Reliving The Passion #5

Mark 14:1–2

It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.”

The story starts right here. Here, suddenly, Mark locks his Gospel into time.

In one sense, everything heretofore has been preliminary to the crucial event of Jesus’ passion. We’ve learned who Jesus is (but not completely, since he’s been coy about his messianic identity and many have erred through the ages in picturing him). We’ve heard his teachings (but words without action make no story, and his parabolic method of teaching has left many hearing without understanding after all). We’ve watched his miracles, fine little stories in themselves (but these have grown fewer the closer he’s come to Jerusalem, and Jesus himself has diminished their importance by making more of forgiving than of healing paralytics.)

There’s more than this, the first thirteen chapters imply: You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Indeed, if those chapters were all we had from Mark, we’d have a wonder-worker, a charismatic rabbi, a list of ethical lessons, a minor political pest in history—and an enigma. Jesus may have been remarkable, but not essentially different from other notable figures in human memory: no radical revelation of God, no savior of humankind.

The core story starts right here.

Throughout his Gospel until this passage, Mark has been vague about historical time; the time references that join one episode to another have been altogether internal, closed inside the Gospel itself. The events of Jesus’ ministry happen “in those days.” Which days? Don’t know. What time of year? Once or twice we can figure a harvest; besides that, he doesn’t say. When things move swiftly, Mark says “immediately.” More slowly, they occur “after some days” or “on the same day” or “after six days.”

When Jesus journeys from Galilee to Jerusalem, all time references are to that journey: “As he was setting out on his journey, a man…”; “they were on the road…”; “as he was leaving Jericho…”; “and when he drew near Jerusalem…” There is the persistent sense of motion in these references. The trip becomes dreadfully significant, foreshadows something momentous at its end, and in this way Mark gives the journey a discrete, nearly serpentine life of its own. But when did it take place? Don’t know. What was the rest of the world doing then? Can’t tell. What time of year was it? He doesn’t say.

There’s an odd timeless quality to the appearing and presence of Jesus, and then to his progress toward Jerusalem. Jesus in history is like a dream in waking reality: nearly mythic, strangely untouchable.

But suddenly all that changes.

Look: now it’s “two days before the Passover.” Suddenly we know precisely the time of year and we can see the rest of the world; we know what the people are doing. Suddenly Jesus is rooted very much in time, terribly touchable, dangerously historical. We grow tense and attentive. A new thing is happening! It’s happening within the calendar of human days: Wednesday, the thirteenth day of the month called Nisan. This is no myth, no legend, no mere lesson or instructive biography. This is the story Mark intended to tell from the beginning. This is the “something else,” revelation, the profounder identity of Jesus: the Savior!

Mark’s canny device (of saving till now the link between actual time and his Gospel) wakes us heart and soul to the central event of that Gospel, without which there is no Gospel at all. Listen! Listen! The story is starting right now…

Jesus:

Forgive me for making much of what’s minor in your story, diminishing the important thing. I’ve demanded miracles, healings, benefits for myself. O Lord, raise the cross as the central beam of my whole life once again!

Amen.