We meet Mark in Rome, greatest city of the ancient world, circa 64 CE. Jesus had been put to death some thirty years before. His pupils had scattered. But this did not end the story. These same pupils became convinced that Jesus was once more alive. Their conviction led them to bear brave witness to this extraordinary "Lord." Few others believed them. But they carried on regardless. They had to expect such disappointment. Some paid dearly for their courage.
Mark is said to have recorded the reminiscences of Peter, Jesus' first follower and close friend. Our first witness tells a story of sharp contrasts. Jesus' early triumphs are relished by his pupils and stir a wild enthusiasm in the crowd. Strange events are followed by even stranger events. The sick are healed. A storm is stilled. A family's supper is enough to feed thousands. And all without a word of explanation.
There is something uncanny going on. How could Jesus' followers rely now on normality, how could they be sure they knew the way things really were? Those pupils have joined Jesus for the excitement and wonder and fun of this new master's way. How little they understand.
Some seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprung up quickly through having no depth of soil. And when the sun rose it was scorched and withered away.
The surface of their hum-drum world begins to crack -- and beneath appears a roiling war of good and evil, a single figure in pitched battle against untamed powers of darkness. The normal is not what it seems to be; and in turn a "normal" vision of that battle could never hope to understand its progress -- still less, its overwhelming outcome.
At the very mid-point of his story, Mark changes key: Peter declares Jesus to be God's Anointed agent; and in the next breath, for the first time, Jesus speaks openly of his impending rejection and death. The sound of opposition, determined and dangerous, grows closer; Jesus' chosen followers dream blindly on of privilege and power.
Some seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
How hard it was to see how soon and how violently such triumph would end.
These friends are both pupils and friends of their master, his companions and the missionaries who would spread his message throughout Israel. No one in Mark's story is closer to Jesus than they are. But they misunderstand. They get above themselves. They are ambitious and jealous of each other. And when they are put to the test, they run away.
Mark's story grows ever darker. All of Europe and half of Asia Minor are in the power of Nero, the Roman Emperor backed by the most powerful army ever known and revered throughout his empire as a god. But there is another Emperor: God himself. And Mark proclaims his viceroy: Jesus.
Jesus had challenged the power of his own people's leaders, of demonic powers, of Rome itself - and is hung up on a cross to die. So much, it seems, for his claims and his kingdom. He dies, abandoned and in agony, with words of despair on his lips.
My God, my God, why have you deserted me?
The crisis that Jesus' pupils faced must be faced again by Mark's young church: In 64 CE a fire swept through Rome. Arson was suspected; and the Christians were soon blamed. Jesus' warning echoes down the years:
All those who want to follow after me must take up their cross and follow me. For all who want to save their life shall lose it, and all who lose their life for my sake and the gospel's shall save it.
Where in these terrible days was the victory of Jesus, bizarre rival to the Emperor's power? Jesus asked: Do you still not understand? Mark knows his readers need all the help they can get if they are to open their eyes and see.
To any normal eye, Jesus' claim is rebutted, his following scattered, his battle lost. But this gospel is not written for those who look with a normal, worldly eye. The more assured and complacent Mark's readers are, the more surely they will fail to see the real battle under way in the life of this artisan and in his "defeat."
The pupils themselves fail over and again to understand; and those outside may never see into the secret at all. There is an "unveiling" on offer; and Mark works to make that unveiling possible and effective for his readers. It will never be a mere matter of reading and reflecting. Mark's Jesus lays down that stark challenge:
All those who wish to follow after me must take up their cross and follow me.
Mark is critical of Jesus' pupils; but he looks with a far angrier eye upon the powers-that-be in Jesus' day and his own. His Jesus is at home in rural Galilee; the authorities in Jerusalem spy on him and test his claims, trap him and hand him over to the power of Rome. He had appeared in Galilee proclaiming the kingdom of God; he died in Jerusalem with a mocking placard over his head, The King of the Jews. In Mark's story there is no relief from the brutality of Jesus' trial and death. The high-priest questioned him:
"Are you the Anointed, the Son of the Blessed?"I am and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.
The high-priest tore his clothes. Clothes were torn as a sign of mourning; blasphemy was worse than death." Why do we still need witnesses?" he said. "You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?"
They all condemned him: he deserved to die.
Jesus had suffered a terrible death. So would those who claimed allegiance to him in Rome. But there was suffering far worse still in store for those who resisted the reign of God and his Anointed, his "Christ." The handful of Jesus' devotees remained quite clear: the Emperor to whom all Europe did obeisance was not the king in whose hand this Empire really lay. In Mark's stern, brisk story we hear a rebel speak:
There are some among those standing here who will not taste of death before they see the kingdom of God arrived in power.
On Easter morning Mark has the women come to Jesus' tomb. Jesus' body is not there. A young man is in the tomb, dressed in white.
"Don't be amazed," said the young man, "you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He is up and risen. He is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.
But go and tell his pupils and Peter, "'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'"
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
And with that, it seems, Mark has finished. What a strange way to end: more fear, disobedience, everything still open. The women, the only followers who had not run away as danger drew near, understand as little about Easter as the men had understood about the suffering that went before it. Why do we not hear of the meeting between Jesus and his followers? Why does the story not follow them to Galilee and their reunion and his pupils' comprehension at the last?
At our distance we look for some familiar and reassuring distinctions: between the earthly and the risen Jesus; between his power when on earth and his power after Easter; between his presence with his pupils and any "presence" his followers may claim for him since. But as Mark would have it, the Jesus of Mark's story was already in his own person and in his days on earth the mysterious Son of Man that belonged in dreams of "heaven." The veil between heaven and earth is a veil on the eyes of those around Jesus who cannot open their eyes and see. It takes Jesus' death to tear the veil apart.
Jesus' pupils could not understand him before his death; Mark knew that the gospel's readers would still need help to understand him after his death. It is time to start the story again: to go back to Galilee where it all began, to the first appearance of Jesus and his summons to Peter. Mark would have us see beneath the surface this time round -- and then to start the story yet again, over and again, at an ever-greater depth. For this is history as it has never been before: history disclosing far more than itself.
To look for the "earthly" Jesus in Mark's story, as a figure distinct from the risen Jesus of his church, is already to miss his story's point. Jesus tells riddling stories whose point does not lie "on the surface" and open for all to see. Gradually we get clear the riddle that is the whole gospel, and we can grasp who is really speaking in this narrative from long ago -- and who he is really speaking to.
The encouragement and warning, that Jesus gives to those who hear his stories, apply no less to those who hear Mark's story as a whole:
When Jesus was alone, those around him with his closest friends asked him about the riddles he used:To you, the secret of the Kingdom of God has been given.
But to those outside, everything happens in riddles, so that (as Isaiah says):
Looking with all their might they may not see, and listening with all their might they may not understand; otherwise they might change their ways and God forgive them. To you the secret of the Kingdom of God has been given.
Of course historians of Jesus, ancient and modern, have a duty to prize the different aspects of Mark's Jesus apart; historians deal in the business of earthly figures living earthly lives. But historians of the text and of the church that used it are called to a stranger and more elusive task: to grasp the insights, purpose and methods that drove Mark's denial of the one basic distinction that could make of his story a straightforward "history" of Jesus.
And what of those who returned to Galilee and the story's start, and saw ever deeper beneath its surface? What of Peter's harassed church, and the final victory that its members longed for? Has the Son of Man, as Mark portrays him, assured us of this triumph yet to come? Or has this history achieved what it discloses? Deep down in the truest structure of things, has Mark's Son of Man won the final victory already?
Mark is far too wise to answer these questions for his readers. To ask them is already to be on the way to understanding. For those who would look deeper and ever deeper, Mark has just one command: "Go back to Galilee; there you will see Jesus, just as he told you."
Mark knew well the vision of the prophet Daniel.
I, Daniel, looked, and there before me was one like a Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all people, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
On the evening of Jesus' arrest, Peter denied all knowledge of his master. For the next thirty years he spread the gospel. Ancient tradition has it that he died in Rome, among those killed in the persecution that followed the fire. He had taken up his cross at last and followed Jesus.
Some seed fell on good ground, sprouted, grew and bore fruit: thirty-fold, sixty-fold, a hundred-fold.
