This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark: 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. 20 But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. It is verse 18 that gives modern day Christians pause – not the second half: “They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” Disciples healed in the course of their evangelism. First, Peter and John healed a lame beggar (Acts 3:1–10). Soon after, the Holy Spirit became so present that apparently even people who crossed Peter’s shadow were healed (Acts 5:12–16). Later, the Holy Spirit validated Paul’s ministry by healing those who touched an apron or handkerchief that Paul had touched (Acts 19:11–12). Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark: “15 He said to them, ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. 18 They will pick up serpents [with their hands], and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.’ 19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. 20 But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. Although virtually all of today’s scholars of the Bible believe that Mark had a purpose in ending his Gospel abruptly at 16:8, this was not always the case. Some first- or second-century Christians tried to “complete” his Gospel drama by adding scenes that they thought Mark should have added himself. Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark.
The shorter ending – This ending is found after Mk 16:8 before the Longer Ending (vv. 9-20) in four seventh-to-ninth-century Greek manuscripts as well as in one Old Latin version, where it appears alone without the Longer Ending: Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark. The title might strike you as an odd entry, but the gospel of Mark has several “endings.” That probably needs some explanation. In the paragraphs that follow we will briefly discuss the different endings. Continue reading
This coming Sunday in the Solemnity of the Ascension taken from the Gospel of Mark (Lectionary Cycle B). The Ascension of Jesus celebrates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. Based on the account of Acts 1:3 that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples for 40 days after the Resurrection: “He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” After these days, we read that Jesus was taken up to heaven. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter. “This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18) Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter. “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Verse 11 pushes beyond the imagery of Ezekiel 34 in its reference to the shepherd’s willingness to lay down his life for the sheep. A possible OT antecedent may lie in the messianic oracle of Zech 13:7-9, in which the death of the shepherd is required so that the flock can be purified. Verse 11 may also have points of contact with Palestinian shepherding practices; a good shepherd may indeed have to give up his life to prevent the decimation of his flock by wild animals. Yet the reference to the shepherd laying down his life is cast in a distinctive Johannine idiom, so that the reader of the Gospel cannot help hearing in Jesus’ words an allusion to his own death. Verses 15 and 17-18 will make those associations with the death of Jesus explicit, but at this point Jesus stays within the metaphor of shepherding. He works to build the interpretive frame of reference before he turns more directly to his own life and death. Continue reading
This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter. Just before our gospel reading, in v.8, Jesus says: “All who came are thieves and robbers.” There cannot be a sweeping rejection of all OT figures – especially given that Jesus has already made references to Abraham and Moses as positive witnesses to him (5:45-46; 8:56). Jesus is referring to the kings of Israel condemned in Ezekiel 34, but also current day leaders of Israel, who treated the man born blind so badly. Of such leaders, Jesus says, the sheep did not listen to them. The man born blind certainly did not listen to them, but he listened to Jesus. Those who belong to Jesus, the true shepherd, hear his voice and not those of the false shepherds Continue reading
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