Contents
Part I: Reading Mark today 1 Why should we read Mark? 2 Why should you read this book? 3 Mark’s story 4 Mark’s world 5 Who wrote this Gospel? 6 Who was John Mark? 7 Is Mark a history of Jesus? Part II: Reading Mark today 8 The beginning of the gospel (1:1–13) 9 The kingdom of God is near (1:14–45) 10 The Son of Man is revealed (2:1–3:6) 11 Jesus calls the Twelve (3:7–4:34) 12 The Lord is revealed to the Twelve (4:35–6:6a) 13 Two feasts, two kings (6:6b–56) 14 Uncleanness (7:1–23) 15 Jesus in Gentile regions (7:24–8:26) 16 The Christ (8:27–9:1) 17 The mountain and the valley (9:2–29) 18 Journey through Galilee (9:30–50) 19 Journey to Jerusalem (10:1–52) 20 Jerusalem: The Lord in his temple (11:1–12:44) 21 The end of the temple (13:1–37) 22 The night he was betrayed (14:1–72) 23 King of the Jews (15:1–47) 24 The empty tomb (16:1–8)
3 4 5 8 10 13 15
18 27 43 60 77 93 120 130 150 163 172 183 204 228 239 262 279
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Maps 1 Perea: Where John was baptising 2 Capernaum and northern Galilee 3 The Decapolis 4 Nazareth and southern Galilee 5 Perea, including Machaerus and Petra 6 Jesus’ journey through Gentile territory 7 The Sea of Galilee 8 Bethsaida and Capernaum 9 Jerusalem
22 38 80 94 99 134 142 146 205
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Chapter 8
The beginning of the gospel (Mark 1:1–13)
The ‘beginning of the gospel’ tells us that God is active, keeping the promises he made under the old covenant, tearing open the heavens and sending his Spirit on the man he called ‘my Son, whom I love’ (1:11). We stand at the threshold of a mighty act of God. (1) T he gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1:1) The word gospel in the opening sentence establishes that what follows is an official proclamation: that was the meaning of the word at the time Mark wrote. Citizens of the Roman empire were familiar with proclamations or ‘gospels’ which usually focused on the emperor and conveyed important and joyous messages. An inscription about the Emperor Augustus, dated 29 BC and found at Priene between Ephesus and Miletus on the west coast of Roman Asia, is strikingly similar to the opening of Mark: ‘the birthday of the god [i.e. Augustus] marked for the world the beginning of good tidings [=gospel] through his coming’. This ‘gospel’ declared that a new age of peace for the war-torn Roman world had begun with the birth of Augustus. Josephus, the Jewish historian, likewise describes the way news of the appointment of the Emperor Vespasian quickly spread in AD 69 and how ‘every city kept festival for the, good news [= gospel] and offered sacrifices on his behalf’ (Jewish War, iv.618). God’s gospel is about a person called the Son of God. This, too, was a title of honour often bestowed on Roman 19
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The Servant King emperors, so it can hardly be accidental that, as a climax to the Gospel of Mark, a Roman centurion declared that Jesus was ‘Surely ... the Son of God’ (15:39). While the emperors as ‘sons of God’ were powerful in pomp and procession, this Son of God was powerless, hanging on a cross, at the very moment the Roman soldier recognised his true identity. Mark is making a highly provocative, even treasonable, claim. It implies that the true and rightful ruler of the empire was not the Roman emperor but Jesus Christ, a crucified Jew. Mark’s Gospel will demonstrate beyond doubt that Jesus Christ is the true Son of God. His preferred title for Jesus, Son of God, appears repeatedly within the Gospel and is its chief theme. Jesus is Greek for the Hebrew name ‘Joshua’, which means ‘Yahweh is salvation’. It was a common name at the time: the historian Josephus mentions some 20 persons named Jesus. From the next century, however, Jews would cease to give this name to their sons. Christ is Greek for ‘Messiah’. Originally Jesus was called ‘the Christ’—a title rather than a surname—but because non-Jews would not have heard of such a person he came to be known simply as Jesus Christ. While the gospel is about Jesus Christ, it begins with Jesus’ own ‘gospelling’; very soon we meet him preaching the gospel of God (1:14–15). The written gospel—Mark’s Gospel—originated with Jesus’ verbal gospel; Jesus, not Mark, is its true author. (2) The gospel: its beginning (1:2–13) Mark’s first word beginning (Greek arche) reminds us of the first words of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1). God is the beginning and initiator of the salvation of humanity as well as of the creation of the universe. What, then, is the beginning of the gospel? Surprisingly it is not Jesus Christ but John the Baptist, who preceded him. ‘The beginning’—verses 2–13—narrates three episodes 20
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The beginning of the gospel spanning John’s period of ministry: John baptising and prophesying in the desert; John’s baptism of Jesus; and Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Although Jesus was involved in the second and third episodes, they took place during John’s time. Not until John was removed from the scene at verse 14 would Jesus step out of John’s shadow; only then would the beginning of the gospel come to its end. (i) John in the desert (1:2–8) In the first episode, the voice of a prophet of God—long silent in Israel—is again heard. It is the voice of John the Baptist, whose message is two-pronged: John called the people of Israel to ‘repentance—to turn back wholeheartedly to their God—and to accept baptism as a sign of their new beginning and of God’s forgiveness of sins. This was a startling demand, since baptism was a requirement for non-Jews who converted to Judaism. John was saying that, in spite of their sense of superiority as God’s people, Jews had to regard themselves as no better than Gentiles, as non-Jews. Yet despite this humiliating message the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to meet him. John also spoke of one more powerful than himself, who would come after him and who would baptise ... with the Holy Spirit. The prophet Malachi had prophesied that an Elijah-like figure would precede the Day of the Lord (Malachi 3:1; 4:5), and John saw himself as that ‘Elijah’: he carefully imitated Elijah’s distinctive clothing of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist (2 Kings 1:8). God had called John to be the forerunner of the Lord who was coming to his people. The historian Josephus confirms John the Baptist as a genuine figure of history, referring to him as one who was attended by large numbers of people and who baptised; though he does not speak of John as a prophet or as a forerunner of the Lord, only as ‘a good man’ (Antiquities, xviii.116–119). Through his call to repent and be baptised, John fulfilled the prophecies of Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3. He was 21
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The Servant King indeed the long-awaited messenger of God, sent ahead of the Lord, and his was the voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’. So why is Isaiah’s quotation acknowledged by Mark, but not Malachi’s? Probably because Malachi was a minor prophet whose book came at the end of the prophetic writings, whereas Isaiah came first, is much longer and was more famous. Although verses 2–8 focus on John the Baptist, in his shadow we see a greater figure, the Son of God. He was the more powerful one who would come after John, the Lord whose way in the desert John was preparing, who will baptise ... with the Holy Spirit (a reference to Jesus’ sending of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost; see Acts 1:5; 2:4). John’s baptisms, and also Jesus’ time of testing, took place in the desert (verses 3, 4, 12, 13)—the arid Jordan valley in southern Perea. John appears to have been based on the eastern, or Perean, side of the Jordan River (which is the modern kingdom of Jordan) within the jurisdiction of Herod Antipas, under whom he would later be arrested and killed (6:17–29; cf John 1:28; 10:40). (ii) John baptises Jesus (1:9–11) The second episode focuses on one of the many people who came to John for baptism in the river Jordan. This individual did not come from Judea but from Nazareth in Galilee. Few details are given; no conversation between the prophet and Jesus is recorded. As Jesus was coming up out of the water he saw and heard awesome phenomena from heaven by which God dramatically called him to begin his mission. When he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove, he recognised that he was being empowered by the Spirit for a mission such as no other could undertake. When he heard a voice from heaven saying: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased,’ he was reassured of a relationship with God such as no other could enter into, and of which he was aware from an early age (see Luke 2:49). 22
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The beginning of the gospel These two phenomena from heaven—the Spirit descending and the voice—were God’s commission for the task which Jesus had been sent to accomplish and which he was about to begin. Jesus would be locked in battle with the Devil throughout his ministry, from the time of the temptations in the wilderness to his death on the cross; but he would prevail as the Holy One of God, in the power of the Spirit. Others who came to the Jordan were sinners, seeking the cleansing and renewal of God at the hands of a prophet. But Jesus came as God’s beloved—or only—Son, the object of the Father’s love and pleasure. Though God’s Son, he stood with sinners in the Jordan, as in the future he would be crucified with and for sinners, while being himself without sin.
Map 1 Perea: Where John was baptising 23
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