Year of MARK

Friends of mine have a unique table centerpiece that almost demands the question: “What’s the story behind that?” Sure enough, there is an elaborate tale behind the purchase of this antique and how over decades of marriage it has been symbolic of their love for and understanding of one another. During the last nine columns we have glimpsed some of the story behind Mark’s Gospel, a story that stems from the Old Testament. Last month, for example, we looked at Jesus as the “Son of Man” of Daniel 7. In this column I want to highlight three other dimensions of the Old Testament story behind Mark’s story. In doing so, we will be engaging in what contemporary New Testament scholars call “intertextuality,” that is, seeing the relationships between the text of the Old Testament and the text of the New Testament.

Recently Rikki E. Watts published Isaiah’s New Exodus in Mark. Watts’s point is well taken. Mark uses much of Isaiah 40–55 to describe the advent and mission of Jesus. The very word “gospel” resonates powerfully in Isaiah’s words that God has liberated God’s people from exile: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings the gospel, announcing peace, bearing the gospel, announcing salvation, saying to God’s people: ‘Your God is king’” (52:7). Mark 1:2 states: “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” and what is written there is that God is ending God’s people’s exile and leading them forth from captivity. In their passage from the exodus of slavery to freedom, every mountain will be leveled and God will erect a highway through the desert (Is 40:3–4). Mark describes Jesus’ powerful signs in his Galilean ministry as God’s liberation of God’s people from the power of demons. In Mark’s very first miracle the “unclean spirit” cries out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know that you are the Holy One of God” (1:24). Indeed, God has sent Jesus to destroy evil and bring about God’s kingly rule.

When Jesus asks his disciples who people say that he is, they answer, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.” The people are interpreting Jesus according to familiar patterns from their history. John the Baptizer was truly a prophet and, like the prophets of old, spoke God’s will, taught God’s ways, and ran afoul of religious and political leaders alike. Elijah, too, not only taught God’s will and ways but also was persecuted for his attacks on idolatry, greed and injustice. Further, Elijah, like Jesus, worked miracles and was instrumental in raising the dead (see 1 Kgs 17:17–24).

Finally, the psalms of the innocently suffering righteous one play a key role in interpreting Jesus’ last hours. In these psalms the petitioner pleads his innocence and righteousness amidst persecution and rejection and holds firm to his faith in a God that will deliver him. Behind Mark 14:20–21 and Jesus’ announcement of Judas’s betrayal during the Last Supper stands Psalm 41:9: “The friend who had my trust and ate with me has raised his heel against me.” But Jesus puts himself into the hands of his betrayer with full trust in his God who will deliver him. For his faith is that of the singer of Psalm 41, who two verses later confesses: “I know that you love me, for my enemy does not triumph over me.” In Mark 15:34 Jesus dies with the beginning of Psalm 22 on his lips: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are not words of despair but of faith. The evangelist prompts his readers to look at the larger picture of his Gospel, which portrays Jesus as a man of deep faith and trust in God (for example, Mk 12:10; 14:28), and to take Jesus’ words as an invitation to pray Psalm 22 in its entirety. Truly the innocently suffering righteous person of Psalm 22 feels abandoned in his plight but trusts in God’s ultimate victory in his behalf. “For God has not spurned nor rejected the wretched person in his misery. Nor did God turn away from him. When he cried out, he heard him” (22:24).

God, who willed life at the beginning of time, will not let creation wander in exile and slavery but calls it back home to freedom through Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, Messiah, and Lord. ML

Robert J. Karris, OFM, is a professor at St. Bonaventure University, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., and a New Testament scholar. His latest book, volume 2 of his translation of St. Bonaventure’s Commentary on Luke’s Gospel (chapters 9–16), is now available from Franciscan Institute Publications.