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Bible Juices: Mark, Overview and 1:10-11
🕑 Added 2024-01-22 17:21:23 +0000 UTCGENERAL OVERVIEW
There are four gospels in the New Testament which tell the story of the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Mark is currently believed to be earliest gospel of the four, because it is shorter and more ambiguous in many points, where the other gospels expand on the same stories and make distinct moral lessons from them. Mark is my favorite gospel, in part because of this ambiguity - its succinct writing style leaves much to the imagination, like a Harold Pinter play. Moreso than the other gospels, Jesus comes across as a rabbinic sage, rebuking and issuing challenging spiritual lessons to his disciples, which they rarely understand. The miraculous details of his life are told in matter-of-fact miniature, and many points which would later become essential doctrine to the Christian church - his status as the sole son of God, even his resurrection - are cloaked in an ambiguity which gives the gospel a highly literary feel, rather than didactic.
Rather than attempt any sort of comprehensive overview of the text, each week I’ll be expounding on a verse or set of verses that catch my interest.
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Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:10-11)
One man's speech is a rapid stream; the other's, simple and artless. (Zen koan)
After a spiritual cleansing, an abrupt vision of a deeper truth. In eastern traditions this mortal realm is considered to be all maya, illusion. In Hebrew the word for world, ‘olam’, is linked to the root A-L-M, meaning hidden. God is hidden within the elements of this world like a game of hide and seek, masking his closeness and presence behind the vastness of the sky, cloaking a constant quantum chatter within a universe of solid particles. This solidity of the borders of daily life breaks down, reveals itself as illusory, flexible, improvised, in certain times - times of patience, of desperation, of transition.
A rabbi on his deathbed pointed at a support beam in his room and asked his son, “Do you see that beam?” His son said, “I do.” The rabbi said, “All I see is the word of God holding up the house.” The sages tell us that God made the world, as seen in Genesis 1, with his ten utterances - “let there be light!”, for starters - and that these utterances were not only the start of the world but the continuous preservation of it. God is continually speaking the world into being; were God to stop speaking, the world would not be, and would never have been. As Jesus breaks the surface of the water, he suddenly experiences the world without the veil of maya that deceives human eyes, falling into that utterance of divine energy. Modern translations say, “A voice came from heaven”; a more exact manifestation of the Greek might be, “a voice was becoming from heaven” - a steady stream of speech, manifesting itself at last to the ear.
Inside that utterance, two things: a message of unconditional love, and the presence of something like a body, warm and feathered. The voice of the father cries out in joy and approval; the mother hen nestles her child silently. The job of being human is already done, and not yet begun. Jesus is tasked not with saving a nation but with being himself, the simplest and hardest of endeavors.
Comments
Greylyn Morningstar
"The simplest and hardest of endeavors." Really beautifully said. I'm looking forward to the rest of this series.
Christian Wilkens
idk
Luka Buchanan
a beautiful choice of verse for our first bible juice! if anyone wants some other fascinating gospel-inspired music, the Mountain Goats’ 2009 folk/indie rock album The Life of the World to Come is something of a concept album, with each track being inspired by/centred around particular verses from the new testament. not dissimilar to certain religious undertones in CSH’s discog, TLotWtC (re)contextualises biblical characters as outcasts, heretics, the lonely & damned. i also read a certain parallel narrative of escaping childhood abuse into it. anyway, this Mark verse reminds me of a song from this album, ‘1 John 4:16’: “and if the clouds are gathering, it’s just to point the way / to an afternoon I spent with you, long ago and far away.” i love that even in these landscapes of profound, boundless empathy, which feels intimate and loving - like that image of a mother hen, that you mentioned, Will - there is still a sense of grand or sublime power: the way heaven tears open for the Spirit in this verse. i love that imagery. the sky literally tearing open. is there not an element of fear (perhaps Mark’s) in that imagery? of total submission? i just adore biblical imagery like this that recalls a sense of very human submission to divinity - it’s very old testament. at least, i see it as a ‘submission’. intimate, not without fear, but with unconditional love. juicy stuff
lois
LMFAO
Avery Atencio
this is so interesting!! you have a unique perspective of scripture and i loved hearing you speak on it! i relate a lot to the religious themes in your music and it's exciting to hear your interpretation of the scripture that inspired you! i'm excited for the rest of your readings :)
I'm curious about that bit with the rabbi and his son - where did you get that from? This is an interesting post; your writing is lovely as usual, but it's taking me a few reads to connect everything together.
taya!
i never explored religion before, my parents just told me to choose or do whatever i please so it’s quite nice seeing a new aspect I’ve never seen before. thank you will!!
oddtrovert
is will christian
wren
this is so wonderful im so excited to listen
Cameron Parker
A Q&A of bible questions would be cool for people who are at square 1 when it comes to studying it. Even if it was just a one time thing! I know for me personally I know very little about it and even getting an understand of some foundational ideas would be cool.
Cameron Oviatt
i love this so much, growing up religiously but being more of an outcast bc of the way i was and then finding out my favorite musician is religious, who i already related to so much.
peter gee chuck
love this
jp
Really looking forward to more of this, grew up religious but abandoned it in angst in HS, been interested in learning more about it all from my now more agnostic viewpoint, great stuff!!
Knives
i would love if you recorded audiobooks
Thom Pyle
no offence king but your hat makes it look like you're preaching this gospel to the natives
charles!!!
omg the pilgrim fit is back
