Perhaps it is a sign of aging, but I don’t like the pace of many movies today, especially action movies. They seem to be one superhuman crisis after another. Everything is loud, fast, and jarring. People survive the impossible and do the impossible. Of course, in the Marvel universe of movies the people doing the impossible are superheroes. But that still doesn’t make for an enjoyable story. As for me, I like the pace of the original Star Wars movies, for example. There was some plot development, some humor, a couple high drama action scenes, and a bit of romance to round it all out.
We begin reading Mark’s gospel today. It is surprising that I like it as much as I do because its pace is even faster than today’s action movies. It is one crisis after another and another and another. Scenes shift every few seconds. Try this some time. Sit down and read Mark’s gospel with a stopwatch. Time how long it takes you to read before the scene changes. You’ll probably find that as you read the scenes change several times a minute. There are nine scenes in Mark 1, plus the introduction in verses 1-3. Which, by the way adds words in our translation to what Mark actually wrote to help us read it easier.
Mark’s gospel doesn’t start off with, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” It is literally, “Genesis, of the gospel Jesus Christ, God’s Son.” And then we’re right into a quote from Isaiah.
You’d think this gospel was written in an age of text messages. It’s like a story being told on X, formerly Twitter. There are no developed sermons like in Matthew. There are no long stories or parables like in Luke. And there are no developed discourses like in John.
One of Mark’s most-often used words is “immediately”. Mark uses it 27 times in only 16 chapters. That’s the highest concentration of the use of the word immediately in all of scripture.
There are no soft edges in Mark’s gospel. It’s like trying to order food from a street vendor in New York City. Know what you want. Be strong. Talk loud. Keep it simple. Rudeness is expected.
Every time you turn around in Mark’s gospel something is getting torn apart, drown, silenced, cast out, or killed. Yes, not even the makers of action movies could keep up with the pace of Mark!
Mark’s gospel is also confusing and deeply mysterious. Much of Mark’s gospel has biblical scholars guessing. We’ll talk about that some Sunday in the future because in the last several years a whole bunch of answers have been emerging. For today we’re going to focus on just one of the nine scenes that flew before us. We’re going to look at Jesus’ baptism.
In that scene, like so many in Mark’s gospel, the translators are smoothing over the roughness and abruptness. We easily picture the scene as we hear it from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. There it’s a serene scene where Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan River. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the Holy Spirit descends onto Jesus like a dove. A voice then speaks from heaven. Not in Mark!
First, the scene takes only two verses. As Jesus is coming up out of the water the heavens are ripped apart and the Spirit comes rocketing down as a pigeon and hits Jesus so hard it actually goes INTO him. It does not alight upon him as a gentle dove settling on his shoulder. Then from the ripped apart heavens an unidentified voice announces, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I have willed the good.”
Now, everything happening fast and often with violence. But don’t think Mark is just a careless writer of high adventure. We’ll talk about this later in the gospel, but in what we read today Mark has also crafted numerous parallels with the end of the story. For now, just know that while Mark may be fast and somewhat violent, it is also very skillfully crafted.
But, to our scene. The heavens are ripped apart. There is no going back. There is no fixing this. Think of violently ripping a piece of cloth in half. You can’t just go back and fix it. The damage is done. No repair can cover it. It isn’t a coincidence at all in Mark’s gospel that he uses the exact same words to talk about the curtain in the temple being ripped in two at the death of Jesus. In both scenes, the normal dividing line between God and humanity has been irreparably changed. A new age has begun.
In the remaining scenes in Mark 1 we start to see what the new age is like. Jesus goes throughout Galilee proclaiming that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near. Jesus’ message is very simple. Everyone is invited into God’s reign of grace. This is completely open.
Jesus goes along the Sea of Galilee to recruit his first followers. You’d expect a new world order to begin by recruiting in the ivy league schools of the day and the head-hunting titans of business and politics. But Jesus does his recruiting among common laborers like fishermen.
You’d expect Jesus to head to Rome to make appointments with the religious and political leaders of the day to introduce God’s inbreaking kingdom. But Jesus doesn’t go there. Jesus doesn’t even head to Jerusalem to talk to the Jewish leadership. Jesus goes to the synagogue in Capernaum. Who’d ever heard of Capernaum?!? You don’t start world-ripping movement in Capernaum! The rest of the chapter is Jesus ministering to ordinary people in obscure places. Yes, it’s all very faced paced. But it’s happening in nowhere-ville.
Maybe we can understand it this way. Imagine what it would be like if Marvel set the latest Spiderman movie to happen in… Penn Yan!
Huh?
That tells us a lot about what God’s new reign is like. Do not make the mistake of thinking that because you do not have super powers you cannot do things that rip apart the fabric of this world.
Here is the fabric of this world. It’s been almost 2000 years since Mark wrote but some things never change:
-Those who have continue to have. Those who do not have will not get.
-The best way to move up in this world is to rub shoulders with the rich and powerful.
-Form friendships and relationships with people who are advantageous to you. There’s no point in spending time with people who aren’t an asset to you.
-Along with that – it’s perfectly okay to be generous and charitable to those beneath you, but leverage your charitable giving to improve your image.
-Work hard to protect what you have. Once it’s lost you’ll have to fight to get it back.
-Your value as a person is measured by what you can do.
The list could go on.
Live a life in God’s kingdom:
-work hard,
-be patient,
-ask for help when you need it and give help wherever you can,
-be willing to do those tasks that are boring and mundane,
-consistently choose that which is healthy rather than that which is convenient,
-and make your personal decisions with an eye towards the community rather than yourself…
Do those seemingly simple obscure things, even in places where they don’t feel like they are significant at all- and you are ripping the ways of this world to pieces. God’s kingdom is coming roaring into this world through you.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you are doing God’s work effectively you’ll be living the dynamics of Mark’s gospel. That’s the opposite of what Mark is trying to say! Mark is raising up the ordinary and obscure in his gospel because that is exactly what God is doing.
We are mere hours from the end of 2023. 2024 lay before us. But by God, the all-important work of God’s kingdom is our past, our present, and our future. Through us, and through ways that probably seem too insignificant to notice, God rips apart the things that destroy. In their place God brings about goodness and wholeness for all. We are invited into that new kingdom now and for forever.
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