Hearing Mark: just before the beginning

As we prepared to listen to The beginning of the Good news of Jesus Christ, a few bits came up in conversation that I thought it might be worth mentioning before going on to our reflections of that first chapter.

First, it is important to realize that Mark has a point to the way he tells the Good News that is different from the other Evangelists. To be true to that point or purpose, he selects episodes and details to emphasize, and we must hear his story in isolation from the other Gospels. The point is not to diminish the weight of the entire New Testament, but to try to hear Mark the way he means us to hear the story.

The start of the story is a good point. Mark has no nativity; he begins at the Jordan. We almost automatically fill in the missing details by selecting bits from the other Gospels: the Word, the shepherds, the kings, but Mark doesn't mention them. And it is quite possible that no one in those first audiences knew any of these story points that seem so familiar to us looking through 2,000 years of stained glass.

We have one story, and not much of that yet, to think about as we try to feel our way through this Good News.

That audience, however, may well have been quite familiar with Jewish texts. we considered the "God Fearers" who attended synagogue but were not converts to Judaism. When Jesus mentions what was required by the Law of Moses in response to healing, these folks might have even been able to say exactly what that was.

Gods had power in the ancient world and knowing how to ask and thank them for their help. Yahweh, for many Romans, was another of those powerful gods among many. You didn't want to upset Yahweh any more than you wanted to upset Hermes or Mars.

Finally, it is VERY important that we remember that Mark writing this story down is something of a technological revolution. The author clearly felt that there was something unique about Jesus that required a unique response. (That Christians collected these writings on bound pages rather than scrolls, increased the traction of that technological revolution.)

Mark saw a world turned upside down by what he knew about Jesus...and he probably wasn't among Jesus' followers in life. This is perhaps the best reason to try to hear the story with as few limits as we can use, giving that story a chance to speak loud and clear through those 2,000 years.

For Mark, this story in itself is an ultimate concern, something that cannot be left to good old word-of-mouth to bear it into the future. It requires something new, unusual, unheard of.

So, here we go....