the Hebrew Scriptures—what we Christians call “the Old Testament”—lots of people were anointed as a sign that they were being set aside for a particular role:

• The priests were anointed (Ex 28.41)—but they had to be descendants of Aaron, from the tribe of Levi, so Jesus, a descendant of Judah, couldn’t be one of those, or so it appears.
• The prophets were sometimes anointed (1K 19.16); perhaps Jesus will be a prophet? Well, there have been lots of prophets, so while that would be interesting, it wouldn’t be astonishing.
• The kings were anointed as well (1S 15.1; 16.12-13)—and Jesus is indeed from the tribe of Judah, David’s tribe (1Ch 2.3, 15), the tribe to whom Jacob had prophesied that “the scepter” belonged (Ge 49.10).

Could Jesus be the coming king? That would be a much bigger surprise. There hasn’t been a king since just before Judah’s exile to Babylon, six centuries ago. (That would be like the year 1400—well before Columbus—to those of us living in the 21^st century.) But how can there be a king, with Rome dominating the entire known world? And much more significantly, how can there be a king, if God has cursed the royal line by telling Jehoiachin, the last Davidic king, that none of his descendants would ever sit on the throne of his father David (Je 22.24-30)?

OK, maybe Jesus is just a prophet, then. That’s reasonable, and it meets the terms of the verse’s language, and it will make a good story. Elijah was interesting, wasn’t he? And Elishah? And Jonah?

But then Mark explodes all of our expectations with three little words.

Jesus, the anointed one, is the son of God.

To a first-century Jew, what does that mean?

There’s the reference to the “sons of God” in Genesis 6.2, but the rabbis were all over the place in trying to interpret that. The book of Job refers to the “sons of God” presenting themselves before the Lord, apparently in heaven (Jb 1.6; 2.1)—is Jesus some kind of angel? And again in Job, God himself refers to the “sons of God” in parallel with the “morning stars” (Jb 38.7), which seems to imply some sort of heavenly body or being.

But this is all pretty confusing. What does it mean that Jesus is “the son of God”?

I’d suggest that the mind of the first-century Jew would go immediately (!) to a far more significant passage.

In the second Psalm, Yahweh / Adonai laughs (Ps 2.4) at the assembled rebellious kings of the earth (Ps 2.2) and tells them, “I’m going to set my own king on the hill of Zion” (Ps 2.6). And who is that king, the one preferred over all the kings of the earth? He himself speaks in verses 7-9:

⁷ I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. ⁸ Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. ⁹ Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Ps 2.7-9).

Yahweh has told the speaker, “You are my Son!”

This is a king, all right. But he’s not like any other king. He’s going to rule over the entire earth (Ps 2.8), and he’s going to be unopposed and unopposable (Ps 2.9).

And the Psalm continues,

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him (Ps 2.12).

This absolute sovereign is one in whom all humans are urged to put their trust.

This is no mere human king, or even an angel.

This is no ordinary servant.

There’s more. Next time.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Everybody knows about the four Gospels.

And many commentators have, well, commentated on the fact that there are four of them.

Why four biographies of Jesus—especially when there’s so much overlap? Why the inefficiency? Why not just one Life of Christ, effectively a harmony of the Gospels?

You’ve probably heard at least one answer to that question.

Why would you read more than one biography of George Washington, or Steve Jobs, or Michael Jordan?

Because you get different perspectives from the various biographers.

Well, how many legitimate perspectives do you suppose there could be on the only person who has been—and is—both God and man?

I suppose we could ask, why only four Gospels?

Perhaps you’ve seen the Gospels distinguished by their perspective on Jesus:

• Matthew presents him as Messiah, King of the Jews.
• Mark presents him as the servant of God, diligently fulfilling his divine mission.
• Luke presents him as the Son of Man.
• John presents him as the Son of God.

While such classifications aren’t perfect—each of the Gospels is more complex than this—they do give us some help in noticing themes of the books; for example, Matthew is filled with citations of Messianic prophecy that is fulfilled in Christ.

One feature of Mark that speaks to Jesus’ role as servant is the frequent use of a little Greek word usually translated “immediately”; it occurs

• 19 times in Matthew;
• 11 times in Luke;
• 7 times in John;
• and a whopping 43 times in Mark, which is by far the shortest of the Gospels.

In fact, it occurs more times in Mark’s first chapter than in all of Luke or in all of John.

• Jesus comes immediately out of the water after his baptism (Mk 1.10);
• then the Spirit immediately drives him into the wilderness (Mk 1.12);
• then he immediately calls his disciples (Mk 1.20),
• and immediately they follow him (Mk 1.18);
• then he immediately begins teaching in the synagogue (Mk 1.21);
• and immediately his fame begins to spread (Mk 1.28);
• and he immediately goes to Simon’s house (Mk 1.29);
• and they immediately tell him that Simon’s mother-in-law is sick (Mk 1.30);
• and when he takes her hand, immediately the fever leaves (Mk 1.31);
• and when he speaks to a leper, immediately the leprosy goes away (Mk 1.42),
• and Jesus immediately sends him away (Mk 1.43).

And that’s just chapter 1. Whew.

Jesus is busy.

Later in the Gospel Jesus tells a story of a landowner who sends a series of servants to the tenant farmers to collect his rent. The tenant farmers kill each servant he sends. So he sends his son—and they kill him too (Mk 12.1-8).

This biographer of Jesus presents him as God’s Servant-Son, sent to accomplish a critical mission under the direction of his Master-Father. He hastens to do his Father’s will.

But in carrying out his Father’s mission, this servant surprises us.

He doesn’t really act like a servant. He acts like someone who’s not only in charge, but very comfortable with being in charge.

You would expect this perspective from John, who begins his Gospel by saying, “And the Word was God” (Jn 1.1). You would expect it from Matthew, who begins by quoting Isaiah, “They shall call his name Emmanuel” (Mt 1.23)—and then immediately and helpfully informs us, “which being interpreted is, God with us.” You would expect it from Luke, who begins by reporting Gabriel’s words to Mary—”He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Lk 1.32-33).

But Mark? Mark, who’s telling us about Jesus the servant, constantly hurrying to his Master’s next assignment?

Mark?

Yes, Mark.

You see, this is no ordinary servant.

We’ll look into the details in the next post.

Photo by Praveen Thirumurugan on Unsplash