Angels are in the wilderness too. As with the temptations, Mark does not put wings on the angels. For Mark, angels are simply God’s way of getting to Jesus while not preventing him from doing his needed conditioning. The angels offer Jesus lemonade too, but only after he finishes the push-ups. You can bet Jesus has a time of it in the wilderness not only deciding which voices to listen to but when to listen to them. We have the same problem.
Satan and God can sometimes offer us the same thing. Timing is important. Grace is sometimes best utilized after the work is done, especially if the work is the necessary work one has to do on the interior life.
At other times, what God offers and what Satan offers are quite different. The choice is clear, but the problem comes when we have not done our necessary push-ups and therefore find ourselves not being able to resist Satan using only our own strength.
Angels are still available if called upon. Do not expect angels to be winged creatures any more than you can expect demons to be pitchforked, but angels are listening. God knows how lonely the wilderness can get. If Jesus needed help out there, I suppose we do too.
Mark 1:14–15 Jesus’ Message
Mark does not waste words. Perhaps Mark is not the favorite Gospel for preachers. We preachers tend to use a lot of words to get our points across. However, most of us are told in seminary that we need to express the main idea of our sermons in one sentence.
Mark knows how to be succinct. He uses one sentence to set the place, and another to state the main idea. John’s business is done; it is time for the main attraction. For Mark nothing more needs to be said about John.
Other Gospel writers find themselves not able to get rid of crusty old John so easily, but for Mark, John’s role is simply to set the stage and step off. Mark then places Jesus in Galilee where he will spend the next eight chapters. Jesus’ role, according to Mark, is to “proclaim the good news of God.” Here we have a concise phrase which says it all but which can mean many different things.
In the movie City Slickers, a city slicker on vacation is playing at being a cowboy. He and a few friends pay big bucks to be with some real cowboys in a cattle drive. Sitting uncomfortably on a horse, the city slicker looks up into the eyes of Curly, a rugged cowboy of few words who acts as if he just couldn’t care less about these cowboy wannabes from the city.
Curly looks down from his horse into the eyes of the city boy and asks, “You know what the secret of life is?”
“No, what is it?” the intimidated wannabe replies.
Curly raises his leather-glove-covered hand and points to the sky with one finger. Then he gazes at his solitary raised finger and drawls, “It’s this.”
Curious, the city slicker questions,” And what is that?”
With an enigmatic smile, Curly responds, “That is what you have to find out.”
Jesus raises his index finger in the air and tells us that the secret of life is this, the good news of the kingdom of God. And what is this good news about the kingdom of God? Jesus now invites us, “Come and let’s find out.”
Part of the good news is about the timing. It seems that whatever this is, it has “come near,” it is “at hand.” What people in Mark’s Gospel will discover is that the reason this is at hand is that he has come near. Jesus is the dawning of something entirely new.
The good news is that the secret is revealed. The not-so-good news to many who will listen to this secret of the meaning of life is that they are going to have to turn around from their old ways. The word Jesus uses is “repent.”
Part of the secret of life was, and is, to turn around, take a look, and go in a different direction. To stay on the same old, tired course is not what Jesus comes to offer. The kingdom of God has something to do with change and new beginnings. Many will find out that this change is not a matter of a slight alteration but rather a radical change in direction.
This is not going to be a matter of putting a new roof over an old roof. This repentance means tearing off the old roof and first letting the light in. Then comes the new roof. All through Mark’s Gospel Jesus will keep that one finger raised. People will ask what the raised finger means and Jesus will tell them. Some people will start tearing off shingles, other people will try simply to put a new roof over an old one, and many more people will decide that their old roof is fine, “thank you very much!”
Mark 1:16–20 Calling the First Disciples
Do you remember the first time you fell in love? The words in such a phrase are well used because it is usually indeed a falling. And falling in love can be a glorious thing. But what happens when you get up again after falling? Of course no one dares asks such a question. Falling in love is not supposed to be rational. Falling in love is falling into passion. To be blind to reason is part of the fun of falling in love.
Life is full of hard decisions and unexpected tragedy. Falling in love is one of the best parts of the script of life that we do not write. I hope you have been able to fall in love at least once, even if there was pain involved later on—and there usually is.
If you understand falling in love, or understand it as much as any human can, you can remotely understand how the first disciples simply leave everything to follow Jesus. It is a passionate decision. You can bet that Zebedee, the father of James and John, sure tries to knock some reason into his two headstrong, in-love sons. He needs those boys to help run the fishing business and here they are jumping out of the boat and into another life.
Zebedee overhears Jesus saying that he will make his boys “fishers of men.” This frightened father probably says something like, “Well that’s fine, Jesus, but who is going to catch the regular old fish that my family depends on to make a living?”
Falling in love is not about reason. In the other Gospel accounts there may be a hint that the sudden leaving behind of everything by certain disciples necessitates that they already know about Jesus and who he is. Mark’s Gospel is more like a love story in which these disciples are simply swept off their feet by this new man’s preaching about a coming kingdom that is going to change everything.
Peter, Andrew, James, and John are like slaphappy boys who hear the marching band calling new recruits to the glories of fighting for a noble cause. All they hear is the music. They do not hear the distant sounds of guns. Scenes of wounded comrades and lonely nights away from home are drowned out by the sound of joyous music.
“Follow me, now, this instant, and I will have you catching people.” The song sounds too good to pass up. Maybe fishing has grown too ordinary for these full-blooded men. Jesus sees something in their eyes that is worth fishing for—and Jesus is quite a fisherman. He has these young boys hooked before they know what is happening.
He does not bother to tell them that day about a cross. At this moment he wants their enthusiasm. They will need that zeal. Jesus will need that zeal, though he often does not get it from his small band of disciples. The first smell of the battle softens these boys real quick, but the tales of softening come later.
For now, the scene is of an old man standing in a boat shaking his head as his boys and two of their friends walk into the sunset and away from the boats. “What fools they are,” this father thinks ruefully. He is right.
Chapter Two
Mark 2:1–12 Jesus Heals the Paralytic in Capernaum
In compiling his Gospel, Mark puts a number of traditions together. What we have in Mark is a mosaic. He uses different tiles to create his mosaic. These tiles come from various sources that Mark has in his possession. Biblical scholars would lick their chops to be able to look over Mark’s shoulder as he puts together his mosaic.
If Mark has different buckets of tiles, which bucket does he pick from in order to place Jesus “at home” in Capernaum, as he is said to be in this account? Everybody knows that Jesus’ home is Nazareth, right? Maybe one of Mark’s