The first words we here Jesus speak, following his baptism and subsequent temptation, are "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel." Jesus then begins recruiting people in the area to follow him, and they immediately drop what they are doing to do so. The author of Mark must be portraying Jesus as very compelling or charismatic to be that convincing to strangers. Christ then teaches with "authority" and proceeds to cast an "unclean spirit" out of a man there in the synagogue. He sure has a lot of impressive skills in this first section! He then heals a woman, again adding to what we know of his robust set of skills/attributes. Jesus then goes off to pray by himself, and I found this need for solitude after accomplishing a lot to be relatable.
As another person presents himself to be healed by Jesus, Jesus is "moved with compassion" before healing the man. This adds an emotional component to his character. Christ then tells the healed man to "See thou say nothing to any man: but go thy way" which is a bit mysterious. In a subsequent story, Jesus forgives a person's sins before healing them. This seems to imply that Jesus has something of a divine nature. He then eats "with publicans and sinners" which seems to make our protagonist a pretty inclusive, non-judgmental guy. In these sections, Jesus teaches in a mix of clever short stories and memorable short lines of wisdom. I really enjoy his manner of speaking.
Certain religious officials, the Pharisees, keep following Jesus around and accusing him of things and he always has a solid, wise (though sometimes a bit confusing) answer. He then tells a series of longer parables on subjects like the kingdom of God. Jesus gets on a boat and it starts storming. He then makes the storm stop with just words which is pretty awesome. Later, he sends his 12 core followers out to preach and gives them the power to also heal people.
Jesus feeds a large crowd by turning a little bit of food into a lot of food, which is an awesome and practical miracle. He then walks on water towards a boat that his disciples are in, a famous miracle that again shows his great power. I really appreciated the line of teaching towards the end of the reading for today where Jesus says "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?". The final section of today's portion recounts the miracle of Christ's transfiguration, which is a mystical and somewhat strange miracle.
Jesus and Minas Coptic icon, from the 6th or 7th century.
Artist unknown. Source: Wikimedia
Bibliography: Readings from the Gospel of Mark unit in the UN-Textbook. Story source: King James Bible (1611).
No comments:
Post a Comment