February 26, 2023 – First Sunday in Lent
Mark 4.35-41, 8.27-30, 9.9-10
Oh, the Humanity!
(The Gospel of Mark)
First Sunday in Lent
For the season of Lent, we’re going to be looking at the way the four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – tell the story of Jesus. Each of them tells the story a little differently: Matthew, Mark and Luke tell similar stories, and, as we will see repeatedly, John’s is another story altogether. But that’s OK, because, because it’s human: I’m sure each of us has a different experience of Jesus, a different understanding of Jesus, a different relationship with Jesus. For some of us, Jesus is the good shepherd, keeping close watch over us. For some, he is the scourge of the temple, overturning the tables of all our nice little religious rites and practices. For some, he is the one we pray to, or someone we aspire to be like. For some he is God incarnate, for others he is a simple human being, trying like the rest of us to get it right.. And all of this is true. All of this is true. The way you relate to Jesus is probably different from the way your neighbor relates to Jesus, but at the end of the day, even though we may understand him differently, our shared experiences of him create a rich tapestry that is much closer to who he was, and is, than any one vision or interpretation.
Today we’re going to consider Mark’s story about Jesus. Mark’s was the first of the gospels to be composed, circulated first by word of mouth, then eventually written down. His gospel dates around 65 to 70 CE, right around the time of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. Matthew and Luke, who used Mark as a source, come next; both were composed around 70 to 80 years after Jesus’ birth; and then John is last, and dates between the years 100 and 110. Each successive gospel builds on the ones before it.
And one final word of introduction. At the end of the day, we don’t really know who wrote them. We know that Mark was a close associate of Peter, that Matthew and John were disciples, and that Luke was a gentile who became a follower of Jesus. The names of the gospels were given long after they were written, and there is no place in any gospel where the writer says, “Hey there, I’m Mark,” or, “This is your faithful correspondent Luke writing from Jerusalem.” The gospels were simply attributed to these leaders of the church. That said, there are places where the writer breaks the fourth wall, peeks out from behind the curtain and gives the reader a little wink.
So I’m going to toss you a softball question: what are the two most significant Holy Days in the church year? Christmas and Easter! The story Jesus’ life begins with his birth and ends with his resurrection, right? Well… not if you ask Mark. Mark does not tell the nativity story – no manger, no shepherds no magi. And, much to the consternation of the early church, Mark does not narrate any resurrection appearances by Jesus. Mark begins his gospel at Jesus’ baptism. That is, Jesus is already an adult at the beginning of the story: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ… John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (And here’s a bit of trivia: Mark is the only writer to use the word gospel.) But it is the end of his story that is really jarring. Mark tells us about the women who discovered the empty tomb on the third day after the crucifixion. They encounter a young man dressed in a white robe, who tells them Jesus has been raised, and they are to go and tell the disciples. And then here is how Mark ends his story: “So the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” THE END.
They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Wait a minute; that’s it? That’s all there is? It’s not like Mark knew that Matthew, Luke and John would one day come along and finish his story for him with tales of Jesus appearing to the women and the disciples, breaking bread with them, showing his wounds to doubting Thomas in the upper room, there is none of that. Just, They fled from the tomb… and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. My friends, the leaders of the early church were appalled. The entire trajectory of Jesus’ life and ministry both pointed toward and centered on his resurrection. Where is it? In the days that Mark’s was the only gospel in town, this ending was considered woefully inadequate. And so what did the church do with this? Let’s open our pew Bibles to page 931, which has the end of Mark’s gospel. What did the church do with this most unsatisfying ending of the story of Jesus’ life? They wrote a new ending! No, that’s not quite right – they wrote two new endings! The gospel of Mark ends with verse 8, and I can tell you that conclusively. Nonetheless, our Bibles contain alternative endings invented by the early church. First, you see the shorter ending, which has the women going to tell Peter what they had seen at the tomb, and Jesus appearing to them bringing the good news of eternal salvation in language that Mark never used in all his gospel. But even this wasn’t good enough for some of the ancient church fathers, so we also have a longer ending of Mark, which has Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalen, then to two of the disciples, then to all of the disciples, and then, just for good measure, it tells the story of his ascension into heaven as well. You know, if you’re going to write your own ending to the story, may as well make it a good one! And, piggybacking on a sermon of a month or two ago, take a look at all those qualifying footnotes at the bottom of pages 931 and 932! You can tell something is going sideways when you have to have so much explanation in the margins.
But the point is, Mark ended his story the way he did for a reason, and it didn’t matter whether later readers liked it or not. Simply put, Mark wants us to make up our own minds about what the empty tomb means. Does it mean that Jesus got up and walked out? Does it mean he ascended bodily into heaven? Did it mean he never really died? We’re all grown-ups here, Mark is saying. I gave you the story; you figure out the ending.
There’s another reason at work here, and this is at the heart of Mark’s gospel. Jesus is at his most human in Mark’s story. Mark avoided the fantastic and supernatural and stuck to the mundane. It is a theme that threads all the way through the story. I asked Jennifer to read the story about the boat in the storm because it highlights the common humanity of both Jesus and the disciples. What are they doing in this passage? The disciples are frantic: “Teacher, do you not care if we are perishing?” And for his part, after calming the storm, Jesus chides the disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” In other words, they were arguing: “Get up Jesus, the boat is sinking! How can you take a nap when we’re all going to die! Don’t just lie there, do something!” And Jesus disciplines them, “Where is your faith? Haven’t you learned anything from what I’ve been telling you?” It is a deeply human moment, motivated by fear, by anger, by resentment, and finally, by resolution and understanding: “Even the wind and the sea obey him!”
Jesus, as Mark paints him, is decidedly more human than divine. Yes, he performs miracles, although it is worth noting that most of them are miracles of healing, acts which make lives whole again and build community. But it is more about the teaching, the example, the encouragement, and the humanity. Mark’s Jesus is the same as the other writers, the human expression of God on earth, but Mark goes more with the human part than the God part. The two passages I read earlier are telling. Both come about halfway through the story. Jesus and a couple disciples were on the road and he asked them what people were saying about him. “Who do people say that I am?” And they gave him different answers. Some people thought he was John the Baptist, who had been beheaded by Herod, come back to life. Others thought he might be the ancient prophet Elijah. Still others thought he might be a prophet. “But who do you say that I am?” he asked them. And Peter – and remember, as his associate, Mark was partial to Peter – Peter replied, “You are the Messiah,” or the Christ. And Jesus sternly ordered them not to tell anyone. Later on, in fact after the transfiguration we read about last week, as they were coming down from the mountaintop, again he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone that they had just seen Jesus, Moses and Elijah up there. To tag off from Ash Wednesday’s sermon, he ordered them to keep this whole messiah business a secret until after the resurrection.
Who do you say that I am? I think if there were one line in the entire story that captures Mark’s intention as he narrates Jesus life, this is it. He is not simply asking the disciples what they think. Mark places this question at the very center of his story because he wants them, and us, to answer the question. Who do you say that I am? Who is Jesus to you? And by the way, you aren’t allowed to talk in terms of heavenly glory or resurrection or building the church, because Mark leaves them out of his story. So absent the bells and whistles, without the heavenly choirs of the Christmas and Easter stories, without Thomas poking his fingers in the holes in Jesus’ resurrected body in order to prove once and for all that this Jesus who was dead is alive again, with little if any of the spectacular scenes of glory we have come to associate with the Son of God and the splendor of the incarnation, imagine it is just you and Jesus strolling along a dusty road on your way to the next village, or down the hill to The Villager, and he turns to you and asks, Who do you say that I am, what is your answer? This is what Mark wants us to do: he wants us to decide for ourselves just who this son of the carpenter is and what he is about. For Mark, to tell a story about a virgin birth, or a Christ resurrected in glory, would give too much weight to the supernatural and the spectacular. Mark wants us to meet Jesus where we live. This is a Jesus who understands what it means to be human. This is a Jesus who can get angry and frustrated in one moment, and then caring and compassionate in the next. It is a Jesus who can laugh with us and cry with us, who can feel our difficulties and can share our joys. Mark is the newspaper reporter who knows how to give us “just the facts,” and then invites us draw our own conclusions. He isn’t trying to sell us something, or someone, he is introducing us to someone who knows us as well as we know ourselves, perhaps a bit better, but only because he is one of us.
Yesterday’s devotion in the UCC Lent Devotionals was written by Suzanne Jubenville – a new contributor in the devotional writing group – and she makes a passing reference to Paul’s letter to the Philippians that I think captures Mark’s intent. Paul wrote, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who, thought he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death.” It is this humble, human Jesus, that Mark wants us to know.
Who do you say that I am?