Gospel of Mark Commentary Act 4. Scene 1

This is the twenty-second installment, comprising Act 4. Scene 1, chapter 8: 27-38, in the online commentary on the Gospel of Mark, which I am blogging on throughout the liturgical year. Please see the twenty first installment here. Links to the entire series are available in one spot at The Complete Gospel of Mark Online Commentary.

This is my division of the Gospel:

Prologue,  1:1-13;

Act  1, 1:14-3:6;

Act 2, 3:7-6:6;

Act 3, 6:7-8:26;

Act 4, 8:27-10:52;

Act 5, 11:1-13:37;

Act 6, 14:1-16:8(20).

Scene 1

27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28 And they answered him, "John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets." 29 He asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah." 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. 31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." 34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (NRSV)

Act 4, Scene 1 is the beginning of the turn of the Gospel from Jesus’ ministry in Galilee to the journey to Jerusalem. Act 4, Scene 1 is also the first of three Scenes known as “Passion Predictions” in which Jesus begins to reveal what seems to be his Identity - "Who do people say that I am?" (8:27) In reality, though, Jesus reveals something far more secretive: his Destiny.  It is my contention, and I think quite clear,  that Jesus’ identity has been revealed in a variety of ways from the beginning of the Gospel, though whether his identity has been properly grasped is another matter.  Jesus has revealed his identity by teaching, healing, and performing exorcisms and miracles. His disciples ought to have accepted and realized by now that he is proclaiming himself the Messiah, through word and deed; the crowds that have gathered around him everywhere he goes are not just hoping for a crust of bread, but for spiritual purpose and physical cures. They obviously have considered what the identity of this man might be. This is not an ordinary man. Yet, Mark has maintained a kind of secrecy motif at various points in the Gospel, except in certain cases with Gentiles when they are told to tell people what this man Jesus has done for them. I think this Passion Prediction Scene, and those similar to it in chapters 9 and 10, begin to unravel the mystery of the secrecy: it is not exactly Jesus’ Identity which has been kept secret; it is his Destiny.   

How could Jesus have kept his identity secret? People have been guessing at who Jesus might be - John the Baptist; Elijah; or some other prophet (8:28) – and it is Peter who identifies him correctly as the Messiah (8:29), but the bottom line is that these sorts of guesses, hypotheses, suggestions and discussions amongst the disciples and crowds must have been going on since Jesus called disciples and they actually followed. Messiah must have been broached as an answer amongst the apostles more than once before Peter threw it out there as an answer to Jesus’ question.Why would you follow someone not worthy of following? Why would crowds gather?

Mark has done it again with us, too, his audience, for if we have been following these Acts and Scenes and participating in Jesus’ activities, with even more insight into his words and deeds from the narrator than his apostles have, we too must have considered many of these same possibilities: Prophet; Teacher; Messiah; who or what else could he be? Yet 8:30 seems to continue the pretense:  “and he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.” We as readers cannot help but wonder, “Isn’t that cat out of the bag, the one about telling people who you are? Have not the feeding miracles to thousands of people, Jews and Gentiles, blown your cover?” This is where the issue of destiny comes into view as the answer to the issue of secrecy.

It is 8:31-32 that starts to put it all together. Jesus reveals that “the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly.” It is not a secret that Jesus is the Messiah, it is the type of destiny which the Messiah must undergo and which Mark only begins to reveal now (though clues have been given to us in 3:1-6 and in 6:29) which is the secret: the Messiah must suffer and die. But why?

This must be the question that ran through Peter's head as he took Jesus aside: Why? What are you talking about? Behave like a Messiah, conquer your enemies, feed the poor, heal the sick, let the oppressed go free! But suffer and die? We need as an audience to regain the stunning sense of reversal experienced in this scene by the first audience.  It is in response to Jesus’ claim that he must suffer and die that Peter “took him aside and began to rebuke him” (8:32). While one can only speculate on the nature of Peter’s rebuke, surely it was not a rejection of his own identification of Jesus as the Messiah, but Jesus’ claim that he, the Son of Man, must suffer and die. Peter who has been witness to Jesus’ power and mighty deeds must have berated him: why would you suffer and die when you have glory, power and might? Why would you allow yourself to be rejected when you draw all these people to your side for healing and teaching? Peter must have rejected the destiny which Jesus has laid out for himself.

And why would Peter not reject this destiny for the Messiah?  The Messiah conquers the enemies of Israel on God’s behalf; the Messiah is not rejected and killed. The Messiah establishes the kingdom of God; the Messiah is not brought low by earthly kingdoms and the powers that be. What is Jesus talking about? Sympathy must be offered for Peter, for in the Gospel this is the first time such a destiny has been raised by Jesus. How else should Peter respond to his beloved teacher and Messiah? Yet Jesus turns on him and says,

"Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

It is possible to see Peter as the embodiment of Satan for his rejection of Jesus’ Passion Prediction, but I think it is much more likely that Jesus is identifying Satan with his own  human temptation to reject the divine path and to come with power, glory and might and not suffering and death to establish God’s kingdom. This is a destiny which Jesus must accept and which he must fulfill. Suffering and death is the divine path, a shocking divine path, and the path of conquering through power, human though it might be, must be awfully tempting.

When Jesus rejects the human path, though, he calls in the rest of the crowd and his disciples to explain the way of the Messiah.

"If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (8:34-38)

The way of Jesus  is a way of “denial,” a path in which Jesus’ disciples are told to “take up their cross and follow me” (8:34). Many have seen in this line and the verses which follow (8:35-37) a retrojection by Mark of the suffering which Jesus experienced and which then later engulfed the early Church at various points and times in its history after Jesus’ crucifixion – perhaps especially in the persecution of the Roman Christians by Nero – and Mark's knowledge of  previous events must be an influence upon these verses. Jesus himself did die on the cross and if this influences Mark’s later description of the “way of suffering” for Jesus’ followers, this, too, would make sense. Still, one must also acknowledge that even prior to Jesus’ own crucifixion, Jews would have known of the reality of crucifixion because these were public spectacles and often involved numerous people hanging in public squares or along a roadside. One of the purposes of crucifixion was its public nature for warning people of the might and power of Rome. For Jesus to use the image of the “carrying the cross” as a way of suffering even prior to his own crucifixion would not be odd. Nor can we rule out his own anticipation of his own death, in light of his knowledge of the prophets in general and John the Baptist in particular; and this is all without considering his own prophetic knowledge.

As an audience, it is clear, a distinct turn has come in this drama. If we place ourselves as first time auditors or viewers of this narrative, as we should, Peter’s response makes the most sense. Whether Jesus’ reference to the cross is comprehensible, it is not necessarily sensible yet.  And it is shocking to hear that one should lose their life for Jesus and the gospel in order to gain their life. What does this mean? It is not clear, nor, do I think Mark expects that it should be clear at this point. He is simply introducing the drama to come and asking that we continue to follow as disciples.

In that vein, Mark also uses for the second time in Act 4, Scene 1, the phrase “Son of Man" (8:38),  a title associated with the eschaton ("the end") and the coming of the kingdom of God in some Jewish texts (Daniel; 1 Enoch) and in this context the customary messianic character of Jesus’ mission, even in light of his suffering, is brought out with this passage. Jesus might be a Messiah who suffers, but he adheres to some elements of “traditional” Jewish speculation of the Messiah: the Son of Man will come in “the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (8:38). Another hint from Mark: it is not just that the Messiah’s destiny is suffering; glory is coming, but it is glory delayed. Can you pass through suffering and death to come to glory?

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @BibleJunkies

Bible Too Complicated To Guide Us in Sexuality or Marriage: UPDATED

I missed this three part series on biblical views of marriage and sexuality by Jennifer Wright Knust when it was first published in the Washington Post On Faith section in February 2011, but you can see the first part on marriage here, the second part on sexuality here, and the third part on sexual desire here.

Here is what first caught my attention: “The Bible is simply too complicated and too contradictory to serve as a guide to sexual morals.” What? Too complicated? I will deal with “too contradictory” – as if there is a sort of Goldilockian “just right” contradictory – later, but the notion that “if it’s hard, we must discard,” is ridiculous. The idea that the Bible is complex, so why look for moral guidance from it is to jettison the raison d’etre of interpretation, to say nothing of the fact that Christians consider the Bible divinely inspired. If one does not consider the Bible divinely inspired, I do understand the desire to sideline it in modern discussions: why pay attention to this ancient text? But we must interpret ancient texts precisely because they are significant and difficult to understand. Easy texts of no significance are not read 2,000 years later because they are insignificant or rouse nobody’s interpretive passions because they are simple to understand. Any text of significance must be interpreted, such as Dante or Shakespeare, because they are complex and worth the effort to understand properly, but when that text claims to have divine imprimatur, such as God’s word, whether in the Bible, the Qur'an, or any other religions’ sacred text, it is essential that the texts be interpreted and understood because they are seen as revealed. This does not mean that the Bible is primarily a list of doctrines, I do not see it in that manner, but it is certainly a guide for Christians.

Jennifer Wright Knust is confusing the fact that interpretation is difficult with dispensing of the project. I would hate to see architects, engineers, and surgeons take this path in their chosen professions. She writes, “since the Bible never offers anything like a straightforward set of teachings about marriage, desire, or God's perspective on the human body, the only way to pretend that it does is to refuse to read it.” But the key word, and weasel word, here is “straightforward”: the Bible does discuss marriage, desire and human anthropology, so what if it is not “straightforward,” whatever that might mean. If by the Bible not being straightforward she means that we have to take into account historical development in how marriage and sexuality were treated throughout the centuries, the complexity of the texts, the many and numerous texts which discuss marriage and sexuality, and the tensions between them, she is absolutely correct; if the tensions between texts, deriving from many social, historical and political contexts must be acknowledged, absolutely, she is correct, all of these must be accounted for in many and numerous ways. If she means that practices change over the centuries, and that many in the ancient world were misogynistic, for instance, yes, this too must be acknowledged. We must also acknowledge modern scholars offer different interpretations of the same texts, just as ancient and medieval interpreters did, and these disagreements challenge us all to test our biases and our ways of thinking and interpreting, but to suggest that the Bible does not offer answers on sexual morality because it is so complex and not “straightforward” indicates a couple of things: "too complicated" is probably a substitute for "I don't like what it says, but I just do not want to reject it outright" or "It's too complicated to explain the development of sexual mores and marriage practices throughout history to you." It’s the complexity that is so intriguing, whether you accept or reject it. It is the tension involved in the process of continuity and change that is entrancing.

She also writes that “Biblical books never speak to marriage as currently practiced in the US and what they do say is totally contradictory.” “Totally contradictory”? I am not certain what the difference is between a “total” contradiction and a “partial” contradiction, but I would appreciate an example of what is “totally contradictory” in Jesus’ or Paul’s teaching about marriage. Contradiction in a philosophical sense means that Jesus would both claim “A” (marriage is between a man and a woman) and “Not A” (marriage is not between a man and a woman). Matthew records Jesus saying this about marriage in Matthew 19:4-6:

He answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning "made them male and female,' and said, "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

I would like to see a passage in the New Testament (NT) which is "totally contradictory" to this view of marriage. Matthew 19 has an exception clause with respect to divorce which no other Gospel has. but this does not "contradict" the notion of what a marriage is. It is also true that in Matthew 19 Jesus speaks of those who become eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, but again this does not "contradict the view of  what marriage is, but suggests a higher purpose. In the New Testament, and in early Christianity, celibacy is often seen as a higher good, perhaps, than marriage, but what constitutes a marriage in the NT is defined as that between a man and a woman.  I am not certain where the “contradiction” of this view of marriage occurs in the New Testament or in the development of early Christianity; and certainly in the Judaism of the time, marriage had become marriage between one man and one woman.

There were certainly differences in marriage back then, in terms of how marriages were contracted, the age of girls who were married, the hierarchical nature of marriage, the role and use of slaves in families, including sexual uses, and perhaps the function of marriage to bind families not just two persons together, but  the claim that “despite frequent claims to the contrary, not a single biblical book endorses marriage between one man and one woman for the purposes of procreation” is highly misleading. Children were certainly seen as a good in marriage, both in Judaism and Christianity, just as they were in the Greco-Roman world, and children were a positive fruit of marriage. Since Jews and Christians did not practice exposure, infanticide or use abortifacients, it was quite clear that children would be the result of marriages in most cases.

Now celibacy was seen as a good by both Jesus and Paul, in terms of spiritual growth and in light of the coming eschaton, so she is correct that context, context, and then context matters when considering ancient views of marriage and sexuality. Cornelia Horn and I detail quite extensively in "Let the Little Children Come to Me" how mixed and convoluted the views of early Christians were regarding children, sexuality and marriage even beyond the New Testament, so, again, historical research, social and theological context are significant in using the Bible and applying it in a modern context. But, that is precisely the job of a biblical interpreter.

The Bible is not the only source for Christian discussions of marriage and sexuality – tradition, human reason, and human experience all must come into play. The Church, as is the case with every other institution, changes. Change matters and the Bible is not a simple playbook for marriage and sexuality, but to say “the Bible is simply too complicated and too contradictory to serve as a guide to sexual morals” is a failure on a number of levels. The most significant failure is not to determine what precisely it can in all of its complications offer us as guidance today, whether “straightforward” or not. Is there nothing to learn from the Bible's teachings on sexuality and marriage at all? The other failure is not to define what she means by a contradiction and what exactly the contradictions are in the Bible which render it useless for consideration. Again, if she, or others, do not consider it a divinely inspired text, I agree, ignore it. But if the Bible is a divinely inspired text and is seen as something useless because it is complex, that is another matter. Mind you, I am not arguing she must interpret these “complex” texts as I would, or as some other biblical scholar might, or that there is a set of “correct” answers at which she must arrive. My point is simple: you do not ignore the source of your tradition's teachings because it is complex; that’s why you pay attention to it.

How one weighs the relative merit of human reason, scientific advances, social changes, human experience, the tradition of the Church and the Bible regarding marriage and sexuality is different for many people including biblical scholars. It is different, for instance, for the Catholic Church as compared to the Anglican Church. Jennifer Wright Knust is correct that the Bible offers many texts and varying points of view – though I would ask her to find an example of “contradiction” on the view of marriage presented in the New Testament. But she then seems to say that since the Bible is not simplistic, let’s forget about it.  I think the sorts of questions being asked today regarding sexuality and marriage are important, as I wrote last week on change in the Church and the criteria for change and a few months ago on the excellent questions Dan Savage asked of the Bible, but the answers will always be complex, never simple, whether the Bible is used as a source or ignored. Strange though for a biblical scholar to ask for us to ignore the text which is the foundation of her profession. If the Bible is too complex, she is certainly taking the easy way out: instead of wrestling with the difficulties, just disregard them.
 

UPDATED: A Twitter follower sent me a link to an example of someone taking on and describing the complexity of marriage as presented in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and the New Testament not ignoring it. From May 2012 in the Huffington Post,  Esther J. Hamori in Biblical Standards for Marriage, states that there are a number of models of marriage presented in the Bible, but

There is, however, a unifying theme to the diverse pictures of God-ordained marriages in the Bible, and it is that different kinds of unions are accepted in different places and times, evolving in tandem with broader cultural shifts.

She also says that 

While the traditional view is that the Bible sets standards, and cultures either follow these standards or don't, the Bible itself shows us that cultural norms and biblical positions shifted in tandem. This does not mean that anything goes; it's simply what we see in the biblical texts themselves. 

Hamori, to my mind, does an excellent job in a short amount of space explaining the complexity of marriage within the historical and cultural contexts of the Bible and the social and religious worlds in which the people of Israel and the early Church existed. The fact is that marriage and what was considered an acceptable marriage did shift at various times in antiquity. I am not as convinced by her claims that the NT does not, in fact, present marriage between one man and one woman as the cultural norm (and I believe this is the case in the rabbinic literature of the day as well). Still the argument holds: marriage practices and traditions do change and evolve. They are currently changing and evolving in the Western world today. 

Commenter Chris Sullivan gets to the heart of the matter, see below, when he writes "the need for some authority to interpret the meaning of scripture seems evident here." That is, ultimately, the crux of the matter. The Bible has authority for Christians (and the Hebrew Bible or Tanak for Jews), so who interprets the complexity of these biblical texts?  Is it the Bible alone that has authority and each interpreter authority over the Bible? Does human experience bear the most weight? Human reason?  The Tradition of the Church (or Synagogue)? For Catholics, of course, the Magisterium has final authority for definitive interpretation of biblical teaching, but change has, indeed, happened in the past, and Hamori presents this far more persuasively because such complexity is a part of the biblical record to be understood not ignored.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @Biblejunkies

Gospel of Mark Commentary Act 3. Scenes 9, 10, 11

This is the twenty-first  installment, comprising Act 3. Scene 9, chapter 8: 1-9, Scene 10, 8:10-21, and Scene 11, 8:22-26, in the online commentary on the Gospel of Mark, which I am blogging on throughout the liturgical year. Please see the twentieth installment here. Links to the entire series are available in one spot at The Complete Gospel of Mark Online Commentary.

This is my division of the Gospel:

Prologue,  1:1-13;

Act  1, 1:14-3:6;

Act 2, 3:7-6:6;

Act 3, 6:7-8:26;

Act 4, 8:27-10:52;

Act 5, 11:1-13:37;

Act 6, 14:1-16:8(20).

Scene 9, 10, 11: 8:1-9; 10-21; 22-26

1 In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them, 2 "I have compassion for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way—and some of them have come from a great distance." 4 His disciples replied, "How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?" 5 He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven." 6 Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd. 7 They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed. 8 They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9 Now there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha. 11 The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. 12 And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation." 13 And he left them, and getting into the boat again, he went across to the other side. 14 Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread; and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod." 16 They said to one another, "It is because we have no bread." 17 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" They said to him, "Twelve." 20 "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" And they said to him, "Seven." 21 Then he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

22 They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Can you see anything?" 24 And the man looked up and said, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking." 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he looked intently and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Then he sent him away to his home, saying, "Do not even go into the village." (NRSV)

These final scenes of Act 3 created the most difficulty in terms of division. In many respects I see verses 8:1-26 as one scene, the A2 as a whole, which comments on and makes sense, ultimately, of the A1-B in the Markan sandwich. This second feeding miracle, in fact, gives us clues to the whole of the drama of Jesus’ life and his intentions for his ministry, not just the dénouement and cryptic explication of the previous two chapters. I break it up, however, into three scenes, however closely related they are, because each scene represents the camera moving to a new locale, a new group,  a new insight, each of which builds on the other. While all of these scenes are interwoven and tightly connected to each other, each reveals a new perspective, a new piece of the puzzle.

The first question that needs to be considered in Act 3, Scene 9 is why is there a second feeding miracle? It is similar in style and structure to the first feeding miracles, though some details even if small will prove to be significant. It is probable that even if Jesus has healed a Jewish man amongst a group of Jews in Act 3, Scene 8, he still remains in a Gentile region, the Decapolis, or “Ten Cities.” We might assume then that the crowd is Gentile. Jesus has compassion on this crowd, though, just as on the previous crowd (6:34; 8:2). The disciples remain, once again, rather clueless about the situation - "How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?" (8:4) – even though Jesus just did the same thing a day ago.  In fact, they have a couple of more loaves (7 as compared to 5; and “a few small fish” as compared to two: 6:38; 8:5, 7), but do numbers matter when a few fish and loaves feed thousands of people? Each possible miracle seems to leave the apostles unable to remember even the prior miracle, or those miracles prior to that!  Do they recall seeing a ghost on the sea? They seem to have faith, as they continue to follow Jesus everywhere and anywhere, but it diminishes or becomes clouded as time passes, only to have them reminded of Jesus’ power over and over again.

Nevertheless, Jesus takes the bread and fish, and breaks and distributes them to the crowd, without, as in chapter 6:37, asking the disciples to feed the crowd. In this case Jesus feeds 4,000 (8:9) instead of 5,000 (6:44).  He gives thanks prior to breaking the bread and distributing it (8:6-7), using the Greek word eucharisteo, which is not used in chapter 6, and which imbues Mark’s feeding miracles with a “sacramental” or “ecclesial” character. This is an important detail, but I think the most important details are those of the number 12, which is how many baskets were left in 6:43, and the number 7, which is how many baskets of food are left in 8:8.  The number 12 matters, as I have argued earlier here and here, as the fulfillment of Israel, the 12 tribes brought back together in order to prepare for the coming of the Messiah, the Messianic banquet in the Kingdom of God (Isaiah 27:12-13). But what about the four thousand people just fed and the 7 baskets full whom Jesus sends away (8:9)? That it matters who they are becomes apparent at the end of Act 3, Scene 10.

In Act 3, Scene 10, Jesus leaves for “the district of Dalmanutha” (8:10), a region unknown apart from this reference, and in a flashback to Act 3, Scene 5, the “Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him” (8:11). It is obvious that apart from plotting against Jesus, there is some measure of consideration as to whether he might be the Messiah or some sort of prophet. Jesus rejects their request for a sign, which is intriguing in light of the miracles Jesus has already performed and which have drawn their attention. What sign would be sufficient? What are they looking for in particular?  As Jesus travels in the boat with his disciples, Mark gives us an interesting little detail that the disciples had only brought one loaf of bread with them, and as Jesus warns them to “beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod" (8:15; see also Act 1, Scene 9). The apostles remain clueless about Jesus’ speech, interpreting it as a scolding for their lack of bread – as if they have not seen Jesus take a few loaves and feed thousands of people – and not as a warning about spiritual danger and the way in which temptation(s) pervade the spiritual journey (8: 16).

Now, however, Jesus does scold them, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" They said to him, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" And they said to him, "Seven." Then he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" (8:17-21).

It is with the final question, "Do you not yet understand?", that Mark makes it obvious that we, too, those who are eavesdropping on these scenes, the auditors, are also disciples travelling along with Jesus. It has been easy, with the omniscient view of the narrator Mark, to mock the disciples, just a few verses prior, for their lack of understanding, but now Mark is asking us too: "Do you not yet understand?" But what are we to understand? What does the 12 mean? What does the 7 mean? Mark is asking that we come up with an answer;  Jesus’ questions are directed to us: do we have eyes and fail to see, ears and fail to hear?

What should we see and hear? There are only a couple of options. The bread is more than just physical food – it must represent the spiritual food, free from the purity laws, free from the “yeast” of the Pharisees – by which Jesus can feed all people, even a Syrophoenician woman with some of the crumbs, of which basketfuls have been picked up at both feeding miracles. So the 12? The 7? If the 12 represents restored Israel, which the Messiah will feed with his messianic banquet, the 7 must represent the Gentiles, those who have been beyond the reaches of the covenant, those who are now, Mark is hinting, being welcomed in by Jesus. Whether the 7 represents the traditional 7 enemy tribes of the Israelites as a model for all the Gentiles or the completion and perfection of all the peoples, Mark wants us to know that Jesus will feed all people, with more leftover than we could imagine.  

But Mark does not end his Act 3 here, he introduces us to a strange scene in Bethsaida, in which a blind man is brought to Jesus, who heals him with a physical act of putting saliva in his eyes (8:22-23). The man can see, but only partially and he says to Jesus, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking" (8:24). The man has partial sight only, a miracle that is only partly fulfilled; so Jesus does it again and then the man can see all things clearly (8:25). The man is sent away and told, "Do not even go into the village" (8:26). Here is the secrecy motif, but this can be left for later, as I think the whole of the secrecy motif has to do with Jesus’ destiny, not his Messiahship, and this will be unpacked in Act 4. But the double healing of the blind man: what does it mean? Does it mimic the double feeding miracle? Spiritual sight is not complete until all people can see who Jesus is.

John W. Martens

Follow me on Twitter @BibleJunkies