To You Has Been Given the Secret of the Kingdom of God (4:11)

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Outline of Mark’s Story

To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God (4:11)

I. Title and Prologue

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus (the) Christ, the Son of God 1:1-13

The Baptist (who is forerunner of Jesus in life & death in Mk)

The Baptism (Jesus is anointed as Son of GodServant – Ps 2:7; Is 42:1)

The Temptation (in which Jesus ties up the strong man) 3:27

II. Jesus the Christ

a) His proclamation & his rejection by Pharisees & Herodians 1:14-3:6

• “The time is fulfilled & the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent &

believe in the gospel.” 1:15

• Jesus calls four disciples. 1:16-20
• He shows his authority in healing & exorcism. 1:21-45
• He shows his authority in word & controversy. 2:1-3:6
• Response: Pharisees & Herodians plot to destroy him. 3:6

b) His healing & exorcising mission to the whole of the Holy Land, & his

rejection by his family & his home town. 3:7-6:6

• He heals, exorcises, orders them not to make him known. 3:7-12
• He calls the 12, to be with him. 3:13-17
• Neither family nor Jerusalem scribes accept him. 3:20-35
• He shows his wisdom to the crowds in parables. 4:1-34
• He shows his mighty power over: forces of nature 4:35-41

forces of hell 5:1-20

forces of disease & death 5:21-43

• Response: his home town prevents him from doing any miracle there. 6:1-6

c) His mission of teaching & feeding concludes with the blind eyes, deaf ears,

hardened hearts of own disciples (the “bread section”) 6:6b-8:21

• He teaches around the villages 6:6b
• He sends out disciples to heal & exorcise as he had done 6:7-13
• The fate of the Baptist (anticipates Jesus’own fate) 6:14-29
• Rest of disciples leads to the good shepherd feeding 5000 6:30-44
• He walks on the sea; heals in country villages & cities 6:45-56
• The lip-service of the Pharisees 7:1-23
• The faith of a Greek woman 7:24-30
• The healing of eyes & lips of a Gentile man 7:31-37
• He feeds 4000 Gentiles & refuses a sign to the Pharisees 8:1-13
• Response: Jesus severely laments the attitude of his own disciples:

“Do you not yet understand?” 8:14-21

d) Conclusion: 8:22-30

• Healing of the blind man of Bethsaida - saw men like trees walking 8:22-26

(A symbolic story showing how it would be as difficult for Jesus to cure

the blindness of his own disciples as it was to cure this blind man).

• Peter confesses Jesus to be the Christ 8:27-30

III. The Way to Jerusalem

a) Jesus predicts his suffering, death & resurrection for the first time 8:31

• Peter misunderstands: is called Satan 8:32-33
• Solemn teaching for all 8:34-9:1
• The Transfiguration reinforces the message of the cross 9:2-13
• The disciples fail in their mission of casting out spirits 9:14-29

b) Jesus makes his second prediction of passion 9:31

• All disciples misunderstand 9:32-34
• Solemn teaching about true greatness for all 9:34-37
• Further teachings on tolerance, scandal, divorce, children, riches,

rewards 9:38-10:31

c) Jesus makes his third prediction of passion 10:32-34

• James & John misunderstand & the rest share in it 10:35-41
• Solemn teaching for all: Jesus explains purpose of his mission,

“not to be served but to serve” 10:42-44

d) Conclusion: healing of the blind Bartimaeus 10:45-52

• Bartimaeus is the perfect disciple. He shows his need, perseveres in

hisprayer, is able to follow Jesus on the way.

IV. The Ministry in Jerusalem

a) Day One: The entry. 11:1-11

b) Day Two: The fig tree & the temple 11:12-19

c) Day Three:Conflicts with temple authorities & Jewish parties 11:20-12:40

The widow & her coins 12:41-44

Jesus’ farewell, apocalyptic discourse 13:1-37

V. The Passion

a) Preparation:The plot of the priests & scribes 14:1-2

The woman of Bethany 14:3-9

Judas goes to the priests 14:10-11

Preparation for the Passover 14:12-16

The supper: “my blood of the covenant which will be

poured out for many” 14:17-25 The Mount of Olives & Gethsemane 14:26-42

b) The Passion itself: The arrest 14:43-52

The trials 14:53-15:20

The execution & confession of the Gentile centurion;

“this man wasthe son of God” 15:21-41

The burial 15:42-47

The women at the empty tomb 16:1-8

c) Additional endings to the Gospel by other hands 16:9-20

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

This is a short introduction to what we know with some certainty about the author of Mark’s Gospel & its major theological themes. These notes are based on the introductory pages of Daniel J. Harrington SJ, Meeting St. Mark Today: Understanding the Man, His Mission and His Message, Loyola Press, Chicago, 2011.

Mark’s Gospel is generally regarded as the earliest Gospel. It gives a stark & challenging portrait of Jesus’ public ministry leading to a dramatic account of his passion & death. It has often been described as a passion narrative with a long introduction. Mark presents Jesus as a wise teacher & a powerful & compassionate healer. But he also insists that Jesus can only be properly understood when we confront the mystery of the cross & Jesus’ identity as a suffering Messiah. As a result Mark is sometimes called the Gospel of Suffering.

In Year B (2012) in the Catholic Church’s lectionary of Scripture readings for Mass, almost every Sunday the Gospel is from Mark. Over the centuries & especially in the pre-Vatican II lectionary, Mark’s Gospel was badly neglected. For much of Christian history (mainly due to the influence of St. Augustine), Mark was seen as a poor imitation of Matthew & Luke. But in the 19th cent., biblical scholars began to see that in fact Matthew & Luke were revised & expanded versions of Mark & that Mark’s Gospel had been written earlier than the other two. In the 20th cent., biblical scholars & literary critics came to appreciate better the artistry of Mark’s Gospel & the literary skill of the evangelist.

The Evangelist & His Gospel

What we call Mark’s Gospel is technically, like the other Gospels, an anonymous writing. The Evangelist never identifies himself by name or claims to have been an eyewitness to the events he describes. The traditional title “According to Mark” does not seem to be part of the original text but a later addition in keeping with the early church’s custom of attributing this Gospel to “Mark.”

Who was Mark? In the early Christian tradition someone named Mark has close ties to both Paul & Peter. Paul’s letters mention a person named Mark 3x (a common name in the Greco-Roman world). There is a reference to Mark in the list of Paul’s co-workers in Philemon 24. Colossians 4:10 refers to “Mark the cousin of Barnabas.” In 2 Tim 4:11 Paul urges Timothy to “get Mark & bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry.”

In the Acts of the Apostles there are three more mentions of someone named Mark. According to Acts 12:12, the “house of Mary, the mother of John whose other namewas Mark” was a centre for the early Christian community in Jerusalem. Acts 12:25 says “John, whose other name was Mark” returned to Jerusalem with Paul & Barnabas after completing their mission in Antioch. Acts 15:37-39 describes a disagreement between Paul & Barnabas over “John called Mark.” Paul refused to take John Mark along on their next apostolic mission because he “had deserted them inPamphylia & had not accompanied them in the work” (15:38). As a result Barnabas & Mark went to Cyprus, & Paul & Silas went through Syria & Cilicia.

In 1 Pt 5:13 there is another reference to someone named Mark: “Your sister church in Babylon…sends you greetings; & so does my son Mark.” Bible scholars generally acknowledge that here (& in Revelation), “Babylon” is a code name for Rome. Thus, 1 Pt 5:13 links Mark with Peter & Rome. The earliest church evidence regarding the authorship of this Gospel comes from “the Elder” as quoted by Papias (early 2nd cent.) as quoted by Eusebius (in his Ecclesiastical History 3.39.15): “Mark, having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatever he remembered of what was said or done by the lord, but not in order.” While this raises many questions, it does link Mark & his Gospel to Peter & Rome. This tradition is repeated by many other writers of the early church.

Christians in Rome

The oldest & best tradition relates Mark’s Gospel to the Roman Christian community that suffered persecution following Emperor Nero’s efforts to blame the Christians for the great fire of 64 AD. The material in Mark’s Gospel fits well with the tradition presented by the Roman historian Tacitus in Annales 15:44. Tacitus describes the procedure used to arrest the Christians: “First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on evidence furnished by them a huge multitude was convicted not so much on the count of arson as hatred of the human race.” Tacitus goes on to recount the horrible punishments inflicted on them: “They were covered with wild beasts’ skins & torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, & when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night.”

The original audience for Mark’s Gospel was the Roman Christian community made up of both Jewish & Gentile Christians. By this time (c. 70 AD), probably most of the Christians in Rome were Gentiles. So, the Evangelist feels he has to explain certain Jewish customs & practices, cf. 7:3-4 about washing cups & dishes as well as hands. The Evangelist himself seems to have been a Jew. Though he makes some mistakes about Scripture texts & concludes that Jesus declared all foods clean in Mk 7:19 (a point Matthew “corrected” by omitting it in Mt 15), he knows a good deal about Judaism & is committed to presenting Jesus within the context of 1st cent. Palestinian Judaism. The traditions that relate Mark to Peter & to Paul also seem to assume that Mark was a Jew. To sum up, Mark is a Gospel written by a Jewish Christian author about Jesus the Jew, for a mixed Jewish & Gentile Christian audience in Rome c.70 AD.

There is a recent trend among some biblical scholars to place the composition of Mark’s Gospel in the eastern part of the Mediterranean world (in Syria or Galilee), & to relate it to events linked with the Jewish Revolt in Palestine & the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. In either case (Rome or Syria-Palestine), Mark’s Gospel seems to have circulated rather quickly around the Mediterranean world, & it was revised & expanded independently by Matthew & Luke 10-15 years later. Both writers included far more teaching material than Mark did, from sources not available to Mark.

Given this history, it seems Mark’s Gospel is the oldest complete Gospel & that in a real sense Mark invented the literary genre we call Gospel – i.e. a connected narrative about Jesus of Nazareth that describes his activities & his teachings in Galilee & Judea, as well as his passion, death & resurrection in Jerusalem c.30 AD. Mark had access to various written & oral traditions about Jesus (controversies, parables, sayings, miracle stories etc.) that had circulated in early Christian communities for about 40 years. Thus, Mark was very much a transmitter & arranger of traditional materials.

Mark was also an interpreter of traditions & an author in his own right. Mark put his distinctive stylistic stamp on the material. E.g. he liked the word immediately, used double time expressions, included vivid details, & changed scenes rapidly. He often used the literary technique in which he begins one story, interrupts it with another, & returns to the first story. The effect is that the two narratives interpret one another. This device, known to scholars as intercalation, is sometimes called Mark’s “sandwich” technique.

In presenting his story of Jesus, Mark followed a geographical outline. In the first half of the Gospel he describes Jesus’ activities & teachings in Galilee & the areas surrounding it. Next there is a journey from northern Galilee to Jerusalem. Then Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, exercises a brief teaching ministry, & there is arrested, executed & is raised from the dead. The result is what looks like a biography of Jesus, at least with regard to his public ministry & his passion & death.

Mark wrote his Gospel in order to inform & encourage followers of Jesus. After some 40 years of missionary activity, the time was ripe for someone to bring together the various traditions about Jesus & put them in the context of Jesus’ public ministry. Not only that, the Christians Mark originally wrote for were undergoing persecution, or at least the threat of persecution. They needed Jesus’ good example of fidelity to bolster their spirits & help them stay faithful to their beliefs.

Also, Mark sought to shed light on some difficult questions that all early Christians had to face. How could Jesus be the Son of God if he had died a criminal’s death, crucified on the Roman instrument of execution: the cross? If he really was the Messiah of Jewish expectations, why did he not claim it openly & do what the Messiah was expected to do? What was the relationship between Jesus’ teachings & Jewish speculations about the end of the world? What was the relationship between Jesus’ followers & members of other Jewish religious movements?

Mark’s Gospel presents Jesus as fulfilling the hopes of God’s people expressed in the OT & carrying on his ministry in the land of Israel c.30 AD. Mark tells Jesus’ story in terms of names & titles intelligible only within Judaism, in the framework of Jewish beliefs about the end-times, & in conflict with other Jewish movements & the temple establishment but in sympathy with certain other Jews.

Mark’s Use of the Old Testament

At many key points in his story of Jesus, Mark appeals to OT texts & seems to assume his readers know the texts & regard them as authoritative. That Mark respected the Jewish Scriptures is clear from Mk 1:2-3, where he uses a quotation from “the prophet Isaiah” to explain the relationship between John the Baptist (“the voice”) & Jesus (“the Lord”). His failure to note that the first part of this quotation came not from Isaiah but from Malachi 3:1 suggests that here Mark may have had access to a collection of biblical proof texts, or testimonia, or at least that he was not as conversant with the OT as Matthew was. Matthew used only the Isaiah part in Mt 3:3 & shifted the Ex 23:20/Mal 3:1 part to Mt 11:10. Another mistake in Mark’s use of the OT occurs at 2:26, where he says Abiathar (rather than Ahimelech) was the priest when David demanded the bread of the presence (cf. 1 Sam 21:1-6).

There are an impressive number of explicit OT quotations in Mark’s account of Jesus’ public ministry, especially from Isaiah, Psalms & Daniel. Jesus appeals to Is 6:9-10 (“they may indeed look, but not perceive”) to explain why outsiders (4:12) & even his own disciples (8:18) fail to understand his preaching about God’s kingdom. In his critique of the Pharisees’ traditions about ritual defilement (7:6-7), Jesus quotes Is 29:13: “Because these people draw near with their mouths & honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, & their worship of me is a human commandment learned by rote.” The crowds acclamation of Jesus in 7:37 (“He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear & the mute to speak”) is an echo of Is 35:5-6.

In Mk 11:9-10, when Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is greeted with words from Ps 118:26: “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” In Mk 11:17 his symbolic action in “cleansing” the temple is justified by an appeal to the combination of Is 56:7 & Jer 7:11: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. But you have made it a den of robbers.” His parable of the wicked tenants (12:1-12) ends with a quotation of Ps 118:22-23: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.” In 12:35-37 he presents an interpretation of Ps 110:1 (“the Lord says to my Lord”) designed to show the superiority of the title “Lord” to “Messiah” & “Son of David.” When Jesus speaks of end-times in Mk 13, many of the major terms & concepts – the great tribulation, the abomination of desolation, the glorious Son of Man, & the resurrection of the dead – come from the book of Daniel.

One of the great themes of Mark’s passion narrative is expressed by Jesus in 14:49: “Let the scriptures be fulfilled.” On the Mount of Olives (14:27), Jesus quotes Zech 13:7 (“I will strike the shepherd, & the sheep will be scattered”) as a prophecy that his disciples would soon desert him. At his trial before the Sanhedrin (14:62), Jesus identifies himself as the glorious Son of Man with words taken from Dan 7:13. In ch.15 there are enough quotations & allusions to Is 53 & Ps 22 to describe Jesus as the personification of the Suffering Servant & the Suffering Righteous One (see also Wis 2:12-20).

Mark’s Theological Geography

Mark’s Gospel is a story mainly about Jesus of Nazareth. It is set in Israel & follows a theological-geographical outline.

• Galilee functions as the place where Jesus’ authority is revealed.
• The journey from Galilee to Judea is the occasion for Jesus to teach about his identity & discipleship.
• Jerusalem is the place of his rejection & death.

The Prologue: 1:1-13

Mark tells the reader that John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus (thus fulfilling OT prophecies), that a voice from heaven declared Jesus to be “my Son, the Beloved,” & that Jesus withstood testing by Satan. The prologue identifies Jesus as the Son of God & places him & his public ministry in a cosmic battle with Satan.

First Major Section: 1:14-8:21

Mark describes how Jesus the anointed Son of God proclaims the imminence of God’s reign through his teachings & actions. At the same time, Mark shows Jesus encountering misunderstanding & opposition from many groups. The scene of Jesus’ activity is Galilee & the surrounding area, which in Mark’s theological geography is the place for the revelation or manifestation of Jesus as a powerful teacher & healer. The summary statement puts all that Jesus says & does in the context of his proclamation of God’s kingdom: “The time is fulfilled, & the kingdom of God has come near” (1:15).

Second Major Section: 8:22-10:52

This part of the story concerns the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Mark begins & ends this section with stories in which blind men come to see. Throughout the journey from Caesarea Philippi in northern Galilee to Jerusalem, the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel instructs his disciples (& Mark’s readers) about his identity as the Son of Man who must suffer, die & rise from the dead, & about what it means to follow him.

Third Major Section: 11:1-16:8

Jerusalem is the main place in which Jesus is rejected. After his provocative symbolic actions in entering the city & cleansing the temple, Jesus debates with various Jewish groups. When asked about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, Jesus takes the conversation to the cosmic level & looks forward to the coming of the Son of Man in glory as the sign of the fullness of God’s kingdom.