Mark: 4
If the passion narrative is the climax of the Gospel, then the “climax of the climax” is the resurrection. Let me offer a few highlights from this final section of Mark.
While critics often attack the bible and Christianity as being patriarchal and as having a low view of women, I find it fascinating that women are actually portrayed in rather positive ways. Sometimes this portrayal is subtle and easily missed: like here. Who are the first people to go to Jesus’ tomb? Women (Mark 16:1-2); not a man in sight—only an angel (who only manifests as a man). What happened to all the men? They all fell away—just as Jesus predicted, remember (Mark 14:50-52, 72)?
I think it’s significant how the women learn of Jesus’ resurrection: it’s not by self-discovery but by angelic proclamation (Mark 16:4-6). I believe this is important for a few reasons. First, the angelic proclamation emphasizes the magnitude of the event. See, not everything that happens in the bible gets announced by angels—even some of the important things: creation was never angelically announced; the coming of Moses to rescue the Israelites; the crowning of David as king; the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Some big things get announced, of course, but it’s not automatic. The resurrection of Jesus receives angelic proclamation. Second, given the magnitude of the resurrection, it was necessary that it received some sort of divine revelation or corroboration rather than being based simply on human deduction. Third, as I mentioned when we first began exploring Mark, angelic proclamation of the resurrection fits with Mark’s motif of verbal proclamation (i.e., the importance it should hold for his readers).
This leads to the (short) ending in v. 8. The angel orders the women to go and tell Jesus’ disciples (Mark 16:7); but instead, “Trembling and bewildered, the woman went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid” (v. 8). I talked about the short ending of Mark (vv. 1-8) vs. the long ending (vv. 1-8 + vv. 9-20) back in “NT Origins” and text criticism, so I’m not going to rehash all of that again. Instead, having gone through Mark I want to look at why this short ending actually fits better with the previous narrative and with the social historical context of the Gospel than the long ending does.
In terms of previous narrative, that the women say nothing to anyone (16:8b) fits well with Jesus’ previous imperatives to say nothing to anyone (Mark 1:34; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26, 30). In terms of the social historical context a few things can be said. First, Mark’s audience already knew how the story went: they knew that the disciples went every telling everyone about the resurrection (cf. the book of Acts). This would have been self-evident (i.e., to someone living in the 70s [AD]): how else do you think the Roman readers became Christians in the first place? But, while they knew what these women and the 11 disciples did after the resurrection, the short ending of Mark in v. 8 would still have felt somewhat jarring (as it still feels to us today). Why would Mark end his story in this abrupt way? I think because it serves as an invitation or a challenge to the reader/audience. Remember in the first Mark blog I talked about the background of Mark, viz., Roman persecution. The Roman Empire had begun to persecute Christians, e.g., just prior to the writing of Mark, Peter and Paul had been martyred. So, given the situation for these Christians living in Rome—the capital of the Empire—would it have been an easy thing to share their faith with others? Let’s face it, under easy, breezy conditions it’s difficult to share about Jesus with unbelievers! Mark tells us that the women were afraid to share the good news about Jesus with anybody—and he ends it at that. Herein lies the implicit invitation or challenge to the original audience: are you (Christians living in Rome) going to follow suit (of the women of the story)? Because of the threats of persecution, are you going to follow their example and say nothing to anyone? I actually think that this represents a pretty pastorally sensitive way to challenge a community in crisis to share their faith despite threats of personal security. That’s Mark’s Gospel in a nutshell.
Let me conclude our look at Mark with a brief overview of some themes. The first and most obvious theme is his Christology—i.e., Mark’s view of whom he believed Jesus to be. For Mark Jesus is the Son of God in the obvious sense: he possesses divine authority (e.g., he could do miracles), he is a royal figure (e.g., the “king of the Jews/Israel”), and the scriptures spoke of him. But Jesus is also the Son of God in a not so obvious sense, viz., he is the suffering servant—the one who came from God to suffer and die on the cross.
Another theme for Mark is discipleship. Here, Mark shows that Jesus’ followers will suffer like Jesus—that Jesus, being the Suffering Servant/Messiah, serves as a paradigm for his followers in terms of the suffering they will experience as his followers. Also, the context for discipleship is hope: while Jesus’ twelve disciples were often dimwitted and slow to believe, from the audience’s post AD 70 perspective, they know that the disciples eventually got it right in the end. So there’s hope for the rest of us folks, too.
Another important theme (as I’ve previously mentioned) is the verbal proclamation of the good news of Jesus. Jesus’ followers ought to be committed—even during times of religious persecution—to proclaiming who Jesus is and what he did.
Next up: we’ll move from the first Gospel chronologically to the first Gospel canonically: Matthew.