ACCORDING to verse 37, Jesus is an apostle; for God has sent him, just as he himself would send the Twelve. That example of how Jesus “works” is characteristic. As mediator between God and humankind (1 Timothy 2.5), he embodies what he teaches.
There isn’t any easy divide between Jesus’s “being” and his “doing”. Jeremy Taylor called him “the good exemplar”: we show forgiveness because he shows forgiveness; so, we attempt to follow his example. But his identity can be an ontological reality. The Prayer Book collect for the Second Sunday after Easter encapsulates this when it refers to him as “each a sacrifice for sin, and likewise an ensample of godly life”. His being (or “nature”, or “essence”) and his doing (or “actions” or “behaviour”) are perfect in themselves, and integrated in a seamless harmony.
When studying the texts of scripture which I write about week by week, I often confer with different translations, because they assist me to see the Gospel within the fullness of all its possible meanings. In this case, most of the fashionable Bible versions I confer with commonly make the identical crucial improvement on the AV, which, in verse 31, has “he taught his disciples, and said”. They change the tense to bring it into line with the Greek, from the “perfect” (or “accomplished”) to the “imperfect” (or “uncompleted”) tense. In this context, the imperfect verbs tell us that — whatever Jesus was doing — he was doing it repeatedly, or continually.
I would love to translate verse 31 much more precisely than the NRSV: “He was teaching his disciples, and kept saying to them”. On its own, verse 30 could simply be an example of Mark’s “messianic secret” (the unwillingness of Jesus to be open about his identity as Messiah). Taken with verse 31, it becomes apparent that Jesus doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s in Galilee — but not because he’s secretive by nature, or since the gospel is gnostic (a mystery for the initiated few). He desires to keep his presence hidden because (the word “for” at first of verse 31 confirms this) of the difficult teaching that he’s now to strengthen amongst those almost certainly to know it.
In last week’s Gospel, he had broached this teaching, and Peter’s response (perhaps standing for that of all of the disciples) had been negative. But between that passage and this comes the transfiguration (9.2-8), followed by the healing of the epileptic boy. That vivid contrast between light and dark opens the way in which for Jesus to reintroduce the teaching that his disciples had found so difficult. He had made one try to teach all who followed him concerning the cross (Mark 8.34), however the Evangelist made no comment there, and recorded no response from this wider audience.
It is just an inference, not a conclusion, but perhaps Jesus realised that he would do higher to begin small together with his difficult message about “the logo of suffering and shame” (because the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” refers to it). He tries to attach the cross with the resurrection that’s to follow. Yet, his closest disciples still don’t understand, and now they’re afraid to ask him.
Jesus’s response to Peter’s challenge could have made them reluctant to query him. None of us relishes being reproached by someone we love or admire. And they were still combating what seemed a bizarre prophecy. There was nothing of their history and scriptures about bringing the dead back to life. Elijah, carried off to heaven by a chariot and horses, didn’t die in any respect. Daniel had spoken of a general, not individual, resurrection (12.2).
Hebrews 11.17 shows that the resurrection was a truth that some Christians were anxious to elucidate by retrojecting it into the past, finding it within the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible. The creator locates a foreshadowing of the concept of resurrection via his interpretation of the Akedah, or Binding of Isaac. He suggests that Abraham was able to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he “calculated that God is capable of raise people up from the dead” (my translation). This explanation is just not in Genesis (22.1-14).
In verse 33, the disciples were arguing. If only it had been about Jesus’s teaching. But no: they were still stuck within the slough of self-consequence. Jesus told them to be “childlike”. Did that teaching “land” with them, higher than the cross? Time would tell.
