Anne Lastman

Having just entered into our new liturgical year and the Gospel of Mark, I had the opportunity to re-read this very short Gospel with eyes of an older person and hope to see things that I had not seen before.  There are so many beautiful moments in this Gospel. So many beautiful treasures waiting to be found and how blessed we are to spend a whole year with the man who heard the stories told, made a record, and was able to leave these for us to experience. 

The Bat Kol (Voice of God) announces his arrival (Jesus) and he announces.

“The Kingdom of God is at hand” (mk.1:14) and so we begin the new liturgical year with Mark’s own announcement that the kingdom of God has arrived, and the mission and theme of this visitation is one which will be carried out by God in and through the person of his son Jesus. 

While “the Kingdom of God” was understood as an apocalyptic symbol, a way of talking about God’s final redemption of the world, the symbol itself was thought as one of joy and hope because it was understood that under the reign of God, as king, there would be a society based on love and justice, and honour and not one according to earthly standards.

The symbol “kingdom of God” was not new to the Hebrew consciousness, and so when Jesus announced that the “kingdom was close at hand” (Mk 1:15). It was an announcement that God is again intervening intimately (the Shekinah had departed from the Hebrews Sam.4:21) and now has returned and rests with Jesus himself.   God is again intervening in the life of the people just as he had intervened at moments of need in their history, in order to liberate them and reclaim them as his own.

For Jesus the central message of his life was that the Kingdom of God (in Himself) revisited his people and will be found in his life and mission, and message with an urgent appeal to those who heard his message which was to repent and convert (metanoia) and to believe that God was near. He has returned to be amongst them after a long absence.

Whilst the motif of “kingdom of God” was close to Hebrew consciousness, Jesus is the one to whom this good news refers and it will be found and bound to his works in words and deeds, and it’s in these that the signs of his victory will be built upon. It will be found in the signs of his ministry to the marginalised, poor, the oppressed.

His aim was to instil a vision of hope in the reign of God and that this reign would be a gift given to all but most specifically the outcasts, the suffering, the sinners even before their repentance.  His attitude towards the poor and marginalised was to draw them into the society which had despised them and turned their eyes away and backs to them. Jesus, saw himself in solidarity with the suffering and the excluded (Pope Francis?). These he drew into his friendship. (Pope Francis?) However, this is not to suggest or even say that the rich, the virtuous were to be excluded but it was those humanly excluded because of their situation that he sought out. To the excluded he showed himself as the human, visual “Word” and “love” of God.

The mode of teaching used by Jesus when speaking about the Kingdom of God (Mk1:14) was via the medium of parables (story to tease out a moral message by the hearers) and most especially his parables of mercy which witness to Jesus’ awareness of reflecting in his own attitude towards sinners, the merciful attitude of God (Mk 2:5, Lk 7;36, Lk. 15:4-32).  Within his parables often using available resources, that is “yeast” “mustard seed” “darnel” “relationships” he was able to clearly conceptualize, the munificence of God’s love and the immenseness of his kingdom.  God’s fatherly care introduced by the imagery of the term “Abba” (Mk 14:36) which is a very intimate term similar to the term used in our day “dad/daddy” an imagery which brought God close to his children rather than the ritualistic, distant God, feared, needing appeasement, and far removed from his creation.

In his parables Jesus revealed the very core of the attributes of God and the nature of his kingdom.  By the grounding of the parables in daily events, existence, Jesus showed tangibly that God is found in that daily existence.  His reign won’t be a legalistic one, or even with legalistic structures but a confirmation of his enmeshing of Himself, with His love, in the lives of his own people.

What we find in Mark’s Gospel, perhaps because it is thought that it was the first Gospel written in a time frame 60-70AD, when there would have been individuals who were alive at the time of Jesus, and the stories they told about him, and the manner of his teaching, in such a way that they could understand. This was the new reign, the new “kingdom of God” would be to be understood not as a location or place but a new order and understanding, charity and change in society.  But this new order must emerge from the old order, quietly and slowly at first like the mustard seed, then hidden like yeast, and slow growth like darnel, but still with the surety that this new order, or kingdom, which God founds will eventually grow into the kind of kingdom that is of his own doing and of his own liking.

It’s thought that the Gospel of Mark was written in Rome for new and gentile community who may have been suffering for their new belief and he may have been aligning their suffering with those of Jesus Himself. Indeed, the first eight chapters of this Gospel are devoted to healing and ministering both to body, mind, and spirit of the people whose lives had rendered them unacceptable to the society in which they lived.

We see this with his alignment with the anawim, that is the poor, the despised the suffering, oppressed. Jesus also showed a particular respect for women which was not considered “normal” for that time.  The life of women was to “belong” to someone and often used, bartered and downtrodden.  His defence of woman we see in his defence o woman of ill repute who came to minister to him at the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk8:356-50).  We see it when he asked for water from the Samaritan woman, unheard of in that day to speak to a woman who was alone. He rescued a women destined for stoning and certain death for supposedly committing adultery (Jn 8:1-11) and he defended widows who were oppressed and abandoned to self-sustain in society (Lk20:45-47).  

This helps us also to understand why Jesus entrusted his mother to John (just before he died) who would be her son and therefore taken care of her as a son would.  This very small clue confirms that Jesus had no physical siblings (irrespective of who says otherwise) because if he had had siblings, it would be unheard of that she would not be taken care of by sons or daughters.  Without other siblings it meant that Mary as a widow would not be well taken care of  or abandoned once his work had finished and he returned to his father’s house. 

Jesus’ healing ministry was also a very significant and obvious part of the announcement of the kingdom. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Mk1:29) the man with the withered hand (Mk3:1), the man with the skin disease (Mk 1:40) the paralytic (Mk2:1) the sick at Gennesaret (Mk 6:53) the deaf man (Mk:7:31) the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman (a non-Jew-Mk7:24) and many others.

What is interesting is that he was also slowly changing “rules” and erroneous teachings or erroneous understanding of his father’s words. The Sabbath had become a forced compulsory duty, but he insinuates an idea of him, as Divine bridegroom, is above rule of the sabbath but is indeed the Lord of the sabbath and as such healing on sabbath becomes possible, picking ears of wheat to feed others on the sabbath became true.  There is the Law of the sabbath, but there is also the law of love, and he is the law of love. Love itself.

For me the most important verse of this Gospel, being the first Gospel, is the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan.  Here we see the first theophany in the New Testament where the trinity is present together. It’s such an important verse because this introduces the question. Why?  Why Did he insist on his own baptism which is for cleansing from sin, and he, being God, we know had no sin to be cleansed. (Heb4:15-16). Much has been written about this topic (Baptism) but there does not seem to be a unified understanding.  Yet, it is clearly hiding in plain sight.  Something we see daily but not actually see it. And so, his baptism was/is one of the most important reasons for his birth amongst those he created.  The Cross the means by which this task was accomplished, but His Baptism was a necessity for this task to be accomplished.

Understanding the words and actions involved in his baptism are possibly the most beautiful in all of scriptures both OT and New Testament and life.

Jesus’ presence on earth, his work, his signs, his miracles spoke of a completely new reality.  So effective and dynamic was the introduction of the Kingdom that he was asked if he “was the one to come” (Mt 11:3) and Jesus refers to his manifested works (Mt 11:4-6).  Jesus came and established a criterion by which the kingdom of God would be recognised and within this criterion are the establishment of the way the kingdom was to be understood.  No longer was the kingdom to be understood as the exclusive right of the rabbis, the learned, the rich, the virtuous, (Pope Francis?) but as a right for all people but most especially those wounded by life and wounded by sins.

The new orientation towards God would be a reordering of society according to the mind and design of God himself. The values which must be in accord with God’s values and human relationships to be like God’s relationship with them, that is, freedom, brotherhood, peace, and justice.

The question can be asked why did Jesus centre the Kingdom in the realm of the anawim? The answer? because the ostracised, those with little are open to what is freely given. For those outside of the milieu what is left is the knowledge that only God does not abandon.  As Pope Francis ‘s title of one of his first books is “The Name of God is Mercy” this Mercy never abandons and departs. Legalism is not the way of the Kingdom. Mercy is.  Jesus’s role was to reawaken the Shemah Israel (Dt.6:4-9) which had become lost in the midst of legalism.

Ultimately the miracles we see in Mark’s Gospel, and indeed all the other Gospels, were a sign of the Good News that the “Kabod” (God’s glory) had returned. The Shekinah had returned to his people and having announced the Kingdom begun and would be fully realised at death.  Through Jesus, God’s love and mercy was made visible.