Mark, A Meal, A Leper & The Kingdom Of God (part 3)

As Mark is written within the confines of the early church that found itself immersed within much knowledge of the historical Jesus, along with resounding and powerful traditions about Him that would clearly have weighed heavily upon them in the area of practice, it is right to call attention to the marked contrast between what can be observed here in Mark and what one finds presented in a situation in the Gospel of John (which is also written during a time and within a community steeped in first-hand knowledge of Jesus). 

In John, after Jesus’ arrest and initial questioning by Annas and Caiaphas, “they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the Roman governor’s residence” (John 18:28a).  The author then reports that “They did not go into the governor’s residence” (18:28c).  Why did they not go in?  It was “so they would not be ceremonially defiled, but could eat the Passover meal” (18:28d).  A stark contrast indeed.  In Mark, Jesus dines with a leper, sitting on his furniture and sharing a table with him in complete disregard of established custom, clearly communicating truths about the kingdom of the Creator God and about the nature of His own rule of that kingdom through what He was knowingly and consciously doing. 

When these two accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry include such stories, both are making points that are not easily dismissed.  One account represents separation and exclusion, whereas the other highlights inclusion --- pointing to a highly necessary aspect of ecclesiology.  John’s account of a concern to not become ritually impure before the commencement of Passover is useful because it points up the high level of seriousness with which such things were taken at the time.  For the sake of rabbinic credibility, and especially that of a rabbi that carried and stoked messianic expectations, issues of impurity would have been a concern. 

With no real record of time, and no textual sense of time between His certain contracting of ceremonial impurity while at this house and the celebration of Passover with His disciples, it would appear to His fellow members of the house of Israel that Jesus has, in fact, presided over a Passover (His last supper) celebration while he found Himself in a state of impurity.  With what one must presume is a well-founded grasp of this information, Mark demonstrates a complete lack of concern in this area, and instead presents this picture of Jesus that is stocked with a great deal of implications for those, both inside and outside of ethnic and national Israel, who call or will come to call Him Lord. 

There are other quite significant points to be made.  One of those points has to do with the fact that Jesus has chosen to dine in this particular house.  Calling upon the Gospel of John for assistance, one is reminded that Bethany is the place of Lazarus’ residence.  In chapter twelve of John, it appears that the reader is presented with a story (unless there was another story about Jesus being anointed with costly oil, the action being criticized as wasteful, and Jesus criticizing the criticizers and commending the “waste”) that is based upon the same meal as that which is reported in the fourteenth chapter of Mark. 

Mark, A Meal, A Leper & The Kingdom of God (part 2)

In the same chapter, when Jesus stands before the Sanhedrin, Mark writes that “Some stood up and gave this false testimony against Him: ‘We heard Him say, ‘I will destroy this Temple made with hands and in three days build another not made with hands.’” (Mark 14:57-58)  The author punctuates this with “Yet even on this point their testimony did not agree” (14:59), but He is clearly cognizant of and counting on an awareness of what must have been the well-known Jesus tradition recounted in the Gospel of John (not relying on John, as Mark came first, but what would have been the oral and possibly written Jesus tradition), in which Jesus says, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again” (2:19).  Shortly thereafter, John helpfully provides the gloss on Jesus’ words by informing the reader that “Jesus was speaking about the Temple of His body” (2:21). 

When all of this is taken together, the reader sees a widow giving all that she has (which is an almost worthless amount) to a Temple that is going to fall, which is ultimately a wasteful action, whereas the woman with the alabaster box gives something of immense value in recognition of the One that is the eternal Temple, causing the onlookers to refer to this as a wasteful action.  Jesus makes it clear that it is the former (the widow’s gift) that was wasteful (and tragic), whereas the latter was “a good service” (14:6b), and therefore not wasteful. 

Because the stories in the Gospels demand to be heard within Jesus’ pronouncement that the kingdom of the Creator God is at hand, one must ascertain what this has to do with Jesus’ kingdom understanding.  It is by this that Jesus addresses the prevalent and apparently incorrect understanding that the kingdom of His God would be centered in Jerusalem, with all nations coming to its Temple to offer worship to Israel’s God.  Jesus makes it quite clear that even though they were correct in believing that all nations would in fact come to worship the Creator God by means of the Temple, that Temple by which this God would be worshiped, in recognition of His kingdom, would be Himself (Jesus).     

To go along with the interesting theological Temple dynamic that has been inserted into the narrative here in chapters twelve and fourteen of Mark’s Gospel, the place of the meal in which Jesus is engaged and at which He is anointed, as He says, “for burial” (14:8), is the house of “Simon the leper” (14:3).  Yes, Jesus is dining at the home of a leper, and therefore dining at the home of one whose entire existence is one of impurity in relation to Jewish law and custom.  Simon would definitely have found himself at the lower end of the honor and shame social spectrum, if not outside of it altogether as one unable to even compete for honor. 

As a leper, Simon would stand almost completely outside the social order, as he would translate ritual impurity to those who came into contact with him.  In the eyes of those that were in a position to observe this meal, Jesus Himself would have fallen into ritual impurity, and amazingly, within Mark’s narrative, Jesus can be seen doing this immediately before Passover.  Though He is looked upon as a respected rabbi within Israel at this point in time, Jesus apparently finds Himself unconcerned with the perceptions. 

Immediately (part 4 of 4)

As Mark’s Gospel narrative has Jesus working His way towards His death and Resurrection, He makes His way to Jerusalem.  Preceding what has become known as His “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem, “Jesus sent two of His disciples and said to them, ‘Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.  Untie it and bring it’.” (Mark 11:1b-2)  This probably elicited a strange look from those receiving this directive, so Jesus quickly follows up and says, “If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will bring it back here immediately’.” (11:3)  Here, Jesus’ commands are filled with the language of immediacy.  This cannot have gone un-noticed by His disciples.  Most certainly, it should not go un-noticed by us. 

We don’t find the word used again until we reach the fourteenth chapter, and we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, having finished His sorrowful prayer.  Jesus is speaking to sleepy disciples “And immediately, while He was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” (14:43).  Judas had given this group a signal, informing them that the One that he would greet with a kiss was the man that was to be arrested.  “And when he came, he went up to Him at once (euthus=immediately) and said, ‘Rabbi!’  And he kissed Him” (14:45).  Once again, even in the area of the activities in and of the darkness, Mark earnestly drives the story-line forward, always pressing, always wanting his readers to experience the drama of the events that are unfolding.  The author wants us to experience the intensity, the significance, and the un-paralleled importance of what is at hand, not only as he outlines the entirety of Jesus’ ministry, but especially now, as he is leading us to its climactic conclusion. 

With his language of “immediately,” Mark has created an aura of expectancy.  Just imagine yourself in the first century, and that you are reading this story for the first time.  Remember, the story has not been divided into chapters and verses, but is one, continuous narrative, and it is likely being told (or dramatically performed) in a single sitting.  There is no “New Testament.”  There are no Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John.  Perhaps you have heard of this man, Jesus, but you do not know the details of His life.  As you read this story, you are not going to read it in bits and pieces.  If you are listening to the story, it is not going to be left as a cliff-hanger.  Most likely, you are going to keep going until you reach the end.  The language that is used makes doing anything else virtually impossible.  There are no interludes, no grand elaborations, and no moments of rest.  With Mark, the story of Jesus is a race to the finish, and the sooner, the more immediately that the reader finds Jesus being captured, unjustly crucified, buried, and raised from the dead, the sooner the reader can understand that this Jesus is Lord.

Returning to the text, we come to the end of the fourteenth chapter and the infamous incident of Peter’s denial of his association with this Man that will soon be on the path to crucifixion as a false, blasphemous Messiah and insurrectionist against Rome.  Jesus had informed Peter, contrary to his insistence against such a thing, that he would deny Him three times before the rooster crowed.  Peter, for a third time, swears “I do not know this man of whom you speak” (14:71b), “And immediately the rooster crowed” (14:72a).  For those that have joined up with His covenant movement, Jesus wastes no time in bringing His words to remembrance.  Such is the power of our Lord.    

As we turn to the final usage of the Greek word “euthus”, we do so while bearing in mind that the underlying reason for the urgency being communicated to the reader by the extensive use of “immediately,” is the content and message of Jesus’ first recorded words in Mark’s Gospel.  Those words were “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel” (1:15).  The Gospel, the “evangelion,” or the “good news” in those days, were messages concerning Caesar, concerning the King.  That was well understood.  Jesus first words, as presented by Mark, were declarative of the kingdom of God and the need to believe in God’s King.  Why make mention of that here and now?  Because in the first verse of the fifteenth chapter of Mark we read “as soon as it was morning…they bound Jesus and led Him away and delivered Him over to Pilate” (15:1).  We could also read that as “And immediately when it was morning…” 

Here, the One about Whom the Gospel was to be believed---with all immediacy and urgency as is well-communicated by Mark---was taken before the representative of the man then considered to be the ruler of the world, the provider of salvation, and the one who brought peace.  There, Jesus would be asked “Are You the King of the Jews?” (15:2a).  With full understanding of what that implied, as Israel’s Messiah King, the One Who would rule over God’s covenant people, and by extension, because of God’s promises to His people and His faithfulness to His promises, would be the ruler of all creation and the true source of absolute salvation and peace (as opposed to what was then said about Caesar), Jesus replied “You have said so” (15:2b), which was a way of saying “Yes, indeed.”  “Pilate was amazed” (15:5b) at this reply, and rightly so, but almost immediately, Pilate sentences Jesus to be crucified.  That was how Pilate immediately responded to Jesus’ Gospel.  What is our response?