The Sheep Will Be Scattered

The Sheep Will Be Scattered

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels.  To say Mark moves along quickly is an understatement.  Throughout Mark, Jesus teaches, both his disciples and the people of Israel, but for the most part he is quickly traveling from place to place, healing, exorcising demons, feeding the multitudes and even raising the dead.  To get a sense of the speed of Mark, let’s take a look at the word “immediately”.  This word is found only four times in the Old Testament.  In the Gospels alone, “immediately” is found fifty-eight times, forty-one of those instances in the Gospel of Mark.  The Gospel of Mark is the Gospel of action.

This pace though is slowed down dramatically for the story of Jesus’ passion.  The Passion is in fact the climax of the Gospel.  A more slower, deliberate pace is necessary and most appropriate.  

Lectionary readings are usually limited to a few sentences.  The Bible packs a lot into each word so it doesn’t take too much to have meaning. It is more than enough to read these short passages of Gods Word and attempt to interpret them in our individual ways.  This time of year though, this is not the case.  The lectionary reading for Palm Sunday is a little more than a few sentences.  There is even two choices of a reading, both from the Gospel of Mark. The one I have chosen is Mark 14:1-15:47.  The reading becomes manageable when one breaks it down into four sections.  Still there is a great deal here.

In the first section two acts both ritual, foretell the Passion of the Son of God.  The first act is anointing of Jesus by an unidentified woman.  Anointing was usually reserved  as an official declaration of a king or priest.  Jesus interprets it differently.   He regards the anointing as an act of preparing his body for burial.  Those present though speak out of the cost of the perfume.  Judas is the most vocal, and this is a precursor of the true nature of Judas. 

The second act or ritual was the Passover, the festival that marks  Israel’s deliverance from their Egyptian slavery.  Though there is mention of a Passover lamb, leading many to believe of a connection to the crucifixion, the timing is in fact off.  Most likely the Lords Supper described in Mark is a Passover Seder. The Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples have, dovetails perfectly into a new sacrament Jesus shows his disciples. An ancient ritual is changed and becomes personal.  “This is my body, this is my blood”, hint to the disciples and to us, that the death of Jesus is salvation for those that follow Gods Son.

The second section of the reading sees Jesus and the disciples departing to the Mount of Olives.  Peter and the other disciples are adamant of their support of Jesus, their thinking even borders on using physical force to protect their teacher.  Jesus though foresaw all of the disciples abandoning him.  Jesus was and is fully Divine and fully human. We see the human side in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus speaks of being deeply grieved and Mark uses the words “distressed and agitated”. Very human qualities.  The human side of Jesus does not want to die.  He has grown very fond of his disciples and will miss them all terribly.  But he also knows as the Son of God that his Father’s will must be done.  There is a purpose to this. He closes his prayer with; “Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Judas then arrives with the mob.  A brief scuffle ensues which Jesus quickly puts a stop to.  This combined with the disciples fleeing into the night, shows how little they they understand their teacher. Mark paints a very dark picture of the disciples.  Though they have followed Jesus for three years, they understand little.  

The trials of Jesus, one Roman and one Jewish make up the third section of our reading.  The Jewish trial of Jesus was both irregular and illegal.  It is not difficult to see the illegality of the trial.  In fact scholars have found ten reasons this is so.  Perhaps the most glaring are the following; Jesus was arrested illegally, the Sanhedrin illegally proceeded to hold its trial before sunrise and the indictments against Jesus were false or unproven.  This illegal trial, thrown together by the Sanhedrin quickly falls apart.  When the high priest finds he is unable to even get a response from Jesus to his questions he tries one last tactic. He essentially asks Jesus to confess.  Jesus does confess or acknowledges that yes, he is the Messiah.  Mind you it is on his terms and defined by his ministry and his message.

Sandwiched between the Jewish trial and the Roman trial, is Peter’s trial.  Three times he is asked about his relationship with Jesus.  Three times he denies knowing Jesus.  It is on the third denial when Peter invokes God as a witness that he hears the cock crow. Just what Jesus had prophesied. This hits Peter like a ton of bricks.  He is in agony when he realizes he has just betrayed his teacher.  

Since the Jewish council did not have the authority to execute prisoners, the council needed the Romans to do that.  Hence the trial before Pilate. He even offers the crowd the release of Jesus or another prisoner. A practise that was offered during Passover.  The crowd, filled with Sanhedrin shills pick the other prisoner, one named Barabbas. Ironically the name Barabbas means “Son of Abba” or “Son of the father”. Pilate comes across as weak, manipulated by the Jewish religious elite. Careful reading of the Gospels and historical information (in particular Josephus) paints a different picture of the Roman prefect. Pilate was in truth cunning, conniving and callous.  His calling Jesus “King of the Jews” was not reverence for Jesus, he was in fact ridiculing any nationalistic aspirations the Jews may have had.  The fact remains, Pilate had the power as prefect or governor to release Jesus, but did not. 

The fourth and final section of the reading tells us of the gruesome details of Jesus’s humiliation, torture and crucifixion.  Upon the sentence of Pilate, Jesus is turned over to the Roman guard where he is whipped and humiliated.  In the procession to Golgotha, Jesus’s wounds were so severe that Simon of Cyrene had to carry the cross beam. Once crucified Jesus did not last long.  Some victims of crucifixion lasted for days, Jesus lasted for six hours.  Mark tells us Jesus shouts out the words; “My God, my God why have you forsaken me”?  Anguished words of abandonment.  Yet with those words the huge temple curtain is torn in two, perhaps telling us, access to the presence of God is now open for all.  

The coming of the Sabbath means there is an urgency in burying Jesus.  Jospeh of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin shows his true colours as a sympathizer of Jesus.  He asks for the body of Jesus.  Mark tells us of the presence of women at both the crucifixion and the burial.  Jospeh is the only other sympathetic follower present.  The male disciples are absent.

The reading closes with the body of Jesus laid out on a cold stone of his tomb.

It is difficult to look at this reading in the same manner we look at other readings throughout the year.  For the people present at Jesus’s arrest, trial and crucifixion, the fact that their teacher is now lying in a tomb had to have been devastating.  For three years they have followed him, they listened to his every word, saw his healings, heard his teachings.  They have accepted the fact that he is the Messiah. Yet, he is dead. Laying in a tomb.  

If this were the final words of Mark, the New Testament we read wouldn’t exist.  The man called Saul who became Paul and guided a new faith, wouldn’t be known.  The disciples would not have carried on the work of Jesus but would have disappeared from history. 

Lent is a time when we attempt to remove ourselves from the world.  We pray, meditate and ask ourselves if anything in this world is taking us away from God.  Theologians and great people of Christianity love to analyze every word of the Bible.  I don’t think you can do this with this reading. There is not much analyzing to do here.  This man who claimed to be the Son of God is now dead. His disciples and followers have fled.  This is the end.

Or is it?