Beginnings can be abrupt. Our minds tend to search, often in vain, for the cause or the reason for a movement when, in truth, movements are frequently more the product of a confluence of causes or reasons rather than attributable to just one.
Something similar can be said of endings, as well. This appears to be the framework we are faced with in the Gospel of Mark -- a narrative with an abrupt beginning and an equally abrupt ending. I must admit there is something "dissatisfying" about this arrangement. The other gospel writers sensed it, which is why they include things like birth narratives to soften the abruptness of the Jesus Movement. Other readers of Mark sensed it, which is why they added on to the abrupt ending of this text in later generations.
In order to see the provocative, even scandalous, nature of this abrupt movement described in Mark, we must peel back all the centuries of pious veneer that have influenced our experience of the story. We must move beyond the 2,000 years of the rationale, "of course," to the originating question, "why?" which would have been one of the animating questions that pulled in Mark's readers from the start. The reason why we rely on the "of course" type of thinking is because the alternative makes us uneasy. The alternative is a demonstrably different philosophical, even metaphysical, attitude that assigns just as much importance to change as it does order. When we speak of God as the creator of the universe, or even when we use the language of God as father, we are referring to God as the source and even the sustainer of order.
Stability. Reliability. Predictability. Rationality. These are the character traits of the God of all creation. By contrast, the theologian John Cobb would claim that God is not only the source of order, but also the "basic source of unrest in the universe" ("Process Theology," 59). That is, God put the system together and God shakes it up from time to time. This is what it means to be the God of the law (i.e., order) and the prophets (i.e., the critique of order and the call for change). This is where the beginning words of Mark point us.
"The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1 NRSV). This declaration tells us two interesting things. First, it suggests the coming of Jesus as the beginning of a movement. Such things can appear to be abrupt, at least to us. Why now? Why does God decide that out of all the times God could have intervened in history, this is the opportune time? As Isaiah 40:13 asks, "Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him?"
We should resist the easy answer here. Movements are rarely considered opportune when they begin. This was no less true of the Jesus Movement than it was for the Civil Rights Movement or the LGBT Movement. We may sympathize. We may think someone should address the injustice. We may even think that we ourselves should become involved, but often it is just not the right time.
This was the kind of spirit Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed in his "Letter from the Birmingham City Jail." A good number of people, possibly even a majority, told him they believed his cause to be right and just. It was just not the right time to start pushing for such social change. Yet, as King points out, "not now" always translates into "never." Movements, whether they are divinely ordained or not, seldom, if ever, occur at the opportune time. Moreover, as with any true movement, the outcome is not fixed. One biblical scholar, Adela Yarbro Collins, wrote of this passage, "The narrative as a whole is open-ended, and important predictions and promises remain unfulfilled when the account ends" (Mark, 131).
Second, the opening statement in Mark suggests a subtle, yet important, shift in the Christian movement at the time of Mark's writing: the Jesus who is "good news" has become the "good news" about Jesus. To put it another way: Jesus as an event, as in the letters of Paul, is itself good news. Jesus as the vehicle -- the conduit -- for the proclamation makes the message good news. Jesus as the content -- the bearer -- of the proclamation in himself, as portrayed in the Gospels, is also a way to construe good news. This is the funny way movements work at times. We look for a "face" for it, especially when we have a difficult time understanding it. Yet, when we would settle easily into making Jesus the face of God's movement, the writer of the Gospel calls us to see something far greater at work.
Mark wants to ground this larger movement in the prophetic history of God's work through creation. Although technically a mistake, Mark's invocation of Isaiah is meant to remind us that movements are the result(s) of a confluence of prior events that may not make an impression upon us before they occur in our midst. (The mistake is that the entire quotation is not from Isaiah. The first half is from Malachi 3. The second half is from Isaiah 40.)
This movement we encounter in today's text stands out because it comes to us in the wilderness. As a topographic metaphor, the wilderness is that place outside of civilization. It is that place on the fringes. The wilderness stands for what is untamed by civilization, what is outside of the structures and machinations of human beings. When God speaks, often it is outside of the noble confines of the stained-glass edifice. This is what Mark is attempting to tell us about how God works. God's movement is often abrupt and unsettling rather than predictable and settling.
Editor's Note: ON Scripture is a series of Christian scripture commentaries produced in collaboration with Odyssey Networks. Each week pastors from around the country will approach the lectionary text of the week through the lens of current events, providing a religious voice that is both pastoral and prophetic.
Joel S. Baden: The Problem With Rationalizing the Bible
Mark 1:1-8 NIV - John the Baptist Prepares the Way - The - Bible ...
oremus Bible Browser : Mark 1:1-8
Second Sunday of Advent, Year B, RCL
Ministry of John the Baptist (Mark 1:1-8) - Analysis and Commentary
There was a schism in the Church. Constantine had adopted Christianity. He was afraid this schism would hurt the stability of the Empire. So he called for a universal council of b.ishops.
He did NOT decide who was at the council. Each church decided who was its bishop and it was the bishops who met.
Constantine did not make the decisions of the council. The bishops did. They decided what the canon of the NT was, not the Emperor.
Finally most of the NT was already agreed by consensus of usage over the previous 200 years. All the bishops did was decide which books that weren't universally used would make it in and which wouldn't. The four gospels and the writings of Paul were already universally used. There were no other gospels that were even contenders at the council. The biggest book that was considered that didn't make it in was the Didache. The most controversail book that did make it in was the Revelation.
But any material you've found about Thomas being excluded from the canon wasn't talking about the council but the process of the canon being formed in the various churches by usage. We know that by the mid 2nd Century it was universal practice in the various churches to have the four gospels and only the four gospels. We have, for instance, Irenaeus of Lyons in the 2nd Century said the Church has four gospels in the same way there are four quarters to the earth.
Pr Chris
the information and documentation they had found proved that they had been deceived, that God and His Son Jesus are real.And they turned their life around for God.Being blinded by your own made up thoughts, is not a blessing.
knowing the truth about life, about God, is.The truth will set you free from all these lies.It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. I would say you need to simply ask God to show you- He is real,to start with and mean it in your heart.God turn this nation around for your Glory!
Sid Roth ( Its Supernatural ) DYSTR/TBN / God give you understanding.
But not the most documented.
What IS verifiable and falsifiablÂÂÂe is that many people and organizatiÂÂÂons that hang on to god-supersÂÂÂtitions are barging into our lives by attempting to impose their superstitiÂÂÂon on society though laws that are anti-womenÂÂÂ, anti-homosÂÂÂexual, anti-same sex marriage, anti-contrÂÂÂaceptionÂ, anti-stem cell research, anti-healtÂÂÂhcare, anti-womenÂÂÂ's right to choose, ...
What that protects is exactly the OPPRESSION of one superstition on everyone hanging onto a different superstition or none at all.
It is unconscionable that superstitions feel persecuted and discriminated against the moment the government says that they have no right to oppress anybody else.
Why is this so difficult to understand. Freedom OF and FROM superstition is not complicated at all.
Mark to me is the Gospel as is Mathew, Luke and John
What it means to me only, because I am the one who must transcend to the Son of GOD to resurrect to GOD or Cosmic Consciousnees
If you read a KJV "red letters" ONLY, about 20 minutes of time, you will see what the New Testament says he said. Read that about 3 or 4 time and then the non-red-letterd are much more understandable. At least for me. To know Thyself that enters and leaves this earth PERFECT. The only perfection for me is the time in between entry and exist.
I think possibly this is the only time for personal adjustment of Conscious Awareness be it 1 life or many
SOME years ago an Australian scriptwriter and former critic of the Bible confessed: "For the first time in my life I did what is normally a reporter's first duty: checked my facts. . . . And I was appalled, because what I was reading [in the Gospel accounts] was not legend and it was not naturalistic fiction. It was reporting. First and second-hand accounts of extraordinary events . . . Reporting has a taste, and that taste is in the Gospels."
Similarly, E. M. Blaiklock, professor of classics at Auckland University, argued: "I claim to be an historian. My approach to the Classics is historical. And I tell you that the evidence for the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ is better authenticated than most of the facts of ancient history."
The Gospels - History or Myth?
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20000515/article_02.htm
True Christians are neutral in politics... (Jesus said his kingdom was not part of this world... and our individual hearts is what is important - not forcing others to believe the same as we do...)
Also, people with good hearts were DRAWN to Jesus' message (there was no forcing or brow-beating etc...).
So when someone kindly knocks on your door and asks if you want to learn more... You can simply say "YES" or "NO"... there is no forcing - just a friendly offer...
Can You Make the World a Better Place?
"Politics cannot begin to put the connecting tissue back in society. It is ill-equipped to reconstruct traditional moral beliefs. The best policies cannot recover courtship or marriage, make fathers responsible for their children, restore shock or shame where it once existed . . . The vast majority of moral problems that trouble us cannot be eradicated by law."
http://www.watchtower.org/e/20011015/article_01.htm
As to whether or not this is true I am not able to say, but it does give another way of looking at the gospels. We are so used to seeing them as part of one big book that we forget that they were originally written for a specific purpose at a particular place and time.
As is Christ's to me 2000 years ago.
Amazing how such intellectual wizards read a Modern Time book and say I liked it or I don't like it or I agree or disagree
For me it has always been what was said not who said it. Of course time enumeral tells me if my Yogi say's it, it is always truth and spirit and not some Flesh intellecutalization. May be why the words of Christ have lasted until at least the KJV because they are "Red Letters"
Parmahansa Yogananda
I just documented what you just stated, from a different place and time... did you say it or not? I even made it red letter for our time/place by adding quotes...did you say it or not?