MARK - Week 2
I spotted something new in Mark this week!
After 20 odd years of reading this gospel, and over a decade immersed in the world of biblical study and theology, there are still things every now and then that I miss.
This is one of the fun elements of doing these daily readings and weekly blogs. I’ve had a number of people feedback to me that they spotted things for the first time, and today I count myself among them.
We’ll get to what it is I noticed in a minute, but having looked at an overview of Mark last week, this week I wanted to get into some of the story. Mark moves fast and there’s a huge amount we could look at from this first week of readings, but I’m going to look at Mark 1 and the stories of the temptation and baptism of Jesus.
These two events take up just five verses.
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.
– Mark 1:9-13 (NRSV)
I couldn’t believe that! In my head, there is a longer baptism narrative and a longer temptation narrative. This calls for a good bit of gospel comparison! What do they each say, where do they differ and, in this instance, what do the differences reveal about the Gospel of Mark?
Mark is matter of fact. The only extra bit of detail other than Jesus was baptised and he was tempted was that, at his baptism, the spirit descended on him like a dove.
John (1:19-34) doesn’t actually describe the baptism of Jesus, though it does recount that John (the Baptiser) saw the spirit descend on Jesus, in the form of a dove. It also doesn’t have a temptation narrative at all. What this account does emphasise, however, is Jesus as the Lamb of God.
Luke mixes things up a little bit. The baptism narrative is short, fairly non-descriptive, but does feature the spirit in a ‘bodily form’ like a dove (3:22) and the voice from heaven, as in Mark. Neither gospel appears to directly says ‘God spoke’ but in the Jewish tradition, voices from heaven were understood as divine.
Luke’s temptation narrative is longer than Mark, with more detail and the three stages (bread to stone, worship for power and throw yourself off).
Matthew is different once more. It’s temptation narrative is ordered differently to Luke, but has the same component parts.
The baptism account in Matthew (3:13-17) feels like Mark’s account with an extra bit in the middle, where John is reluctant but Jesus tells John it has to happen in order to ‘fulfill all righteousness’. Both fulfilment and righteousness are central themes in Matthew’s gospel, so this small addition brings both to our attention early on.
So there are differences and different points of emphasis. What can we learn about Mark other than that it is much more brief?
Well, what I spotted for the first time this week is definitely fun, but possibly significant.
While Matthew and Luke describe the heavens ‘opening’, Mark describes them as being ‘torn apart’.
Now, with our gospel hats on, isn’t there something else that is torn apart?
In Mark 15:37-39, during the crucifixion narrative, we read;
Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion who stood facing him saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
What a fascinating use of bookends in the Markan account!
Right at the beginning and right at the end, there is this language of something tearing and a recognition of Jesus as the Son of God. This is a very helpful literary device which signifies to us, the reader, that Jesus as the Son of God is at the centre of Mark’s Gospel.
We then also have the literal centre of the gospel account, Mark 8, in which a revelation is made about Jesus as the Messiah.
Something that the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) do have in common is the timing of forty days in the wilderness.
We spoke about symbolic numbers in relation to Daniel recently, as well as with Joshua, and forty is another one of those.
Mark describes Jesus spending forty days in the wilderness, being ‘tested’, which mirrors the forty years Israel spent in the wilderness being tested. It also connects with the forty days spent by Elijah at Horeb, the forty days spent by Moses on Mount Sinai or even the forty days and night of the flood in the days of Noah.
It is because of these older stories that Jesus’ forty days bring about the idea of testing, trial, purification, preparation and growth.
Wilderness itself also plays a role as a notable theme in Mark’s gospel. John is introduced as appearing in the wilderness and connecting with Isaiah 40, the transitional chapter in Isaiah, which then connects it to themes of returning from exile and God’s presence returning.
So, even in those five verses, we get:
- Tearing of the heavens, the first bookend of Mark
- Jesus proclaimed as the Son of God
- Jesus connected with Israel, and others, through 40 days of trial
- A highlighting of the wilderness as a setting
Not bad for five verses, ‘Mark’, not bad…