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A King and a Kingdom The most important part of a story is the ending, for it gives the final word on the subject of the story. The second is the beginning. It generates certain expectations within the audience by setting the tone, and letting the reader/hearer/viewer know what kind of story is going to be told. It introduces the characters and initiates the steady process of building toward the ending. By the end of the first ten minutes of a well-crafted movie, the audience should know where the story takes place, who is involved, and what is at stake, as well as be able to formulate a general idea of what is going to be required to resolve the main conflict. All this to expound upon why the following has generally become held as a matter of common sense: one of the cardinal rules of beginnings is you do not give away the ending. Yet, this is precisely what the author1 seems to have done with,“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,”2 the very first verse in the book of Mark. Letting the audience know that the subject of this story, who is a mere human, is also the Christ and the Son of God, seems to give away a large portion of the plot. But this story is not driven by mystery regarding the nature of its main character. Revealing Jesus’ true identity to the audience from the outset heightens the tension as the other characters misunderstand and thus mistreat him with increasing severity as the narrative unfolds.3 Further, before we write Mark off as an unskilled storyteller, we need to examine two important aspects of the nature of narratives:
1
It is not known precisely who authored the book that we have come to call, “The Gospel According to Mark.” However, for the sake of convenience and keeping with tradition, he/she will from here on out be referred to as, “Mark.” 2
All translations will come from the NRSV, unless otherwise noted.
3
Hurtado, Larry. New International Biblical Commentary: Mark. Peabody: Hendrickson. 1983. p. 15.
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1) they all contain certain gaps which must be filled in and, 2) they are all products of their particular context. The filling in of narrative gaps is something we all do, often without noticing. For example, if I were to make reference to Barack Obama while telling a story about racism to another American I would not have to explicitly point out that he was the first man with AfricanAmerican heritage elected to the office of President. I would not have to fill in the gap between Barack Obama and racism for someone shaped by the same culture from which the story arises. However, if a manuscript of this story were to be read 1,000 years from now in Central Asia, these gaps would not be so easy to fill in; it would probably be quite difficult to make the connections between a character named Barack Obama and the issue of racial prejudice. The gospel story is no different. Mark wrote from within a particular context, for people within a particular context. The author therefore, by necessity, made certain assumptions about the audience and, based on these, left certain gaps in the narrative. Judging by some of these gaps (e.g. little is said about who Pilate was or why Jesus would be handed over to him) one particularly important assumption seems to be that the audience was already familiar with the basics of the story of Jesus, including the ending. These people knew that the “Son of God� had come, died, and risen. So perhaps this opening line may not give away as much of the story Mark was attempting to tell as we North-American evangelicals, who have been reared according to a certain understanding of the gospel narrative, tend to assume. It is quite telling that even though Jesus’ identity has been clearly disclosed from the beginning, as we move along in the narrative the disciples struggle to perceive properly who Jesus really is until the resurrection.4 Therefore,
4
Ibid.
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what this euangelion becomes is a formational narrative, not an evangelistic tract for those who had never heard about Jesus. 5 The task undertaken by the author of Mark was to work out in narrative form precisely what these titles and events mean. Since we are dealing with a narrative approach, it is fitting to begin an examination of Mark’s christology by taking a fresh look at the first title given to Jesus: Christou. Contrary to popular opinion, “Christ” is not Jesus’ surname. “Were Jesus to go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a driver’s license, it would not read, ‘Christ, Jesus.’”6 What is more, this is a word we tend to fill with all kinds of content, but it means, simply, “anointed one.” Outside of a Jewish context this would have merely referred to someone with oil smeared on them. It would not have made much sense: Jesus, the smeared one. However, Pilate, whose job it was to keep the Jews in line, immediately made the connection between the “smeared one” and the “king of the Jews.” Which opens a whole new bag of trouble. For, contrary to many a sermon, there was not one set of expectations surrounding the Jewish messiah. It is not true to say, “The Jews were expecting a messiah.” Some expected a Davidic savior, but some expected no messiah at all. However, it can be said that no one expected a Christ who would be hung on a cross. It is grammatically possible to link “the beginning of the good news” in verse 1 to the “as it stands written (grapho) in the prophet Isaiah” in verse 2, indicating that the whole story that is to follow has something to do with what Isaiah wrote centuries before. Yet, Saul, who knew the Hebrew Scriptures better than just about anyone, when confronted with the claim of a messiah who had
5
Dowd, Sharyn. Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary of the Second Gospel. Macon: Smyth & Helwys. 2000. pp. 2-3. 6
Johnson, Andy. “Mark” class notes. Fall 2008.
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been crucified, buried and raised, did not say, “Oh, yeah! That’s him!”7 No prophetic passage that spoke of suffering, in Isaiah or elsewhere, was ever read as messianic. We must understand this to retain the scandal of Mark’s opening line that connects a peasant Jew who was executed in the most dishonorable fashion with the “anointed one” of God that Isaiah prophesied about, who would, through his victory, usher in the reign of God. If the first title, “Christou” carries connotations our minds automatically, but perhaps partially misguidedly jump to, the second, “huiou theou” is no different. When a contemporary American evangelical hears the words, “Son of God,” their mind typically goes directly to the second person of the Trinity, thinking Mark is immediately attempting to portray Jesus as divine. Yet there is some question how these words are being used here, particularly as they appear right next to words associated with the Messiah. For the first-century Jews who were expecting a messiah, few if any imagined for a moment that the Messiah would in any sense be divine.8 David was also called the “Son of God.” This surreptitious title, when linked with the Messiah, speaks of the connectedness, the utter closeness of this One to God and God’s purposes for Israel (II Samuel 7, Psalm 2). In the context of the First Century Roman world, the emperor was often described as a son of one of the gods. If the emperor was described as the “son of Apollo,” his power as emperor was being underwritten by his closeness to the god, Apollo. As some have suggested, with this background one might hear this title as having anti-imperialistic overtones. Yet, this does not mean Jesus has come to overthrow Rome, but that Mark is telling us of the good news about one who, unlike the
7 8
Ibid.
Wright, N.T. The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. 1999. p. 74.
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emperor, is going to redefine, through his person and work, what it means to be both human and divine. This redefinition begins soon after, as Mark begins to tie this disappointing, crucified Jew to the God of the Old Testament. It has been said that the entire story that follows is somehow connected to the works of Isaiah. However, the quote that attends is most clearly not a quote from Isaiah, but a combination of Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1.9 It also seems that Mark is taking this quote from the LXX. If, as stated above, the Isaiah reference is indeed connected with the title, then the quote coming most directly from Malachi is not such an issue. Mark did not, as Jerome accused, get the quote wrong.10 Rather, the real issue is: in Malachi 3:1, who is coming and whose way is being prepared? The answer is none other than YHWY, the very God of Israel. However, Mark changes the language a bit. In Malachi, YHWY is sending “my messenger” ahead of “me” to prepare “my way.” In Mark, the messenger is sent ahead of “you,” to prepare “your way.” This subtle shift makes a substantial Christological claim. This Old Testament text that applies to none other than YHWH is being attributed to the mere man, Jesus. God is still coming and preparing his way, but it seems God will do so in a very unexpected fashion. The second part of the quotation comes from Isaiah 40:1-3. By this point in Isaiah’s narrative both Israel and Judah have been judged and sent into exile, and now comfort comes. God is about to return them from exile, and where do you have to go through to get from Babylon to Jerusalem? The desert, or wilderness. The very place we first encounter Jesus in Mark. In Isaiah this trek is depicted as a new exodus. It also depicts God as a mighty warrior as he redeems Jerusalem, conquering any force that gets in the way. The whole story line ends in 9
Dowd. p. 9.
10
Ibid. p. 10.
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chapters 65-66 with a description of a new heaven and new earth that inspires an unspeakable hope. This is a nice script for Mark to follow! This euangelion is good news of a divine warrior who will lead the people of God in a new exodus, whose goal is nothing less than a new heaven and new earth. This does not just confer a larger context for this story, but also introduces what happens immediately following. John comes in a mode reminiscent of Elijah, indeed preparing the way for this divine warrior, who, surprisingly, before he does anything else, is baptized with a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. It seems Jesus, the sinless one, is repenting for all of Israel, completely identifying with the entirety of his people. Jesus then sees the heavens being violently ripped (skidzo) apart and the Spirit, the implicit actor in the tearing of the heavens, like a dove descending into (eis) him. Then comes a confession from the lips of someone in the heavens, directed to Jesus: you are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased. An attentive reader/listener will notice the connections to the subtly shifted quotation from Malachi that came in 1:2. It would seem that this God is the Father of this Son, into whom the Spirit descends, and that God has initiated, in a very unexpected way, the reign of God: an outright invasion of the holy into the realm of the profane.11 Mark then proceeds to tell of how Jesus, as both the initiator and vehicle, carries out this invasion through teaching, healing and controversy with the established authorities. Which leads to an interesting discussion of Jesus’ identity in 6:14-16. Some think he is a prophet, perhaps even Elijah. Others think he is John the Baptist returned. It is quite compelling that up to this
11
Juel, Donald. The Gospel of Mark. Nashville: Abingdon. 1999. pp. 61, 64.
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point only YHWH and demons have gotten this right (1:11; 3:11; 5:7). The narrative question of Jesus’ identity then reaches a new pitch with the feeding of the Jewish crowd in 6:33-44. A basic knowledge of the larger biblical narrative should lead an attentive reader/hearer to notice copious Old Testament allusions in this story. The disciples bring Jesus five loaves of bread, which could be taken as an allusion to the Torah. Here, as in the first exodus, we encounter a mass of delivered people hungry in the wilderness. Here, with five loaves and two fish, as there, with manna and quail, we get a miraculous provision. Jesus is likened to Elisha and Elijah, who also miraculously fed the hungry and were themselves miraculously fed (I Kings 17:8-16; II Kings 4:1-7, 42-44). He is also likened to Moses, the prophet par excellence for the Jewish people. In verse 34 we are told that Jesus, like Moses, “had compassion for (the crowd), because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” This takes us back to Numbers 27:17, where shepherd language is employed that is later developed in the Jewish tradition into the image of a davidic shepherd (see Ezekiel 37:15-28).12 Yet, in the Old Testament, prophets and kings are not the only ones depicted as shepherds. YHWH himself is also Israel’s shepherd; in Psalm 23 it is none other than God who leads the people “beside the green grass.” Which is interesting, given the peculiar little detail included by Mark in 6:39: that the people were told to sit in the “green grass.” Mark does not even include a birth narrative in his story. If space is an issue, why would he choose to include this seemingly trite detail instead of the virgin birth? Why tell the story this way if he was not alluding to Psalm 23? He pulls from both strands of Old Testament literature that portray, respectively, a davidic shepherd and YHWH as shepherd and converges them in the person of Jesus.
12
Hurtado. p. 100.
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This Shepherd, when moved to compassion, does not send the people away as his disciples would have had him do. Instead, he says, “No, you feed them with what you have.” The five loaves and two fish are brought to him and the people are gathered in groups by the disciples on the aforementioned green grass. We now have Israel regathered in the wilderness, on their way to the promised land. The loaves and fish that came into Jesus’ hands from his followers is multiplied in ways that otherwise would have remained a shortage and only fed his followers. Jesus then gives the food back into the disciples hands and sends them out to distribute it. We should note the number of basketfuls collected after all have eaten: 12. It is as though all of Israel had been fed, yet there is still enough for all of Israel.13 In ushering in the reign of God Jesus initiates the people into a kingdom whose economy is one of abundance, not scarcity. Further, if we notice the chiastic mirror between 6:33-56 and 8:1-9, 14 we see Mark understood Jesus bringing the reign of God to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The eschatological shepherd has arrived in this one who not only alludes to, but supersedes, all of God’s servants who have come before to provide for the needs of all of God’s people, who now include the Gentiles. The gracious reign of God is abundant enough to make room for all. The identity of the One who does this is very important. As the disciples correctly asked before, “Who then is this” who does these types of things?15 Though they wrestled with exactly
13
Johnson. Class Notes.
14
Dowd. p. 65.
15
Mark 4:41.
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the right question, it seems they entirely missed the right answer.16 May the reader/hearer be given greater powers of perception as this topic gets taken up in the very next section. Jesus sent the disciples across the “sea” to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowds and took some time to pray. When evening came the wind picked up and tormented the disciples as they strained on the oars. Where was Jesus during their affliction? Walking on the water, of course, and he “intended to pass them by” (v. 48). This is indeed an odd story. Jesus’ walking on water is not, unlike for many contemporary readers/hearers, for Mark, just about how cool Jesus’ miracles can be. This image should take one to Job 9:8, which should then help one to understand that the issue here is Jesus’ identity; if it was missed in the loaves this should get one’s attention, for there is only One who treads upon the waves of chaos. The peculiar little line about Jesus intending to “pass them by” also offers a valuable clue as to who this one is. It is already clear from the Job reference that Mark is portraying Jesus in YHWH-like terms, and it was none other than YHWH who “passed by” both Moses and Elijah (Exodus 33:18-34:7; I Kings 19:7-13). Jesus has also been portrayed as a shepherd, and shepherds lead their flock from the front when they are facing an obstacle. Jesus is passing them by in order to lead them. Yet this takes Jesus identity beyond even the eschatological davidic shepherd, for this shepherd leads them as he treads on the waves. As if more were needed to connect Jesus with YHWH, it should be remembered that in Psalm 23 YHWH leads his people by the still waters, and when Jesus got into the boat the waters of chaos were stilled. The disciples were terrified. Jesus spoke, and the sheep heard his voice, saying, “Take heart, ego eimi.” “I am.” These words provide another little narrative gap that
16
See 8:14-21.
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would have been easily filled in by a first-century Jewish audience, and would have simultaneously inspired peace and greater terror as they harken back to the very first time the name of YHWH was revealed (Exodus 3:14). This is Jesus giving a divine self-disclosure.17 In this passage, Mark takes many images used for the identity of Israel’s God and focuses them all in this “Son of God,” a title that now signifies a much more direct relationship with God than indicated by the previous use of the term for human beings in the Old Testament or Jewish tradition.18 Though the Messiah was never expected to be divine, Mark is making a startling point: to see Jesus is to witness a theophany, and fear is an entirely appropriate response to such a thing. Yet there is unspeakable hope as well, as Mark brings in allusions to Exodus, picking up on Isaiah’s imagery and likening the work of this divine shepherd to a second exodus. The audience then learns the disciples hearts “had been and remained hardened.”19 In spite of all they had witnessed, they did not recognize YHWH when they saw him.20 Yet, just as God worked despite the hardened Pharaoh to affect the first exodus, God can work to bring about the second exodus despite the disciples’ dullness. At least one might find oneself ardently hoping this as one arrives at the controversy over the interpretation of Scripture in 7:1-23 to find that little had changed. Immediately preceding this story Jesus has been engaged in an itinerant mission that demonstrated the reign of God. While engaged in this mission, Jesus relied on hospitality, taking food wherever it was offered, and fed the (clean) Jewish crowd. Beginning with verses 1-2, the 17
Hurtado. p. 103. For more on how “I am” is used throughout the Old Testament as title or divine selfdisclosure, see Isa. 43:25; 48:12; 51:12. 18
Ibid.
19
Translated this way to account for “peporomene,” the perfect passive participial form of “poroo”
20
Dowd. p. 70.
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Pharisees and scribes notice that some of Jesus’ disciples were eating with unwashed (unclean) hands. While a contemporary mother probably would have scolded Jesus, this is not about making sure all the germs are off. It is not clear that while relying on the hospitality of others Jesus could have observed all the purity regulations, it is quite probable he and his disciples found themselves in a house that did not observe all of these dictates. These regulations came from the tradition of the elders, or the oral Law. They were later codified in the Mishna and, for the Pharisees, were not only the legitimate extension of, but also had equal authority with, the written Law. Contrary to much popular evangelical sentiment, the goal of the oral Law was not to bury God’s Law in minutia and make it difficult for people to be righteous. They were absolutely right that God’s people must go beyond words on a page. The Law is significant only as it is practiced, and that practice requires interpretation.21 Their goal was to interpret the Torah and apply it to every aspect of life, to thereby sanctify all of life and safeguard their identity as a holy nation. The immediate and significant issue was the disciples’ eating with unclean hands. This law originated with Exodus 30:19 and 40:12, where the priests were ordered to wash their hands while engaged in temple service as a mark of the sanctity of the place in which they served. What they did with the oral Law was to juxtapose these commands with the ones found in Leviticus 20:26 and Exodus 19:6. If all of Israel was to be holy, why not extend these commands to include everyone? It seems like a wise interpretation whose intent was to bring all of life under the reign of God as expressed in the Torah. So the question of the scribes and Pharisees in verse 5 is an important one, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat
21
Juel. p. 83.
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with defiled hands.” They really thought the commands of the oral Law were the necessary words of life others had brought into communal situations. Jesus responds to this question by quoting Isaiah 29:13, indicating that what is truly at stake in the washing of hands here is hypocrisy, the difference between what one says with one’s lips and what one actually is before God. Intention does not even come into play in this matter. Jesus uses the practice of designating something as “Corban,” or designated for God, to illustrate how one can honor God with one’s lips (speaking a vow), while their heart, the seat of their will, remains far from God. This practice was built on an extension of Numbers 30:1-2. A person could make an unbreakable vow to God designating something like a piece of property for God’s service. But what would happen in this culture, that had no social security nets, when one had an aging parent who needed help and one’s main asset is corban? Therefore, people could make this dedication out of selfishness or out of complete sincerity and end up in the same predicament. In attempt to solve this dilemma, the oral Law brought in Numbers 30:1-2 and ruled that the vow could never be broken, even for a parent in need. Jesus responded by applying Exodus 20:12 in a particular way, citing the command to honor one’s father and mother over and against the extension of Numbers 30:1-2. He extends himself and thus argues the oral Law was not the legitimate extension of the written Law. His accusation that the scribes and Pharisees “have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep (their) tradition” (v. 9) was not their intent. The implication is a chilling one: carefully ordering life based on the precepts of neither the oral Law nor the written Law guarantees faithfulness to God.
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Jesus then moved beyond the business of hand washing and oral law to the issue of clean and unclean foods in verses 14-16. The oral Law started the conversation, but now the “ante has been upped.”22 When dealing with food laws it is a good idea to take a look at Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. The logic at work in these passages is that God’s people do not eat certain kinds of animals because God is holy and God’s people are to be different from the nations who serve other gods. Being holy as God is holy is part of the Jewish identity. This, combined with the socio-historical background of the Maccabean revolt, where those who were zealous for their fathers’ food laws were willing to give their lives rather than break them and spurn the symbols of their identity, further helps one see how, for the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus’ playing “fast and loose with food laws was to play fast and loose with Jewish identity.”23 As if the scribes and Pharisees were not mad enough already. The disciples then asked Jesus about the parable. Though Jesus was speaking plainly his words were so bizarre they led the disciples to assume he was again speaking in cloaked language. Jesus then stated what has become obvious by this point: the disciples were not understanding (asunetoi24 ). He then basically repeats himself, redefining purity by what comes out of a person, what one says and does, rather than by what goes into a person. The logic at work in Jesus’ words says a great deal about the reign of God he initiated. A person truly living within God’s kingdom cannot separate their actions from their inner intentions. Once cannot bracket off one’s intentions from their embodied deeds in public practices. This is not merely a “kingdom of the heart.” What makes a community eligible for 22
Johnson, Andy. Class notes.
23
Ibid.
24
This word provides a nice tie to the suniosin in the Isaiah quote in 4:12.
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participation in the reign of God is whether or not they take part in the types of activities that invite the forces of chaos to reek havoc on God’s people. This is what drives Jesus list in verses 21-23. Purity and impurity are still at issue, but Jesus changed the terms and showed that what true purity is concerned with is God’s intended order for all of creation. What is more, Jesus’ logic in verses 15 and 18 stand in direct conflict not with the oral Law but with Leviticus and Deuteronomy themselves. When the Markan Jesus declares “whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile,” “he is not rejecting oral tradition, but the food laws laid down in the Torah itself. Why then is he not guilty of the charge that he had brought against the Pharisees? Has he not ‘made void the word of God’ in order to establish his own position in its place?”25 Jesus here blatantly reinterprets the written Law. Prophets of the past had critiqued Israel’s cult before, and in pretty strong ways at times (Isaiah 1), but none had said anything like this. What Jesus’ reinterpretation depends on is nothing less than whether or not Jesus is indeed the vehicle of the reign and presence of YHWH. Jesus’ seeming attack on the symbols of Jewish identity here is but one example of how he “implicitly and explicitly attacked what had become standard symbols of the second-Temple Jewish worldview.”26 He has and continues to attack such icons as the Sabbath, their rulers, family structures, and the Temple itself throughout the narrative, replacing or reconstituting them in and around his very self.27 Certainly “the kingdom of God was not just about religion and
25
Dowd. p. 73.
26
Wright. p. 55.
27
Johnson, Andy. “The ʻNew Creation,ʼ the Crucified and Risen Christ, and the Temple: A Pauline Audience for Mark.” Journal of Theological Interpretation 1.2 (2007) 171-191.
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ethics but about eschatology and politics and the theology that holds them all together.”28 And people can get incredibly zealous about the things that symbolize such realities. So it is no surprise toward the end of this narrative we find Jesus, this one introduced as the Messiah, the Son of God, being put to death. At Jesus’ crucifixion, we find a couple of familiar patterns. First, his exit from the narrative looks an awful lot like his entrance. At his baptism we have the entrance of the Spirit into Jesus, the splitting (skizo) of the heavens and a confession of his sonship. At Jesus’ crucifixion we have the exit of the Spirit as he “breathed his last” (exepneusen), the splitting of the heavens as the temple curtain, which functioned as a microcosm of the cosmos, was torn (skizo) in two, and a confession of his sonship from the Roman centurion. It is not as though we have fully developed Trinitarian language or theology here. We cannot point to proof texts in Mark from which the language of Nicea of Chalcedon was drawn. But we do have a startling pattern here in the text where the first and last time we encounter Jesus of Nazareth we also encounter the Father and the Spirit. One might be tempted to begin to think the framers of the creeds got the relationship profoundly right.29 Jesus has been giving his life through out the narrative. He came and liberated people from physical ailments, hostile powers, social ostracism and even death itself, transferring them from a kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God. And a strange thing happens when someone comes initiating a new reign: all old powers must acquiesce or be thrown down. So it is noteworthy that Mark chose empirical language to describe Jesus’ apparent defeat, the
28
Ibid. p. 73.
29
Johnson, Andy. Class Notes.
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culmination of his giving of his life, contrasting him with the rebellious rulers of the day. Which brings us to our second familiar pattern. Here Dowd builds on the work of Thomas Schmidt and N.T. Wright, noting the similarities between the eight steps involved in the inauguration of a Caesar and Mark’s narration of Jesus’ crucifixion.30 First, the prospective Caesar was brought into the middle of the Praetorian Guard. After Pilate’s dubious decision the soldiers led Jesus to the praitorion and a whole company of soldiers gathered there. Second, a purple robe was acquired by guards from the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and placed on the prospective Caesar. He was also given a golden olive-leaf wreath and a scepter, symbolizing the authority of Rome. Jesus was also robed in purple, but his crown came as thorns, and his scepter as a rod with which he was beaten (15:17-19). Third, Caesar was loudly proclaimed as triumphant by the soldiers. In v. 18, Jesus is sarcastically hailed as king. Fourth, a procession, led by soldiers, began through the streets of Rome. Caesar was in the middle, followed by a sacrificial bull. The death and blood of this bull would mark Caesar’s ingress into the divine pantheon. Next to the bull was a slave bearing the ax that would be used to kill the bull. In Jesus’ case, the sacrifice would not be a bull, but the would-be king and God. He was unable to carry his instrument of death and be the sacrifice, so they stopped Simon and made him bear the cross (vs. 20-21).
30
Dowd, pp. 158-60. Also: Schmidt, Thomas. “Jesusʼ Triumphal March to Crucifixion: The Sacred Way as Roman Procession,” New Testament Studies (January 1995): 41:1. Wright, N.T. “Upstaging the Emperor,” Bible Review (February 1988): 14:01.
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Fifth, the procession moved to the Capitoline hill (“head hill”), the highest in Rome. In verse 22, Jesus is lead to Golgotha, which, the NRSV translates as “place of the skull,” but that is “Calvary.” More precisely, Golgotha means “head hill.” Sixth, the would-be Caesar was offered a bowl of wine mixed with myrrh. He took it, then gave it back. The slave also refused it and it was then poured on either the altar or the bull. After the wine was poured out, the bull was killed. Jesus was offered and refused wine. Immediately after, Mark writes, “And they crucified him” (vs. 23-24). Seventh, the soon-to-be Caesar would place his second in command on his right and his third in command on his left. They then ascended to the throne of the Capitoleum. Jesus was crucified with two other lesti (bandits with revolutionary purposes) on his right and left (v. 27). Eighth, the crowd acclaimed the emperor with their voices and the gods acclaimed him by sending signs, like a solar eclipse or a flock of birds. Jesus was again acclaimed (read: mocked) and a divine sign confirmed God’s presence: the temple curtain was torn in two. Finally, a Roman centurion, who pledged allegiance to Caesar, the other “Son of God,” acclaimed Jesus as the Son of God (vs. 38-39). Elsewhere this term is used by God at Jesus’ baptism (1:11) and at the transfiguration (9:7), and by demons (3:11; 5:7), but this is the first time it is used by a human character. How ironic that this man should be mouthpiece used by Mark to guide his human readers/hearers to understand the true significance of this peasant carpenter.31 If this is the coronation of a new king, it would certainly have to be an act of God. In it, the Markan Jesus is both victorious king and sacrificial victim. “Yet his most royal moments
31
Hurtado. p. 269.
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occur in a setting that is utterly inappropriate to his office.�32 For those with eyes to see, Jesus is indeed the divine warrior king and this is his moment of victory. Yet this king gives his life as a ransom for his people. This king saves other by refusing to save himself. The kingdom, proclaimed since 1:14-15, had arrived and was legitimized at the resurrection. Indeed this One redefined what it means to be human and divine. So, as people brought, by the grace of God, through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the gracious reign of God, as subjects of a different kind of king in a different kind of kingdom, we are called to be a different kind of people. This is good news. This is salvation.
32
Juel. p. 152.