Review

A sort of first significant milestone has been passed in Mark’s chronicle of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom in Christ.  We’re still only in Chapter 3, yet Jesus’ public proclamation of the arrival of this Kingdom, coupled with His subtle and stubborn opposition to every other arche or exousia, whether supernatural or earthly, has already brought things to such a pass that the established authorities feel they have no choice except to get rid of Him.  Let’s see what happens next.        

Opposites:  Verses 7-12

7 But Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea.  And a great multitude from Galilee followed Him, and from Judea 8 and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan; and those from Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they heard how many things He was doing, came to Him.  9 So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the multitude, lest they should crush Him.  10 For He healed many, so that as many as had afflictions pressed about Him to touch Him.  11 And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw Him, fell down before Him and cried out, saying, “You are the Son of God.”  12 But He sternly warned them that they should not make Him known.[i]  

Webster’s Dictionary defines “irony” as “a method of humorous or sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words used is the direct opposite of their usual sense.”  Experientially, “irony” can be understood as “a combination of circumstances or a result that is the opposite of what might be expected or considered appropriate.”  As we’ve said before, the Scriptures in general and Mark’s Gospel in particular are full of irony.  Solemn and pious readers may not see it, but the Bible is rife with dark humor.  It tells us again and again that life plays us lots of ironic jokes.  Jesus’ life was like that too.

A good way to create a compelling story, we’re told, is to write a scene and then ask yourself, What is the opposite of that?  Something of the sort is happening here.  In response to Jesus’ public activities in town and synagogue, the scribes and Pharisees have laid a plot to kill Him.  What is the opposite of that?  Easy:  Jesus takes His disciples and withdraws to the seaside.  But what happens then?  Instead of solitude, Jesus finds a crowd!  All at once He has become an international celebrity!  He is besieged by multitudes not only from Galilee and Judea but from such outlying areas as Idumea (Old Testament Edom) and pagan kingdoms like Tyre and Sidon. 

This is good news for the advancement of the Kingdom, right?  Ironically, no.  Why?  Because these crowds, who are pressing upon Him so forcefully that He has to get into a boat and put out from shore in order to escape being trampled, aren’t really interested in the Kingdom.  Allegiance to Jesus is the farthest thing from their minds.  All they want is to be healed from their maladies and afflictions.  And while Jesus is openly proclaimed to be “the Son of God,” as we might have hoped and expected, this confession does not come from the lips of His admirers and devotees, but from unclean spirits.  Jesus, seeing that these accolades and endorsements are coming from precisely the wrong quarter, tells the demons to cease and desist.  He forbids them to “make Him known” (Greek phaneron, “manifest”) to the crowd, reintroducing the theme of the “Incognito Messiah”.  It’s a bit late for that, of course.  Just another funny little twist in the narrative.                               

Another Kind of Revolution

13 And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted.  And they came to Him.  14 Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, 15 and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:  16 Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; 17 James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”; 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite; 19 and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him.     

The next thing Jesus does is equally paradoxical.  Once again He withdraws, this time from the seaside to the mountainside.  And in so doing He makes a statement that is almost certain to be seriously – and ironically – misinterpreted.

“He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted.”  It’s easy for modern readers to miss the point here.  Jesus climbs the hill, Mark says, in order to choose twelve “apostles” who are to “be with Him” and whom He will “send out to preach” in His name.  But there’s more to this than meets the eye.  Jesus could not have been blind to the construction His contemporaries would have put upon His actions; for “up the mountain,” as N. T. Wright tells us, “is where people went to plot revolution.”  Nor is that all.  Twelve was a powerfully symbolic number for the Jews.  The choice of twelve apostles would have been seen as a clear reference to the twelve tribes of Israel, which in turn would have implied an agenda aimed at the Restoration of the Nation.  “Anyone launching a restoration movement,” Wright goes on to explain, “was doing so in the face of the current rulers and the current pressure groups.”  No wonder he concludes that this calling of the Twelve was “among Jesus’ most revolutionary gestures.”[ii]

But was it “revolutionary” in the usual sense?  “Revolutionary” as that term would have been understood in Jesus’ day, or in own, whether by Jews, Romans, liberals, conservatives, or “activists” of any variety?  To put it another way, was it politically revolutionary?  The answer, of course, is no.  And in this is one of the chiefest of the many ironies of Jesus’ ironic life. 

At risk of stating the obvious and repeating myself for the hundredth time, I will simply point out once again that the kingdom Jesus brings is not political.  The Authority He represents stands apart from and in direct contrast to that of any and every other kind of “arky”, including the “arkys” of government and nationality (John 18:36). 

We should add that this is a concept most modern people find it very hard to grasp.  We live in a time, says Jacques Ellul, when “politics and its offspring (nationalism, for example) have become the cornerstone of what is good or represents progress”[iii]; a time when our very humanity and personhood are judged according to our political commitments and involvements. 

“In our society,” Ellul continues, “anyone who keeps himself in reserve, fails to participate in elections, regards political debates and constitutional changes as superficial and without impact on the true problems of man … will be judged very severely by everybody.  He is the true heretic of our day.  And society excommunicates him as the medieval church excommunicated the sorcerer.”[iv]

This is what Ellul describes as “the Political Illusion”:  the idea that politics and political concerns are the be-all and end-all of existence.  It’s an illusion of the worst kind, for it makes many fantastic promises on which it can never deliver.  It destroys our basic humanity by diverting attention from the things that matter most.  For the church, it’s a particularly dangerous illusion when it is allowed to redefine the Kingdom in terms of worldly agendas and allegiances.  The Revolution and Restoration that Jesus set in motion have nothing to do with this deceptive mirage; and in the end, it was a fatal misunderstanding based on “the Political Illusion” that led to His death on the cross.                           

Final Thoughts 

Here is the greatest irony of all:  a Revolution which is not the “revolution” most of us are looking for; a Restoration that may entail changes the exact  opposite of what we expect.  For just as Aslan of Narnia is not a “tame lion,” so the Master who demands our total allegiance cannot be held accountable to human perceptions and plans.  He is the Lord, not only of the Sabbath but of all things; and every knee will ultimately bow to His will.        

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[i] This week’s Scripture quotations are taken from The New King James Version. 

[ii] Wright, Mark for Everyone, p. 34.

[iii] Jacques Ellul, The Political Illusion, p. 17.

[iv] Ibid., p. 18.