Calling His Disciples (part 9)

In Genesis twelve, following the directive to “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you” (12:1b), from which one could easily infer a being with (I will show you) and a sending out (go out from), Abraham’s God continues His promise, saying “Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing” (12:2).  This could very well serve to round out what Mark intends to convey with his talk of the disciples being with Jesus so as to be sent by Jesus. 

It is not difficult in the least to here create one of those points of contact between the Gospel narrative and the Abrahamic covenant.  The disciples being with Jesus is functionally equivalent to the Creator God’s promise to make Abraham into a great nation, along with blessing him  and making his name great, which clearly allows for the assertion that the sending of the disciples to preach and to have authority to cast out demons is an exemplification of divine blessing. 

Turning again to Matthew with that exemplification of divine blessing, being with, and sending in mind, the same motif can be found to be at work, as the tenth chapter commences with a record that “Jesus called His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits so they could cast them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness” (10:1).  After an interlude in which Matthew takes the time to name the disciples as part of his narrative that will be primarily communicated orally, the reader can pick up at the fifth verse and find that “Jesus sent out these twelve” (10:5a). 

Clearly, conceptions concerning the Abrahamic covenant are strongly at play, with this mindset having been created by speaking about the leaving of a father (in the fourth chapter), along with the general Abrahamic mindset held by the people as part of their self-definition and self-understanding.  After restricting His disciples, at this point, to the land of Israel alone, Jesus further instructs them to preach that “The kingdom of heaven is near!” (10:7b)  This actually makes sense of the temporary limitation of the message to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6b), as this message of the kingdom of heaven being near would not be immediately comprehensible to Gentiles (they would first need to be steeped in the covenant history of Israel).  In a sense then, this is yet another part of the “being with Him” that can be seen in Mark. 

Jesus goes on to describe the activities that would exemplify divine blessings to be carried out in their sending, by saying “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.  Freely you received, freely give” (10:8).  Then, a little bit later, and just in case one may be doubting that the story of Abraham is in mind in these Gospel presentations and in the minds of the audiences, Jesus is reported to have explicitly called attention to the story of Abraham and Lot, doing so in relation to His mention of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

He effectively describes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, before making the connection explicit at the very end, by adding “Whenever you enter a town or village, find out who is worthy there and stay with them until you leave.  As you enter the house, give it greetings.  And if the house is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.  And if anyone will not welcome you or listen to your message, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that house or town.  I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town” (10:11-14).  

Presentations Of Jesus (part 2 of 2)

Take, for instance, a story that makes its way into all four Gospel portraits of Jesus, which is the feeding of the five thousand.  All four of the Gospel accounts present the feeding in much the same form.  However, after the story of the feeding, Luke diverges completely from the story-line on offer in Matthew, Mark, and John.  John maintains the same story-line following the feeding, though it differs in a significant detail as it relates to the purposes of this study. 

In each case, it should be acknowledged that the author uses the story of the feeding, along with what follows, within the goals that they have set for the overall presentation of Jesus that they intend to set before the respective audiences for which they are composing their written account (which will be based on a hugely reliable oral tradition and likely other ironically and potentially less reliable written records---an oral tradition was subject to correction and maintenance by the community, whereas a written record could be used to propagate and disseminate information that stood outside of the oral tradition, with no means for immediate correction). 

As Mark’s narrative is generally considered to be the oldest, being foundational for both Matthew and Luke, it is worthwhile to take a look at what is to be found there.  Operating within a full realization that there is a purpose related to the structuring of the narrative, the sixth chapter of Mark records that Jesus feeds a multitude through the multiplication of bread and fish, doing so by the Sea of Galilee.  Then, drawing the feeding together with what comes after, and doing so for the purpose of the author’s narrative, Mark goes on to report that “Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He dispersed the crowd” (6:45). 

Having retired to the mountain to pray after sending off His disciples, it is said that from His vantage point Jesus could observe His disciples on the water.  “He saw them straining at the oars, because the wind was against them” (6:48a).  Mark then reports that Jesus came to His disciples, “walking on the sea” (6:48c), which caused great fear amongst those men.  Ultimately, “He went up with them into the boat, and the wind ceased” (6:51a).  Matthew reports nearly the same story, but adds Peter’s attempt to walk on the sea, which is not to be found in Mark.  That’s not to say that somehow one of the authors got it wrong, but that the authors had different purposes for their tellings of the Jesus story. 

Luke moves in a different direction, omitting the second part of the story that is found in the other Gospels, not because he did not believe it, but because it did not fit with his overall movement and aims.  John’s is fundamentally the same, reporting a rough sea and a strong wind (6:18), though there is no report of the ceasing of the wind once Jesus gets into the boat.  Instead, John reports that “immediately the boat came to the land where they had been heading” (6:21b).  Clearly however, John’s report, like that of Matthew and Mark, is meant to demonstrate the power of the Creator God at work in Jesus, which is to be expected if He is indeed the Messiah of Israel. 

So what’s the point?  It is at this point that one returns to the idea that the Scriptures were undoubtedly searched by both Jesus and those that would write the Gospel accounts, so as to make sense of the mission and of the reports of that mission.  Such thoughts, together with the stories of the feeding of the multitude, the walking on water, and the calming of the wind, lead to the Psalms.  In the seventy eighth Psalm, keeping in mind the purposely structured Gospel narrative of feeding and then the control of nature and the desire to show forth their understanding of Jesus as the manifestation of the Creator God in the flesh, while also acknowledging that this was a reflection on the exodus and wilderness experience of Israel, marked similarities with the Gospel accounts of these occurrences are to be found in the reading: “He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them the grain of heaven.  Man ate the food of the mighty ones.  He sent them more than enough to eat.  He brought the east wind through the sky, and by His strength led forth the south wind” (78:24-26).