This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. As Jesus often does, the private conversation gives way to summoning the crowd and the offer of a larger, summary teaching.
34 He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.
This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. In yesterday’s post after Peter had proclaimed Jesus as “the Messiah,” ever the teacher, Jesus continues in that role to describe what it is that the Messiah must do. Verse 31 marks a new beginning. Prior to this the emphasis has been on Jesus’ authority and power as he cast out demons, healed diseases, commanded the waves, and more. Now the stress will be on his own suffering and death – and the disciples’ responsibility to follow. The lesson is brief and to the point: He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days. In its own way, this one verse plays out the remainder of Mark’s gospel. There are four things needed for Jesus to be obedient to his Father’s desire that humanity be redeemed: Jesus must: Continue reading
This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. As the storyline reaches Caesarea Philippi, we arrive at the first major climax of Mark’s Gospel – the second being the Passion and Crucifixion. Until now, Mark has been revealing who Jesus is in the mighty deeds he has done. Along with this revelation, Mark has also reported Jesus’ reluctance to have people believe in him only because of those wondrous deeds. This Caesarea Philippi passage comes to the heart of the matter. Jesus now says explicitly that his way is a way of suffering. The way of the Messiah is the way of the cross: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (8:34) – that is perhaps getting ahead of ourselves. Continue reading
“Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” (Luke 6:12)
What is it about Scripture and mountains? Certainly they hold significant symbolic and spiritual importance in many biblical narratives. These mountain settings often serve as locations for divine encounters, revelations, and important moments in the biblical narrative.They are places where individuals are tested, receive divine instructions, or experience significant events that shape the course of their lives and the history of God’s people. Consider this short list: Continue reading
This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. In yesterday’s post we provided a summary of the events/encounters in Mark chapter 6 and 7. All this leads to Caesarea Philippi and one of the pivotal moments in the gospel of Mark. The description of the coming periscope is oddly stated in the Greek, “into the villages of Caesarea Philippi.” Previously Mark had described it as a region (5:1, 17; 7:24, 31; 8:10). In any case, the region was twenty-five miles north of the Sea of Galilee. The area was built up by Herod Philip to serve as the capital of his tetrarchy. It is perhaps noteworthy that the region is two days’ journey north. Its northern location likely served to separate Jesus and his disciples from the crowds that attended his every move earlier in the ministry. Continue reading
This coming Sunday, the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, is taken from Mark 8:27-35. The account fits into a series of narratives that make one thing clear: Jesus’ running debate with the Pharisees and the scribes from Jerusalem continues unabated – even continuing from before last Sunday’s gospel. Here is an outline of some recent Markan pericopes (stories). Continue reading
This coming Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. The language and the story support the conclusion that at one time the man was hearing-enabled and used a working vocabulary. Had he been deaf from the beginning there would not have been a post-healing note: “he spoke plainly.” Which perhaps makes his situation even more poignant, one which calls out to our compassion. We can each imagine having hearing and communication taken away from us, severing the social fabric of our lives. We all know some people that are gifted and have “ a way with words.” Pheme Perkins [613] shares some final thoughts on hearing and speech. Continue reading
This coming Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. In Mark’s narration there is a common element to Jesus’ encounter with Jairus, the deaf man, and others – he often takes the people aside, away from the crowds. Lane [266-67] comments on this: “He [Jesus] regarded the personal relationship between himself and the sick to be of supreme importance, and in this instance all of his actions are intelligible in the light of the necessity of communicating with a person who had learned to be passive in life. Through touch and the use of spittle Jesus entered into the mental world of the man and gained his confidence.” Continue reading
This coming Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. As noted previously, Jesus’ arrival in the “district of the Decapolis,” while technically Gentile territory, even in Jesus’ time was the home to many Jewish communities. The Decapolis (literally, “Ten Towns”) figures quite prominently in the ministry of Jesus (Mark 5:20, Matt 4:25, Luke 8:26). While many of the cities’ names would be foreign to our modern English ear (Gadara, Abila, etc.), one of the city names would be quite familiar: Philadelphia. Continue reading
This coming Sunday we celebrate the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time. This section of Mark has three stories that are often treated separately, not always proclaimed as Sunday gospels, and as such the thread that connects these stories can be lost. The stories are the healing of the Syro-Phoenician woman’s child, the healing of the deaf/mute person and the restoration of sight to a blind person. Continue reading
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