Mark's Passion 1

Next week is Palm Sunday. It is also Passion Sunday. In the lectionary of the church, the Sunday before Easter we read about the crucifixion. For most people, that is when they hear the story. Of course, in our tradition we celebrate Maundy/Holy Thursday and Good Friday, so on those days we read the sections again.

There is a three year cycles on the Gospel readings, alternating Matthew, Mark and Luke. John finds his way in during different times of the year spread out through the three year cycle. This year we read frmo Mark.

Next Sunday we will read Mark's passion account. I thought this week I would reflect on some of the content to provide a little insight into those chapters we will be reading, culminating in a look at his account of Easter Sunday.

Mark 14:1 begins with the statement that it was two days before the Passover. The time frame is crucial. In the Old Testament 'redemption' refers, first and foremost, to the rescue from slavery in Egypt. The Passover meal is a celebration through which later generations participate in that blessed event. The connection of the Jesus story and the Passover story is theologically vital. The decisioin is made to arrest Jesus "by stealth and kill him." The death of Jesus is, at one level, a political act. The work of the Jewish leaders to do Him in is as mundane and evil as all other such acts.

In Bethaty, Jesus is at table in the house of Simon the leper (nice moniker). There are parallels to the story in John's Gospel set in the house of Lazarus. [It is hard to figure all the details of the timeline of Jesus' last days. The narratives are as concerned about the meaning of the events as they are the exact chronology.] At any rate the key point is the woman annoints Jesus for His burial. In Mark's Gospel there are constant predictions of Jesus' passion and death. Jesus instructs the disciples repeatedly and in detail about what awaits Him. This is another prediction. While the main argument inside the story is about the waste of expensive ointment and Jesus' reminder that we will always have the poor to care for; there is another element hidden from contemporary eyes. This is a woman who has enterred the realm of men. In ancient Jewish culture this should not have happened. She did not belong there. Putting aside our own culture (where mixing is considered mandatory) to hear the Gospel one must note this element.

Without any time reference, we are told "then" Judas went to betray Jesus. The role of Judas is much debated, as is his name (literally where the word Jew comes from). Many people see him as the victim, some go so far as to say he is a literary fiction to indicate that the Jewish people have rejected their Messiah. The issue of Judas' free will comes to the fore and I have probably been asked about Judas more than any other person in the Scripture. I will comment on this later, when he comes up again in the story. For now, we have the new setting. The enemies of Jesus now have an insider working with them.

Then Jesus sends some disciples to the city to prepare. They are told to look for "a man carrying a jar of water" and I have never taken note of this (except for the special knowledge Jesus displays). However, in reading the Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (by Malina & Rohrbaugh) there is a note that water is a woman's job. The next day, reading Genesis, I read the story of Rebekah meeting Abraham's servant and giving him water and watering his camels. In our culture a man is supposed to do such things for a woman. The bible is full of stories of women at the watering hole. So why emphasize this? A woman and now a man are portrayed (without comment) as being in the wrong place. A man invading the realm of women to get water would have broken a cultural norm.

I think, one element of the narrative is the introduction of the idea of a person being where they should not be, a reversal of expectations. This is capped in the cross. The (God)man on the cross is innocent. He is not supposed to be among sinners (just as the woman and man are not supposed to be where they are). Perhaps too subtle, and a misreading on my part. It just is interesting.

I will conclude with the gathering and Jesus statement "one of you will betray me." Once more, unexpected, a friend will betray. The new "family" of Jesus, the one group with whom He can be at peace, is now a dangerous place. The disciples all say "not me?" with uncertainty. The Gospel portrays the apostles as a group that "never gets it" and this may be the worst example of their denseness.  The Jesus says of the betrayer, "it would have been better for him not to have been born." Whatever else one might speculate on Judas, these words of Jesus are stunning and clear. Judas is no victim, nor is he misunderstood. He is the lowest of the low, a person who betrays the Master.

We do well to ponder the complexity of the multiple relationships and the concrete reality of this story. As God in Christ plugs Himself into our human reality, we need to plug ourselves into the reality of the Gospel. We need to read, pray over and ponder the multiple threads. We need to come to a deeper appreciation and make a more energized commitmen to respond in faith and love.