Preview of the Passion
Tommorow we begin our detailed look at the Passion of Jesus according to St. Mark, a journey that will take us through the 40 days of Lent. I thought that a final word of preparation would be in order; in a sense, a preview of the Passion in which we will immerse ourselves.
Martin Kähler, a German biblical scholar who lived and wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, once called Mark “a passion narrative with a long introduction.” When you read through Mark up to chapter 14, the start of the “passion narrative” proper, you get a sense of what Kähler meant. Jesus predicts his death and resurrection at several points. The tension between him and his adversaries rises throughout the narrative. He regularly challenges the religious, ethical, ethnic, and political status quo, putting him at odds with leaders of both the church and the state. Clearly, Mark had Jesus’ cross in mind with every sentence that he wrote.
What Kähler did not mean, however, was that all that precedes the cross doesn’t matter, as some have interpreted him. Indeed, the events that come before the cross help to explain why people wanted to put Jesus to death. It may be hard for us to comprehend such motives, as when we read the story of Jesus we are struck by how often he helped others – casting out demons, healing illness, feeding the hungry, even restoring life to the dead.
And yet Jesus also challenged religious practices, dared to suggest that all things belong to God rather than to Caesar, and shake up the social order by associating with those considered beyond the pale of decent people. Not only this, but Jesus regularly accompanied these actions by declaring God’s forgiveness and mercy. What’s so bad about this? Well, forgiveness and mercy, like love itself, are unpredictable. If you have built your life around an ordered sense of who and where God is and who is (and who is not!) acceptable to God, then forgiveness is dangerous, as it threatens to disrupt your tightly drawn boundaries and topple your social conventions and prejudices.
It’s easy for us to assume that had we been there when Jesus came on the scene, we would have greeted him warmly and recognized him as God’s emissary. But would we? Would we have been able to endure his challenging of our own notions of God, of who is (and who is not) acceptable? It is the question every disciple of Jesus then and now must ask, because the God of Jesus still shows up to challenge our biases and prejudices, our assumptions about grace and judgment, and our convictions about who’s in and who’s out.
As we read the Passion of Jesus According to Mark, one of the important, if also chilling, things to keep in mind is that he was put to death by people who are a whole lot like us. Committed religious believers; citizens of an important nation; relatively well-to-do, religiously responsible, and civic minded individuals who had a lot invested in the order; that is, in the way things were. But as we contemplate this, it will also help to keep in mind that Jesus also died for people a whole lot like us – indeed, just like us – those who whatever their hopes and dreams, best intentions or pious wishes, inevitably fall short of God’s will and intention for their lives and do harm to themselves and each other. People, that is, who need a Redeemer, One who shows us all that God is finally a God of mercy rather than judgment, a God of love rather than wrath.
The image used here is a detail from the 1516 painting The Lion of St. Mark by Vittore Carpacci.
As I read Mark, the message is in the center of his Gospel; specifically, in the 3 passion predictions plus the transfiguration. It more than introduces; it explains Jesus’ passion and what God is up to and extends to us a call to servant discipleship. And I would go further than “chilling” and say even dangerous to all well intenioned devoted religous people. I have often heard it said of the disciples in Mark’s Gospel, “they just don’t get it.” Could it be that it is not an understanding problem but a doing problem: to “take up one’s cross” and follow Jesus? Real dying to self is involved that I, for one, do not want to do. But in doing so, is it there that we find “resurrection” narrative not otherwise told in Mark’s gospel? Is it Mark’s intention that we find the ending in our own encouter with the risen Jesus?
Again, thanks for this. Wonderful stuff!
Do a very Jesus thing, and shake up the social order for Lent.