Mark 4:10-12

Posted by DJL on May 22, 2012 in Daily Bread | 2 comments

When he was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that ‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

In many Bibles, part of Jesus’ speech is printed more like poetry, with unusual line breaks, like this:

“To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables; in order that
‘they may indeed look, but not perceive,
and may indeed listen, but not understand;
so that they may not turn again and be forgiven.’”

It gets printed like that because it’s a quotation from the book of Isaiah. There’s a poetic cadence to Isaiah’s prophecy that is captured better in metered lines than typical prose.

From the very first chapter of his story of Jesus, as we’ve seen, Mark is very influenced by the book of Isaiah. Earlier we saw Mark actually pick up the name for his work – gospel, or good news – from a prophecy of hope from the middle part of Isaiah (sometimes called “second Isaiah” to distinguish the later time at which it is written). Here Mark looks to an earlier portion of Isaiah, actually to words spoken by God when Isaiah is first called to be a prophet. And they are some of the more difficult words in the Bible, as God announces that the people are too hard-hearted to hear the prophet’s words of warning and so will bring judgment and calamity down on themselves (Is. 6).

While some may wonder whether God’s edict makes the people unable to hear, most likely God’s word names the condition the people were already in – they have refused to listen, understand, or turn. Why is the prophetic oracle framed in this almost sarcastic tone? Because while judgment at this point in the story is unavoidable, new creation and restoration is not. Perhaps if they hear and remember the words of judgment that named their stubborn refusal to be in relationship, they will, after the calamity, turn to the One who warned them and ask for help.

As we’ve seen before, words from Isaiah are never just repeated but instead are put to use to help capture and share significant parts of the life and ministry of Jesus. So what is going on at this part of the story? Jesus quotes Isaiah, I think, it emphasize that the Kingdom of God he proclaims is so new, so unexpected, and so different that it doesn’t fit the religious frameworks most people (then or now!) carry around with them. For this reason parables – a form of speech that is as much riddle as story and that defy clean interpretation – are the only way to speak about the coming kingdom. It’s simply too much beyond our sense of what’s possible to capture in everyday speech.

So two things are going on in these few verses that are important for us to note: 1) God’s kingdom is too big to be reduced into our usual categories and so when Jesus describes it we can expect to being a little confused, a little startled, a little unsure of what to make of it all. 2) If we pay attention to Jesus, however, he will make this kingdom not just clear to us, but accessible, for he has come to reveal God’s unexpected and unpredictable kingdom of grace and love to his disciples…both then and now.

Prayer: Dear God, keep our eyes and ears trained on Jesus so that we may not just hear your word of mercy and grace but believe it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.