Mark: God's Wisdom and the Riddle of Christ

Jesus was God's wisdom incarnate and his teachings and actions were filled with riddles and irony. Jesus' riddles can awaken our stunted imaginations and draw us deeper into the character and life of his loving Father. Jesus disciples find him asleep on a boat, save us. They did not see Jesus' deeper meaning of him dying for humanity. Jonah is also found sleeping on a ship and he saves them by throwing himself overboard to what he thought was his death but turned into a kind of resurrection.

Jesus says his followers will be baptized in the waters and rivers of the Spirit of God. Like the first creation where the waters rise up, so Jesus is living water to those who will drink from him. The Gospel of Mark is about multiple healings of blind people as God wants to lift all of vulnerable humanity out of the swamp of spiritual blindness. As Israel listened to Moses with radiance glory, at the transfiguration, God speaks to Jesus disciples to listen to him as Jesus radiated with the glory of God.

Mark's Gospel starts his gospel out with the baptism of Jesus where the verb "torn" is the only place used in the gospels as in Isaiah 64:1 were Isaiah cries for God to tear open the heavens and come down to Israel. Mark's gospel is God's answer to Isaiah's cry for God to come and rule over Israel again. There is also this purifying judgment in Mark where he speaks of Isaiah but also alludes to the messenger preparing the way for the Messiah in Malachi as God purifies his people.

Mark reads Israel's story figurally as God radical love for Israel and all people. Some of us are bad interpreters of riddles and we miss in Mark's apocalyptic vision in chapter 13 is not about cosmic annihilation but rather the restoration of Israel. This morphs into the restoration of all things in Luke, Paul, and John's apocalyptic vision which the reader often misses.

The climax of the Jesus story is his crucifixion and vindication. When Jesus tells the parable of the wicked tenants in chapter 12, there are echoes and riddles to disclose in this parable. When the wicked tenants say "come, let us kill him" (Mk.12:7) this echoes back to the sacrifice of Isaac, the murder of a vineyard's son where death is not the final word. Or how about the story of Joseph plotting to kill their brother who used the exact same language of murdering him (Gen.37:20). Again, this figurative resurrection of Joseph foreshadows Jesus' fate.

What the Hell?

The word "hell" actually does not show up in the original Greek Septuagint Bible. It is an English translation from the Greek words, Hades, Tartaroo, and Genhena. If you want to see how bad our English translations are with the word 'Hell,' check out how many times it is used in different translations and then you will start to see the problem.

The message - 56 times

King James - 54 times

New King James - 32 times

New Living Translation  -  19 times

New International - 14 times

New American Standard - 13 times


Any Questions?

The Rich Man, Lazarus, and Jonah Stories

"The chasm between "heaven" and "hell" in this story does not seem infinite. The rich man, though dead, is not beyond the reach of love. All he needs is for someone naked and alone to seek him out in hell---a loving emissary of the naked God, come to liberate him from his own internal prison."
- Doug Frank  (A Gentler God, p.302)

"Jesus once treated a crowd that had gathered around him to these cryptic words: "This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Ninevah, so the human son will be to this generation (Luke 11:29-30).

How does Jonah point to Jesus? Perhaps by spending three days in Sheol and then returning----a human son who goes to hell and back. When Jonah finally meets the Ninevites and warns them about God's judgment, he speaks with the conviction of one who has experienced that judgment----not as condemnation, but as salvation. He knows that hell's eternity is not literally eternal, and those who find themselves alone in their sufferings there are not literally alone.

It will be a cold day in hell before evangelical preachers use the story of Jonah to explain that "eternal" flames are not without end and that Jesus is present in hell. But large sectors of the Christian church have kept alive the strange idea that Jesus went to hell to put and end to its tortures."
- Doug Frank, pp.309-310).

Jewish Midrash as an Invitation to Conversation

The church has not taught the faithful how to read comparative stories in order to form their faith. Have you noticed there are two creation stories noting their similarities and differences? Even the names of God in the original text are different. What about three versions of the ten commandments (Duet.5; Ex.20; & Ex.34)? Some of these promises from God are unconditional and some are conditional.

How do you hold onto that the Lord is a "God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression of sin" (Ex.34:6-7), and also ascribe the idea that "if you seek (God), he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will abandon you forever" (1 Chron.28:9).

God's Word invites us into a conversation with competing ideas and stories. Some Christians will focus on one story and others on an another but what do these stories tell us about God? What circumstances may be behind the words to divergent audiences? Do we silence the dialogue by picking and choosing who we want to listen to? How does the conversation change or progress in the light of God's final revelation---Jesus?

New Books Coming Out in 2019 That Look Promising:

Castelo, Daniel & Wall, Robert W. The
          Marks of Scripture: Rethinking the
          Nature of the Bible (Baker Books,
          Feb. 2019)

Enns, Peter. How the Bible Actually Works

         (HarperOne, Feb. 2019)

Hawk, Daniel L. The Violence of the

          Biblical God (Eerdmans, Jan. 2019)

Levine, Amy-Jill. Jesus for Atheists: Why

           He Still Matters in Our Secular
           World (HarperOne, Mar. 2019)

Rohr, Richard. The Universal Christ: How

           a Forgotten Reality Can Change
           Everything We See, Hope For, and
           Believe (Convergent Books,
           Mar. 2019)

Work, Telford. Jesus—The End and the

           Beginning: Tracing the
           Christ-Shaped Nature of
           Everything (Baker, Jan. 2019)

And God Separated the Light from the Darkness

"The Holy Spirit fills the heart with illumination to unite ourselves with Jesus Christ and to live a life in Christ. A person can be very religious and still be filled with darkness, we become cruel, destructive, full of hatred for others, full of malice and convinced that we are absolutely right and the rest of the world is absolutely wrong. Light and darkness both stand together until the end. But even our darkness with yield to the light of Christ's love and glory will burn like an everlasting fire.

In the beginning God separated the light from the darkness. The meaning of this is like the meaning of knowledge of good and evil. Let our lives be consecrated to acquire light and cast our darkness from our own hearts and our own minds. Our self-centeredness, all our prejudices, our ill will, our evil feelings towards others and all of those things that constitute this spiritual darkness. The presence of Christ within us is what separates the light from the darkness in us."

(excerpts from Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The Mirror of Scripture: The Old Testament is About You)