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FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?

Lk 2:41-52

G. B. CAIRD

To illustrate the thirty years of growth which led to the climax of his baptism, Luke records but one incident.

At the age of twelve a Jewish boy became bar mitzvah, a son of the Law, able to accept for himself the responsibilities and obligations to which his parents had committed him by the rite of circumcision. For Jesus this occasion was celebrated by a family visit to Jerusalem for the Passover. When the seven-day festival was over, his parents started for home along with a caravan of other Galilean pilgrims, not realizing that Jesus was left behind.

The great city had laid its charm upon him, and he was taking advantage of his opportunities to learn from the rabbis in the temple courts, so utterly engrossed in the exciting new world of intellectual adventure as to be oblivious to the consternation he was causing.

To Mary's mild rebuke he replied in words of profound significance for our understanding of his later career. His parents should have known where to look for him - in his Father's house. This description of the temple betokens that the doctrine of the divine fatherhood, long a tenet of Israel's faith, had become for him an intimate personal experience.

Besides becoming a bar mitzvah he had become intensely aware of being Son of God, and henceforth he was to live his life not merely under the Law but under the higher authority of his filial consciousness.

Luke's Gospel is more than the story of what Jesus did and taught: it is also the story of what Jesus experienced. He was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews has it, 'the pioneer of our salvation', blazing a new trail for others to follow. It was his calling to explore to the uttermost what it means to call God 'Father'.

4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb.

Lk 1: 39-45

From G. B. CAIRD

When Elizabeth and Mary met, the unborn herald leaped for joy to greet his unborn Lord. We cannot but remember that in later life John was by no means certain that Jesus was 'the Coming One' whose way he had been sent to prepare (7:18). This is idealized history, in which Luke is describing not the actual historical relationship between the two men but the prenatal relationship which existed in the predestining purpose of God.

We must exercise a similar .caution with regard to the Magnificat of Mary. Our inclination is to agree with Elizabeth and call Mary the most blessed among women. But another woman who called Mary blessed met with a rebuke from Jesus (11:27-28), which is also a rebuke to all sentimentality. Mary was not blessed because of any special understanding that she had for the mission of her son; for she and the rest of her family understood him as little as John did (2:50; cf.  Mark 3:21. 31-35). Her blessedness consisted simply in this, that, having been chosen for special service and having received an amazing promise, she believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.

3rd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

The crowds asked John the Baptist, "What should we do?"

Lk 3:10-18

From G. B. CAIRD

The religious leaders ignored John (7:30), but for others, including the most unlikely people, his preaching had an irresistible fascination. To each class he spelled out in simple terms the meaning of repentance. 

• To ordinary, selfish folk, blind to the needs of others because of their preoccupation with security, 
• to tax collectors whose trade was a form of licensed extortion, 
• to soldiers accustomed to line their pockets by intimidation and blackmail, he gave the same injunction: 

renounce your besetting sin. 

When we compare such teaching with the profundity of the teaching of Jesus, we can see that John's passionate urgency was not matched by any penetrating analysis of man's moral problem. There were depths which John, for all his heroic stature, was unqualified to explore.

At least John was aware of his own limitations. His task was to create an immense tide of messianic expectation, and then to make way for the Messiah. His baptism with water was but a prelude to another baptism. It is, however, open to question whether John regarded this other baptism as a promise or a threat. According to Mark, the coming baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8); and, if this is what John had in mind, he was echoing the ancient prophecy that on his restored people God would bestow the gift of the Spirit (Ezek. 3:27, Isa. 44:3, Joel 2:28).

According to Q, the source Luke is here following, the baptism was to be with the Holy Spirit and with fire; and this may be taken either as a hendiadys - 'with the sacred flame of the Spirit' - or as a description of a dual baptism, the gracious gift for the penitent and the rigors of retribution for the obdurate. 

A third possibility is that what John really predicted was a baptism of fire (i.e. judgment), and that the versions given by Mark and Q are the result of reinterpretation by the Christian Church in the light of the experience of the apostles at Pentecost, when the Spirit was seen to descend in tongues of flame. The theory fits well with John’s repeated emphasis on a fiery judgment, and with the fact that twelve of his disciples professed never to have heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2); and a prediction of this kind seems to be reflected in a saying of Jesus in which his death is described as a fire that he has been sent to kindle and a baptism that he must undergo (12:49f).

Even if this third view is adopted, however, it must not be thought that John was a prophet of unrelieved gloom. This would be to do less than justice to his winnowing metaphor. The ancient method of winnowing was to toss shovelfuls of mixed grain and chaff into the air, so that the wind might blow away the chaff, while the grain fell back on the threshing floor. The primary purpose of the winnower was not to dispose of the chaff, but to gather the wheat into his granary. In the same way, the Messiah would come to gather to himself the new Israel over which he was to reign as King, and it is for this reason that Luke can describe even the fulminations of John as a preaching of good news.

2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT (C)

A voice of one crying out in the desert:"Prepare the way of the Lord."

Lk 3:1-6

WILLIAM BARCLAY

To Luke the emergence of John the Baptist was one of the hinges on which history turned. So much so is that the case that he dates it in no fewer than six different ways.

• Tiberius was the successor of Augustus and therefore the second of the Roman emperors. As early as A.D. 11 or 12 Augustus had made him his colleague in the imperial power but did not become sole emperor until A.D. 14. The fifteenth year of his reign would therefore be A.D. 28-29. Luke begins by setting the emergence of John against a world background, the ground of the Roman Empire.

 The next three dates Luke gives are connected with the political organization of Palestine. The title tetrarch literally means governor of a fourth part. In such provinces as Thessaly and Galatia, which were divided into four sections or areas, the governor of each part was known as a tetrarch: but later the word widened its meaning and came to mean the governor of any part. Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. after the reign of about forty years. He divided his kingdom between three of his sons and in the first instance the Romans approved the decision.

• (a) To Herod Antipas were left Galilee and Peraea. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 39 and therefore Jesus' life was lived in Herod's reign and very largely in Herod's dominions in Galilee.
• (b) To Herod Philip were left Ituraea and Trachonitis. He reigned from 4 B.C. to A.D. 33. Caesarea Philippi was called after him and was actually built by him.
• (c) To Archelaus were left Judaea, Samaria and Edom. He was a thoroughly bad king. The Jews in the end actually petitioned Rome for his removal; and Rome, impatient of the continual troubles in Judaea, installed a procurator or governor. That is how the Romans came directly to rule Judaea. At this time Pilate, who was in power from A.D. 25 until A.D. 37, was Roman governor. So in this one sentence Luke gives us a panoramic view of the division of the kingdom which had once belonged to Herod the Great.

 Of Lysanias we know practically nothing.

Having dealt with the world situation and the Palestinian political situation, Luke turns to the religious situation and dates John's emergence as being in the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. 

There never at any time were two high-priests at one time. What then does Luke mean by giving these two names. The high-priest was at one and the same time the civil and the religious head of the community. In the old days office of high-priest had been hereditary and for life. But with the coming of the Romans rule the office was the object of all kinds of intrigue. The result was that between 37 B.C. and A.D. 26 there were no fewer than twenty-eight different high-priests. 

Now Annas was actually high-priest from A.D. 7 until A.D. 14. He was therefore at this time out of office; but he was succeeded by no fewer than four of his sons. And Caiaphas was his son-in-law. Therefore, although Caiaphas was the reigning high-priest, Annas was the power behind the throne. That is in fact why Jesus was brought first to hirn after his arrest (John 18: 13), although at that time he was not in office. Luke associates his name with Caiaphas because, although Caiaphas was the actual high-priest, Annas was still the most influential priestly figure in the land.

Verses 4-6 are a quotation from Isaiah 40: 3-5. 

When a king proposed to tour a part of his dominions in the east, he sent a courier before him to tell the people to prepare the roads. So John is regarded as the courier of the King. But the preparation on which he insisted was a preparation of heart and of life. “The King is coming,” he said , “Mend not your roads, but your lives.” There is laid on everyone of us the duty to make his life fit for the King to see.

1st Sunday of Advent (C)

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 

Lk 21:25-28. 34-36 

Lk 21:25-28 

This passage concerns the end of the ‘time of the Gentiles’ and the judgment of mankind.

Lk resumes his narration of the cosmic signs, but now introduces a Christological dimension: Jesus, the victorious Son of Man, is in control of the forces of evil whether these are wars (v. 9) or sea (v. 25). He is the judge.

vv. 25-26. There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

Luke’s apocalyptic description, based on Mk 13:34, has been influenced by Is 13:10 and Ps 65. More clearly, too, the whole world is involved (v. 26).

The powers of heaven are the heavenly bodies, identified with the gods of oriental and Greco-Roman religion and regarded by Jews as angelic beings created by God and allowed by him to preside over the destinies of pagan nations (Dt 32:8; Is 24:21, 34:1-4). Thus, shaking these powers denotes not so much the ruin of the physical universe as the overthrow of pagan imperial supremacy.

v. 27. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

The fulfillment of Dn 7:13f. Lk sets aside Mk 13:27.

In place of ‘the clouds of heaven’, which Mark derived fom Dn 7:13, Luke has simply ‘cloud’. It is an alteration which establishes a link between the glorious advent of Christ and other events in the gospel story in which the same cloud of the divine presence is mentioned (9:34).

v. 28. But when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

This verse looks back to the signs of v. 25f. The cosmic events that will terrify the nations will indicate to the followers of Christ that the time of persecution is ending. Their ‘redemption’ (a Pauline word, cf. Rm 3:24; 8:23; Eph 1:7) is drawing near.

These signs before the End do not contradict 21:34f. The End will be preceded by signs, but yet the Son of Man will appear like lightning.

This verse bursts with a message of confidence and hope for the disciples. In contrast to the cowards actions of other men and women (vv. 26-27), the faithful disciples stand erect with heads held high to greet their faithful judge, Jesus, Son of Man (cf. 9:26; 12:9).

Lk 21:34-36

Lk has replaced the passage Mk 13:33-37 with an admonition to watchfulness (cf. 1 Thess 5:1-11), one influenced by his realization of the delay of the Parousia.

By placing the parable of the fig tree (Mk 13:28-31; Lk 21:29-31) after the description of the coming of the Son of Man, Mark has shown that he understood it to be a warning to be ready for the imminent Parousia. By itself, however, the parable suggests quite a different application: for it could easily have been spoken by Jesus as a warning to be ready for the disaster which was overhanging Jerusalem and which would on day be, quite literally, ‘at the very gates’ (Mk 13:29). Luke has followed Mark’s interpretation and has eliminated any possible ambiguity by introducing the words “the kingdom of God”.

As in Mark’s Gospel, this parable is followed by a declaration that all things will be accomplished within a generation (Lk 21:32-33). Mark undoubtedly understood this prediction to include the Parousia, and he was writing at a date near enough to the time of Jesus to feel no embarrassment about such a prophecy. But Luke, writing fifteen to twenty years later, was in a different case. We should expect him to interpret the saying otherwise and there is every indication that he did so. For his discourse ends with instructions to the disciples to pray that they may have strength to escape ‘all these things’, and it is a reasonable assumption that for him ‘all things’ in v. 32 covered the same set of events as ‘all these things’ in v. 36. But from the Parousia and the final consummation of the kingdom there could be no escape, nor can we imagine the disciples of Jesus being taught to pray for any. The disciples were taught to pray that they might survive the preliminary crises of persecution and the siege of Jerusalem. These, according to Luke, were the events which Jesus declared would happen before a generation has passed away. 

CHRIST THE KING (B)

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33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

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32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.

Mk 12:41-44

This beautiful story is PERHAPS best explained as originally a Jewish parable which Jesus took over in his teaching and which was later transformed into an incident in his life. A number of quite close parallels are known from both pagan and Jewish sources, most notably the story in Leviticus Rabba of a priest who scorned a woman's offering of a handful of flour. Overnight he received in a vision the rebuke: “Despise her not; it is as though she offered her life.”

The present setting of the story may in part be due simply to the catchword widow (vv. 40 and 42), but a more apt position for it could hardly be imagined. Not only does it form a fitting contrast to the previous section (in contrast to the bad scribes, who "eat" widows' property, we have now the tale of the good widow and her sacrifice), but with its teaching that the true gift is to give 'everything we have' (v. 44) it sums up what has gone before in the Gospel and makes a superb transition to the story of how Jesus ‘gave everything’ for men.

v. 41. He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums.

The details are even more imprecise than usual, especially as there is some uncertainty about what is meant by the treasury.

Elsewhere the Greek word is used for the rooms or cells in which the temple valuables or deposits were stored (e.g. 1 Macc. 14:49, 2 Macc. 3:6, etc.). Here it is generally taken to refer to some kind of receptacle for offerings.

According to the Mishnah there were thirteen such receptacles (known from their shape as 'trumpets') placed round the walls of the court of women. Other suggestions, however, have been made, particularly with a view to explaining how Jesus could have known what the rich people and the poor widow gave. But even such suggestions do not explain how he knew what the widow gave was her whole livelihood (v. 44).

It is probably simplest to suppose that a story related by Jesus (on the basis of a current Jewish parable) has been transformed into a story about him. In that case St Mark himself may have had no very clear idea what treasury was intended.

v. 42. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents.

Two small (copper) coins:

The Greek word (lepton) means ‘a tiny thing’ (cf. English 'mite') and was used for the smallest coin in circulation.

Worth a few cents:

Or ‘which make a penny’ (literally a quadrans). . St Mark transliterates the Latin word into Greek. The coin is often said to have circulated only in the West, and the inclusion of the explanation that the two lepta make a quadrans is held to point to Roman readers, who could not be expected to be familiar with the coinage of Palestine. However, there is evidence that the name was naturalized in Palestine through the Greek, and Cadbury shows that it is unsafe to deduce from this verse any conclusions about the Gospel's place of origin.

  

31st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

“Which is the first of all the commandments?”

Mk 12:28b-34

Taken from Nineham

v. 28. One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”

We know of a number of attempts by rabbis before and after the time of Our Lord, to sum up in the shortest possible form the fundamental principle, or principles, of the Law, the most famous being that of Hillel (c. 25 B.C.): 'What you yourself hate (to be done to you), do not do to your fellow; this is the whole law; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.' Cf. also Gal. 5:14 and Rom. 13:9.

But as Abrahams points out the aim of all such rabbinic attempts was to formulate the basic principle from which the rest of the Law could be deduced as a corollary (cf Matt. 22:40), not to isolate certain commandments as being vital, in contrast to others which were less important or could be ignored.

According to the rabbis, all the commandments must be kept (cf. James 2:10), and because the rabbinic formulations just described tended, despite their authors' intentions, to conflict with this principle, they became suspect and unpopular in many quarters. And Abrahams thinks that what the inquirer in our passage really wanted was 'an opinion as to whether Jesus did or did not share this fear of reducing the Law to fundamental rules'.

The answer he received was clearly entirely satisfactory to him as an orthodox Jew and for that reason we should not perhaps too easily assume that by formulating the ‘first of all commandments’ (v. 28) Jesus implied any more than contemporary rabbis implied by their formulations.

No doubt the importance of the episode from the standpoint of the Evangelist lay precisely in the fact that the Christian Church had drawn the inference which Judaism refused to draw, namely that provided the spirit of the Law, as thus summed up, were kept, all else might be ignored. But how far such an attitude went back in its entirety to Jesus is a further question, and one too far-reaching to be decided here (such. passages as Matt. 5:17-20, Luke 16:17, Matt. 23:23, and James 2:10 would have to be taken into account, as well as on the other side, Mark 7:19).

v. 29-30. Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The first part of the so-called Shemah (Deut. 6:4-9, 11:13-21 and Num 15:37-41) which every pious Jew recites daily and which played a great in late-Jewish piety and rabbinic discussion.

St Mark is the only Synoptist to include v. 29b, so it must remain doubtful whether the early Church saw in it the profound significance. Perhaps in a Gentile milieu, such as St Mark's, an emphasis on the strict monotheism of Christianity was particularly necessary; cf. 1 Cor. 8:5-6.

And with all your mind:

This does not occur in the Old Testament text, though “dianoia” (mind) is often used in LXX as an alternative translation for the Hebrew word here translated heart. The addition no doubt emphasizes the all-embracing character of the required response.

v. 31. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Strictly speaking the inquiry concerned only one commandment (v. 28); perhaps the two Old Testament passages are thought of as constituting a single supreme command.

Neighbor:

Love for one's neighbor is a complex concept. In Lev. 19:18, where the concept stands in contrast to 'taking vengeance or bearing any grudge' against one' neighbor, the idea is clearly of a tender regard for others and a promoting of their good, as active as our promotion of our own. Probably Jesus interpreted the command in the same sort of way, except that, whereas in Leviticus neighbor meant simply a fellow countryman, Jesus gave it the wider connotation it was generally taken to have in his time.

Whatever the meaning of the word in the original Leviticus passage, it seems clear that by Our Lord's time it was taken to include at any rate the resident aliens in Israel as well as the Israelites themselves; whether it was interpreted more widely still is disputed.

Christian commentators almost always assume, on the basis of Luke 10:29-37 that Our Lord here understood it in a completely unrestricted sense, but perhaps caution about this deserves to be considered.

A further point which is often stressed is the essential interrelatedness of the two commandments; true love of the neighbor springs from the love of God, and on the other hand there can be no true love of God which does not express itself in love of the neighbor. Wellhausen goes even further and sees the grounding of the whole matter in the monotheism proclaimed in v. 29b: 'Monotheism is no theory; it is a practical conviction; it is the spring of inward character and of our conduct to our neighbor. It is in other words, the motive of morality'.

vv. 32-34a. The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, ‘He is One and there is no other than he.’ And ‘to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself’ is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

These verses are found only in Mark and their presence produces the unusual result that the decisive saying of Jesus does not form the conclusion of the pericope. Those who think that in the original version of the story the decisive words were spoken by the scribe see in these verses a reminiscence of it, and they point out that Jesus' strong commendation in v. 34 would be most natural if the scribe had said something strikingly novel and bold. If we accept St Mark's version as the original one, perhaps the best explanation is that these verses were retained as driving home the complete identity of view between Jesus and this representative of orthodox Judaism.

Wellhausen comments: '(morality,) according to ... the scribe, belongs to the service of God and is the true way of worshipping him; it is of more value than all sacred actions which are specially rendered to God and are of no use to anyone else.'

Such ideas are by no means novel - cf. e.g. 1 Sam. 15:22 and Hos. 6:6; and there are rabbinic parallels. The words do not exclude ceremonies and sacrifice, and just how much they meant would have depended on the tone of voice in which they were uttered. Jesus clearly found them acceptable, though the precise terms of his answer raise a problem.

Taken at their face value they seem to represent the Kingdom as something already present. J. Weiss points out that there are other New Testament passages where we find the image of the kingdom as a goal towards which men must make their pilgrimage—some being neater to it than others. But he adds that does not alter the fact that in its basic idea, the kingdom of God is something which comes down to men from on high.

The present passage should not be pressed against the general impression of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom which St Mark gives. We cannot be sure that we are dealing with Jesus' precise words, and even if we are, they may easily mean: 'You come near to possessing the qualifications requisite for entry into the kingdom when it comes' .

Despite their negative form, the sense of Jesus' words is no doubt to stress the scribe's nearness to the kingdom and we probably should not ask what he still lacked which kept him from a still closer approach. If,  however, St Mark did have any such question in mind, no doubt his answer was that 'what is lacking is the acknowledgement of Jesus, imitation of him, arid admission to the company of his disciples (cf. Mark 10:21 and Matt. 11:11 // Luke 7:28).

29th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

 Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?

Mk 10:35-45

v. 37. They answered him, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.”

The positions on either side of a ruler or host were the most honorable.

In your glory:

St Matthew, probably rightly, takes this to refer to the future messianic kingdom (Matt. 20:21). If so, and the story is authentic, it perhaps points to a time when the disciples were expecting the imminent arrival of the kingdom.

But the request could envisage equally thrones of judgment (cf. Matt. 19:28, Luke 22:30) or the glories of the messianic feast (14:25) and we cannot rule out the possibility that the disciples expected Jesus on his arrival at Jerusalem to inaugurate a temporary earthly paradise and that the reference is to this.

vv. 38 – 39. Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We can.” Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.

As we have seen, there are a number of Old Testament passages which might have made the equation [cup and baptism = suffering] intelligible, and there is a second-century papyrus in which 'baptized' is used to mean 'overwhelmed with disasters'.

However, the Old Testament contains no really exact parallels, and the imagery here seems more likely to have originated with early Christians reflecting on Christ's life and death as a whole in the light of such sayings as 14:36 and Luke 12:50.  

In St Matthew's parallel version, 20:23, the reference to baptism is missing, and St Mark may have added it to his source to make the saying correspond more closely with the sacramental practice of the Church. The idea would be that, in the conditions of St Mark's day, to accept baptism and become a partaker of the eucharistic cup is to take a step which might well lead to martyrdom; let would-be converts count the cost!

As for the reason for the insertion of these verses into the original story, the usual assumption is that they were added at a time when the martyr deaths of the two apostles were giving rise to reflection in the Church. 'They were known to have been ambitious for high honor. Their wish is now fulfilled, but quite differently from the way they had intended ... and the actual terms of their request have been recast in such a way as to correspond with this fulfillment [i.e. they now ask only for pre-eminence in the next world]. The narrator, by making Jesus say you do not know what you are asking, means us to understand the apostles' request as an unconscious prophecy of their own death, but Jesus interpreted to them how it would be fulfilled' (J. Weiss).

This is a perfectly possible explanation, though it has to reckon with the difficulty that Christian tradition, while reporting the martyr death of James (Acts 12:2), ascribes to John a ripe old age and peaceful death at Ephesus. However, this tradition is not unanimous and may be inaccurate.

But the difficulty is avoided by the ingenious suggestion of Lohmeyer, who thinks that the verses were inserted in the course of controversies over the leadership of the early Church. In view of the way things had developed and of such a tradition as Matt. 16:18, it seemed impossible that James and John were meant to be the leaders. This passage was seen as evidence that this was in accordance with the will of Jesus. But though he had not been able to offer these two primacy in the Church, he had prophesied for them the honor of a martyr death very like his own. This interpretation is very much strengthened if we follow the MSS. which punctuate the end of v. 40 differently (allois instead of all'ois), so that it means: it has been prepared for others.

v. 45. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The Greek is a little stronger than R.S.V. suggests. The Son of man himself ... (who is by nature the greatest in the kingdom and therefore the example of what greatness in the kingdom implies).

A ransom:

The Greek word has a variety of meanings in the Greek Old Testament, among the most important: a monetary compensation paid for a crime (e.g. Num. 35:31-32), or for a life that would otherwise be forfeit (e.g. Exod. 21:30), the money paid for the release of a captive or slave (e.g. Lev. 25:51-52, Isa. 45:13), or the equivalent accepted instead of certain sacrifices (e.g. Num. 18:15).

The kindred verb and verbal noun (redeem, redemption) are used of God 'delivering' his people without any special emphasis on the idea of ransom in the narrow sense. In view of all that, it is probably wrong to press the word here as meaning more than 'means of deliverance' or 'redemption'.

For:

The Greek word (anti) normally means 'instead of'; 'in place of', and some commentators find that meaning here. The word 'suggests that in the act of deliverance "the many" not only benefit, but receive what they cannot effect'.

But there are passages where the word means no more than 'on behalf of' and it is doubtful how far we should press the more exact meaning.

Many:

A semitic use of the word which does riot necessarily envisage the exclusion of some.                

28TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

Mk 10:17-27

v. 17. As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The first phrase, by setting the incident in the context of a journey, provides a formal link with the surrounding material.

Good:

Such an address was quite contrary to the Jewish convention. As Lohmeyer says, it would almost have been tantamount to 'holy' or 'divine', and like the accompanying gestures would have seemed altogether too much for one whom the man thought of, after all, as no more than a Teacher (i.e. rabbi).

Life:

The kingdom of God to come'

Inherit:

Or 'gain entrance to' were current usage among the rabbis.

v. 18. Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?* No one is good but God alone.

Undeniably a very puzzling verse which has never been wholly satisfactorily explained; it has caused difficulty to Christian readers at least since the time of St Matthew, who felt obliged to alter it radically (Matt. 19:17).

The suggestion has often been made - e.g. by the Jewish scholar Montefiore - that the words testify to a sense of sin, or at any rate sinfulness, on the part of Jesus, but even if that were true, it would not explain how, or in what sense, the words came to be included by St Mark; for certainly he, and those from whom he got the tradition, believed in the sinlessness of Jesus.

How did they understand the words? One popular line of approach has been to stress that Jesus was looking at the matter from the questioner's point of view, and saying, in effect: '(Though I am good) you have no right to call me good, for, as far as you know, I am simply a man.' Though that puts the point too crudely, there is probably some truth in it, and, bearing in mind what was said about the word good in the last note, we shall 'perhaps get nearest the truth if we suppose that what alarmed and offended Jesus was the indiscriminate bandying about of divine or quasi-divine titles.

 Any serious religious quest must be based on the recognition that the one God is the sole norm and source of all goodness, even of the goodness of Jesus in the days of his flesh. It sorts well with this that Jesus immediately goes on to point the man to the Law as the expression of God's righteous will.

v. 19. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.’”

As shown in the exposition, Jesus did not suppose that the Law could supply the full answer to the man's question. His words are a challenge.

The commandments cited are a rough summary of the so-called 'Second Table' of the Ten Commandments, the Fifth Commandment being placed last, and the Tenth summarized in the words Do not defraud, perhaps because fraudulence is a special temptation of the rich. No doubt these commandments were meant to typify the Law of God as a whole, but it is perhaps characteristic of Jesus' emphasis that those actually quoted deal with man's duty to his neighbor.

v. 21. Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

Loved him:

That is the normal meaning of the Greek word (agapao), but here we should perhaps think rather of some definite outward gesture of affection - 'caressed him' or 'put his arms round him'.

Will have treasure in heaven:

The phrase is rabbinic, and so, in one sense, is the whole saying which precedes it. According to the rabbis, God would reward righteousness with treasure in heaven,

and in later Judaism almsgiving, for those who could afford it, come to be regarded as a - if not indeed the - principal ingredient of righteousness.

On the other hand, it is one thing to give regular alms out of one's income (no doubt the man did that already) and quite another to be asked to give up the sources of the income itself. And, as we have seen, even the latter demand does not stand by itself; it is the prelude to the further demand: come, follow me.

v. 24. The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

Some MSS. (the 'western text') have v. 25 before this verse, and this s probably the original order. The disciples' growing astonishment  (cf. vv. 24 with 26) then corresponds to the way Jesus' insistence on the difficulty of salvation grows and widens its scope. In the R.S.V. order, v. 25, referring only to the rich, is something of an anti-climax after e general statement of v. 24. If  R.S.V. order is right, the words for “a rich man” in v. 25 may be an interpolation, but there is no MS. authority for such a suggestion.

In v. 24 the western text includes the words relegated by R.S.V. to the margin. As the exposition has shown, they are a perfectly sound comment on the difficulties of the rich. If they are genuine, the passage as originally concerned exclusively with riches as a barrier to salvation, but a number of extremely important MSS., followed by the majority commentators, omit them, and R.S.V. is no doubt right in doing so.

v. 25. It is easier for a camel to pass through [the] eye of [a] needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Sayings of other Jewish teachers have survived which speak of the possibility of some vast object (e.g. an elephant) getting through the eye of a needle, so the comparison was clearly proverbial, and there is no substance in the suggestion that camel (camelos) is a mistake for amilos (' cable'), or for the medieval fancy that there was a gate in Jerusalem, known as the needle, through which a camel might just squeeze. The fact that such minimizing interpretations have been brought up is itself an eloquent comment on the passage! The expression is of course a hyperbole meant to be memorable by reason of its very grotesqueness, but it would be a mistake on that account to ignore the utterly serious truth it expresses.                ,

27th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife]. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.

Mk 10: 2-12 

v. 2. The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him.

Pharisees:

The reference to them is omitted by a number of important MSS., probably rightly. In that case the verb is an impersonal plural of the type so common in Mark, and we should translate: 'the question was put to him….'

Test:

The Greek word (peirazein) can mean simply to 'test' in the sense of seeking to elicit the truth about something or it can mean 'tempt', i.e. test in the hope of eliciting some damning admission. St Mark no doubt understood it here in the second sense. Jesus was to be brought into open conflict with the Law or discredited in the eyes of Herod. But just possibly the question which gave rise to the incident in its original form was a quite straightforward one designed to elicit Jesus' views on a much-debated question in contemporary ethics.

On the content of the question it will have been a particularly pertinent one in Rome, where divorce was easy and constantly occurred. But the wording suggests that in the present form of the question it originated in Jewish-Christian circles, for it does not seem to contemplate a woman divorcing her husband (contrast v. 12). This was possible according to Roman Law, but not according to Jewish Law.

v. 5. But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment.

Hardness of heart (sklerokardia):

Some commentators take “hard” here to mean 'rough' or 'coarse' and think of 'the rude nature which belongs to a, primitive civilization'. The implication then is that the words express a merciful concession for the woman's sake. But perhaps we should think rather of unteachableness, stubborn refusal to obey God's will as revealed in Genesis. The implication is that the Mosaic Law was in certain cases a kind of second best. The highest law could not, or would not, have been obeyed. So there was a concession made to human weakness or 'hardness'. The divorce enactment was not a law but a dispensation.

Did Jesus suppose that with his coming this dispensation lost all its validity, or did he think that where men - even the sons of the kingdom - failed to live up to the divine will in its fullness, some such dispensation was still the best way of dealing with the situation? It is difficult to say how far his view may have been influenced by his belief that this world of 'marrying and giving in marriage' had only a very short time to last (9:1). Much will depend on whether we regard vv. 11-12 as detailed legislation or whether we take it as a vivid way of expressing God's absolute will in this matter.

v. 7. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother [and be joined to his wife].

For this reason:

Refers in Gn. 2:4 to the woman's origin from Adam's rib, but by a piece of exegesis reminiscent of the rabbis Jesus makes it refer to something different - the fact (in Gn.1:27) that the human race was created from the beginning in two sexes. It was because God originally made them male and female that a man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two will become one flesh. There is reason to think that Gn. 1:7 was currently quoted in support of monogamy, as opposed to polygamy. But it appears to have been original to Jesus to see it as prohibiting divorce. His argument no doubt was that if marriage makes a man and his wife one flesh, it clearly creates a relationship between them as real and as indissoluble as that which binds a man to his relations by blood (v. 8b and cf; Gen. 29:14).

v. 9. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.

Man:

In antithesis to God, this could mean simply any human authority. But in fact is is no doubt the husband who is contemplated, for neither in Jewish nor in Roman law were the parties divorced by any extraneous authority. In Jewish Law the man divorced his wife, in Roman law either party could divorce the other.

vv. 11-12. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

St. Mark probably understood these verses simply as crystallizing in clear-cut terms the truths inherent in vv. 2-9, though strictly interpreted they add something new. To divorce your wife is a sin, but it is not adultery. If in addition to divorcing her, you marry another woman, then you add the sin of adultery to the sin of divorce.

26th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna 

Mk 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

From D. E. Nineham

v. 39. Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me.

It throws an interesting light on the contemporary outlook that Jesus is not represented as shocked or incredulous at the suggestion that his name could be used to effect cures in a semi-magical way unrelated to any personal knowledge of, or faith in, him.

v. 41. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

Because you belong to Christ:

Or “because you bear the name of Christ” and literally “in (the) name that you are Christ's” - a phrase as odd in Greek as it is in English. Because you are Christ's is Pauline terminology (cf. Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 1:12, 3:23; 2 Cor. 10:7). The word ‘Christ’ is nowhere else in the Gospels or Acts used as a proper name without the article. So it seems clear that in its present form the phrase must be the work of the early Church.

v. 42. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe [in me] to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”

A Roman form of punishment, though not quite unknown among the Jews. Great millstone is literally 'donkey millstone' and is usually explained as meaning a millstone turned by a donkey, as distinct from the lighter handmill served by a woman.

v. 43. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.

Gehenna (Hell):

Hell is a word with so many irrelevant associations that it is probably better to keep to the original word, ‘Gehenna’. This was a valley west of Jerusalem where at one time children were sacrificed to the god Moloch (2 Kings 23:10, Jer. 7:31, 19:5f, 32:35). After being desecrated by Josiah it came to be used as a refuse dump for Jerusalem, a fact which explains the imagery of worm and fire borrowed from Is. 66:24 in v. 48. The suggestion is of maggots preying on offal and fires perpetually smoldering for the destruction of refuse.

Because of all its bad associations, the Jewish imagination had come to picture Gehenna as the place of future torment for the wicked.

v. 48. Where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’

Whether, as many commentators believe, this addition to v. 47 is the work of St Mark or of the first compiler of the passage, or whether it goes back to Jesus himself, it is important to remember that it is not an original saying expressly designed to convey the Christian view about the fate of the 'lost' but a quotation of traditional language (Is. 66:24 - itself based on the imagery of the earthly Gehenna) designed to call up an image of utter horror.

25th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all. 

Mk 9:30-37

v. 31. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.”

Handed over to men:

The Greek word handed over (paradidonai) can be used of handing a person over to the authorities for arrest or imprisonment, so there may be a reference here to Judas' act of betrayal. 

But the word was a favorite one with Paul, and in view of such passages as Rom. 8:32 or 4:25 (literally 'was delivered for our transgressions'), we should probably find here the: furthe: idea that the whole Passion of Jesus had its ultimate ground in God’s initiative and his concern for the salvation of men. If so, the play on words “Son of man ... men” is no doubt deliberate. In a fallen world men had become so hostile to God that when, as the culmination of his plans for their salvation, he sent to them the Man, their Savior and ultimate model, they regarded and treated him as their worst enemy. Men and the Son of man stood on opposite sides in God's eschatological battle against the powers of evil.

SECOND PREDICTION OF THE PASSION

 The second of Jesus' three solemn predictions of the sufferings in store for him (cf. 8:31 and 10:32-34). 

St Mark sets it in the context of a secret journey through Galilee, which he appears to have regarded as the beginning of Jesus' final journey to Jerusalem (cf. 9:33, 10:1, and 10:46), but here, as in the case of the other two predictions, there is no really essential connection between the prediction and the surrounding events.

What St Mark has in fact done - with great skill - is to distribute the three predictions through the narrative in a way that has been aptly compared to the solemn tolling of a minute bell [a bell tolled at intervals of a minute, as to give notice of a death or a funeral] as the party makes its way from Mount Hermon in the far north towards Jerusalem in the south.

The predictions thus serve as a commentary revealing the significance of the accompanying events and also serve to assure us that, as was to be expected of the Son of God, Jesus had no illusions about the destiny in store for him, and was not surprised by it when it overtook him.

v. 33. They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, he began to ask them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

The question presupposes that Jesus knows by supernatural insight what had been going on in the disciples' minds; so explicitly Luke 9:47, but contrast Matt. 18:1.

v. 34. But they remained silent. They had been discussing among themselves on the way who was the greatest.

There is some evidence that the rabbis were in the habit of discussing who would be the greatest in the new age. If the disciples' discussion is historical it must be seen in that context, but the verse reads much more like a free composition of the Evangelist designed to set the scene for what follows.

v. 37. “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.

In my name:

Either simply 'for my sake' or 'on the ground of my name', i.e. because of his connection with me. Some commentators take the meaning to be 'because my name has been invoked over him (in baptism)' - cf. James 2:7.

THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT GREATNESS

 Literally translated, the words mean: 'if anyone wants to be great he will be last' The words should not be interpreted as a threat of what will happen at the Judgment to those who have displayed the temper of ambition, but as an indication of how really to become great, and of the essence of true greatness—that it consists in service. 

'That is probably substantially true, though we must beware of unduly modernizing the Gospels, and the possibility cannot be ruled out that the saying contained an element of threat, cf. Matt. 23:12 and such rabbinic sayings as: 'God will exalt him who humbles himself, God will humble him who exalts himself.'

The introduction of the child (v. 36) would be more natural if he were used, as he is in Matthew's parallel version (Matt. 18:3-4), as an example for the disciples to copy. (Except you adopt the same attitudes as this child…') But in the Marcan version the point lies not in the child's attitude, but in the attitude of the others towards him—the connection presumably being that the true disciple achieves greatness not by holding great offices but by doing services to insignificant people such as the child.

What exactly is meant by 'receiving' a child - an expression as obscure in the Greek as it is in the English? St Mark presumably understood it as meaning ‘show kindness to' or even possibly as referring to the reception of children in baptism; but the fact seems to be that Jesus was in the habit of describing certain of his followers as 'little ones' or 'children' and that as a consequence a certain amount of confusion arose in the tradition between sayings of his about children and sayings about disciples.

If our present saying referred originally to Jesus’ disciples, 'receiving' them would be a perfectly natural expression, especially as the Aramaic verb ‘gabbel’ meant both 'to receive' and ‘to hear’ in the sense of ‘to obey’. Cf. Mat. 10:11ff and Lk 10:5ff.

It is noteworthy that both Matthew and Luke have versions of this saying in Jesus' charge to his disciples as he sent them out on missionary work (Matt. 10:40, Luke 10:16) - a setting which seems more likely to be original. The sense would then be fully in line with the well-attested principle of Jewish life that ‘One who is sent (by a king) is as the one who sends him', and it is probably a mistake to read a ‘mystical’ meaning into the idea of 'receiving' Jesus and the Father. If such language were used in the fourth Gospel it would no doubt refer to receiving the indwelling of God's spirit through love and self-sacrifice, but such ideas are hardly present in Mark.

24th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (B)

"Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

Mk 8:27-35

(From Nineham's commentary)

v. 27. Now Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi. Along the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

The villages of Caesarea Philippi: An obscure expression generally taken to mean the villages in the area around Caesarea Philippi. For the town itself, formerly called Paneas, and rebuilt by Herod Philip.

v. 28. They said in reply, “John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others one of the prophets.”

Cf. 6: 14-15  may well have influenced, or been influenced by, this verse.

v. 29. And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter said to him in reply, “You are the Messiah.”

If vv. 27-29 existed before St Mark's time as an independent unit of tradition, the unit will no doubt have contained further verses making plain the significance of the event. Since St Mark has omitted these in the process of building up his longer unit, we can no longer tell how the pre-Marean Church understood the incident. They may have seen its significance as showing that the decisive confession of the Church had already been made in the lifetime of Jesus.

v. 31. 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.

“The elders and the chief priests” could be simply a way of referring to the lay and clerical aristocracy in Jerusalem who, with “the scribes”, formed the Sanhedrin. But even if so, the question has naturally been raised whether so detailed a forecast is not a prophecy after the event, ascribed to Jesus by the early Christians. We have no means of deciding for certain, but if Jesus did foretell disaster for himself, it seems unlikely that it was in terms as precise as these; in particular, if he had several times referred to the resurrection as explicitly as is suggested here (and in 9:31.and 10:34), the behavior of the disciples after the crucifixion is almost impossible to explain. On the other hand, if he did foresee disaster he must presumably also have looked forward to ultimate vindication in some form or other.

Chief priests: Greek “archiereus”, elsewhere (e.g. 14:47 and 54) translated high priest. The plural is at first sight surprising, as there was only one high priest at any given time, but it occurs frequently in the New Testament and also in Josephus, and the usual explanation is that, in addition to the ruling high priest, deposed high priests and other male members of the most prominent priestly families were included.

After three days: cf. 9:31, 10:34, and Matt. 27:63. Elsewhere in the New Testament we have 'on the third day'. It is often held that, at any rate in popular usage, the two phrases were synonymous, 'after three days' meaning 'when the third day had begun". But this is difficult to reconcile with the evidence of such a passage as Matt. 12:40, and the fact seems to be that the tradition on the matter was influenced in rather different directions by two Old Testament passages, Hos, 6:2 and Jonah 1:7. In light of the Hosea passage it would seem that such a phrase could be used simply as a conventional expression meaning 'after a short while'. On the assumption that the words go back to Jesus himself; it has been suggested that it was in that conventional sense that he used them; clearly, however, that was not St Mark's understanding.

v. 33. At this he turned around and, looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Looking at his disciples: 'The reproof which follows is for their benefit as

well as Peter's'.

You are thinking not as God does (Or You are not on the side of God): The Greek here is one of those expressions too rich in meaning to be fully represented by any single translation. The RSV may well be right in hinting at a political metaphor, but the basic meaning of the verb (phronein} is 'to be minded' and there is certainly the idea of sharing, or failing to share, another's point of view and intentions.

v. 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.”

Take up his cross: The Romans required a condemned criminal to carry part of his own cross to the place of execution; hence the metaphor. As the words stand, they seem to presuppose that 'the Cross' is already a familiar idea. No doubt Jesus' audience would have been familiar with crucifixion as a Roman method of execution, but it was normally reserved for criminals condemned by due process of law and it remains very doubtful whether, before Jesus' own crucifixion, they could have caught the allusion here. .Probably the present formulation of the saying is the work of the early Church.

v. 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.

And that of the gospel: These words, omitted by Matthew and Luke, and by Jolm at 12:25, again suggest that the present formulation of the saying dates from a time when Christians were being martyred 'for the sake of the gospel'.

ON THE NECESSITY OF SUFFERING

 Neither here nor elsewhere in Mark is any theory offered as to why it should be God's will that the Messiah and his disciples should suffer, but in this connection we need to remind ourselves of the eschatological mould in which the thought of the early Christians was cast. For them God's realm in heaven entirely conformed to God's holiness, and stood in the sharpest contrast to this age or world ruled by forces of evil and governed by their evil values and designs. One day God would judge this world and bring this age to an end, transforming whatever in it was capable of being transformed, and transferring it to the conditions of his realm. But meanwhile, so long as this world lasted, anyone in it who represented God's realm and its values must look for misunderstanding and persecution from the evil powers and the human beings under their sway. 'The Old Testament itself says of the children of Israel: "They mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets" (2 Chron, 36:16. Cf. Ps. 34:19). For later Jewish writers it was axiomatic that the people of God were basically opposed to whatever really emanates from God, and that therefore they had, always persecuted God's true servants and ambassadors and always would'. Such ideas would thus seem natural to Jesus and his early disciples. For evidence that they shared them, see such passages as Luke 11:49ff, Acts 7:2ff.

The true servant of God would not be disconcerted by such suffering, but would realize that in some mysterious way it was a means by which the redemptive purpose of God for this world was carried out. Isa. 53 is the classic passage for this idea but it by no means stands alone. In view of the remarkably few references to the Isaiah passage in the Gospels, It is probably better to think of a general background of ideas than of direct influence from that particular passage. 

Against this background, the true character of the disciples' reaction to Jesus' prophecy of suffering can be recognized. What the disciples had to learn was that until the kingdom came with power (9:1), the law of suffering applied at least as fully to the Messiah and his followers as it had done to earlier representatives of God see (9:13 and 6:17-29).