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Who
is this … even the wind and the sea obey him?
For
Mark’s community, Jesus’ identity as the Son of God was a given. In his
first verse, Mark introduces us to “Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” and
at the moment of Jesus’ death, the Roman centurion announces, “Truly this
man was God’s Son!” (15:39). Even the demons recognize Jesus’ true identity
(3:11; 5:8). But, in spite of his being announced as God’s Son at both
his baptism, “You are my Son, the Beloved” (1:11), and his transfiguration,
“This is my Son, the Beloved” (9:7), in Mark’s text Jesus’ disciples do
not grasp his identity during his public ministry.
This
lack of understanding on the part of the disciples can be seen in the story
of Jesus calming the storm. After a long day of preaching, Jesus and his
disciples get into a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. The geography of
the Holy Land is such that storms were a common occurrence on the lake,
suddenly descending from the surrounding hills. The disciples, some of
whom were fishermen and know the nature of storms on the lake, panic in
the face of a great windstorm. Meanwhile Jesus is “in the stern, asleep
on the cushion” (4:38). Their panic is a stark contrast to his trust in
the loving protection of the Father. While he can sleep through the storm,
they cry out to him, “Do you not care that we are perishing?” Indeed he
does care, but they are not perishing, for the One who made the earth and
the sea is with them. This passage serves to confirm Jesus’ true identity
to the reader, for as Job learns (38:8 ff), only God can control the wind
and the sea. But the disciples, like the blind man later in the Gospel
(8:22–26), will only gradually come to understand Jesus. Mark’s community,
along with the church of today, has the advantage of viewing the story
of Jesus through the lens of the resurrection; the disciples do not.
Mark
continues to show who Jesus is in the combined stories of Jairus’ daughter
and the woman with the hemorrhage. Both are presented as persons of faith,
even if that faith is not fully developed. As a synagogue official, Jairus
represents that part of Jewish society associated with the formalities
of Judaism. His role at the synagogue would mean that he was respected
by his peers and that he was well aware of the requirements of his faith.
In approaching Jesus he acknowledges Jesus as a fellow Jew who was recognized
for his healing powers. The woman with the hemorrhage in some ways represents
the opposite of Jairus. As one who was suffering from an ongoing hemorrhage,
she would be considered ritually unclean and so would be excluded from
any public religious practices at either the synagogue or the temple of
Jerusalem. Anyone who came in contact with her would also risk ritual impurity.
In
approaching Jesus, they both express faith in his power to heal. This faith
is so important that later, when he visits Nazareth, a lack of faith prevents
him from performing any major miracle there “except that he laid his hands
on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief”
(6:5–6).
For
Jairus’ daughter, the healing becomes a restoration to life since by the
time Jesus arrives at the house she has died. This is similar to the story
of the raising of Lazarus in John, as it comes to show Jesus not only as
one who can heal the sick but also raise the dead. The woman with the hemorrhage
was also in declining health, for Mark tells us that she had spent all
her money on physicians and rather than getting better she “grew worse”
(5:26). The expectation for her would be that she would continue to deteriorate
in health. This helps us understand why she would take the chance of reaching
out to Jesus in the crowd, a clear violation of Jewish ritual purity regulations.
Anyone touched by her would also be considered unclean, but she had no
other choice. And her faith, like that of Jairus, leads to a miracle; she
is “immediately … healed of her disease” (29).
For
Mark, faith in Jesus is something that grows throughout our lives. With
the father of the possessed boy (9:14–27), we pray, “I believe; help my
unbelief!” ML
What do YOU
Think?
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