As I suggested in the last issue, it is critical that we consider the context in which the Gospel of Mark was written. One of the evident themes in Mark’s Gospel is the Second Coming of Christ. For Mark and the early Christian community the return of Christ was imminent. Was the imminent return of Christ a post-Easter development or something that goes back to Jesus Himself?
This issue is complex. It is clear from Paul’s letters that he and his communities thought the second coming could be near. But was that because Jesus said so or at least taught that God would dramatically intervene in an unmistakable way in the very near future? Or was it because of their conviction that in Jesus something dramatically new and decisive had happened and that its culmination must therefore be close at hand? Is imminent eschatology an extension of what Jesus taught? Or is it the product of early Christian testimony, enthusiasm, desire and conviction.
To return to the historical context of Mark’s gospel, it is both easy and plausible to imagine that events around 70 CE generated an intensified expectation among Jews and Christian Jews that the end might indeed be near. God would soon intervene dramatically. Mark was a wartime gospel – a war between the empire that ruled his world and the people from whom Jesus came and who had been given the promises of God. Maybe this was the end that would make all things new.
Consider for just a moment how many times during the past 50 or 60 years we have hear people within our society declare that the “End” of human life on earth is near. Almost always, when there is serious struggle and anxiety in our world, people believe the end of the world is at hand. This has been a characteristic of Christianity. Partly it really expresses our hope that God might take charge of human life and make it different.
As you read Mark, keep in mind that it is the first gospel – the first extended telling of the story of Jesus put into writing. Seek to read it without what you have heard about Jesus shaping what you hear. Imagine that this is the way the story of Jesus was told in a Christ-community around the year 70. What Matthew and Luke add to Mark some decades later is not wrong. Nor is John’s very different telling of the story of Jesus wrong. Rather, in each case, we hear different authors and communities telling the story. Mark is the first.
I have always highlighted the differences that we find in the Gospel stories. I do this to reinforce the idea that the Gospels should not be taken literally and merely imparting historical information. The Gospels are meant to bring us to a real belief in Christ as God incarnate.