In a previous post, I discussed how Jesus’ miracles in the Gospel of Mark function to demonstrate God’s numinous presence, as people who witnessed his miracles act in awe, wonder, and fear. These reactions demonstrate Mark’s presentation of Jesus as the one sent by God to act for God. If we look further at Jesus’ miracles in Mark, we also see that they function to bring God’s compassion and comfort to those Jesus heals. In this way, Mark presents Jesus as taking on the role of God.
At
various points in the narrative the Markan Jesus is said to have compassion on
the plight of people in need, or is asked by those in need to have compassion (1:41;
6:34; 8:2; 9:22). This compassion compels him to act to alleviate their
situations. Yet we need not limit our recognition of this fact only to the use
of the Greek word splagchnizomai translated as compassion. This is particularly true if we understand
Mark’s narrative in light of Isaiah.
Mark 1:2-3 comprises a mixture
of quotations from the Old Testament, which are attributed by the author to
Isaiah, but come from Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3. Why does Mark
attribute all of these to Isaiah? Some Markan scholars
have argued that Mark’s attribution of the conflation of Old Testament texts in
1:2-3 to Isaiah the prophet might show the author’s intention of narrating his
story in light of the New Exodus motif of Isaiah.
By
doing this, Mark sets his story within the framework of the New Exodus theme of
Yahweh’s hope and victory found in Isaiah 40-55. Part of this hope and victory comes
in the comforting of God’s people.
Indeed the first verse of Isaiah
40 reads, “Comfort (parakaleite),
O comfort my people, says your God.” This
is a command that God’s people be comforted. Moreover, Isaiah 40:1-11 seems to serve
as somewhat of an opening for Isaiah 40-66, in which the theme of God’s
consolation and comfort are found throughout. Isaiah 40:1-11 is an expression of
the hope of God’s comfort and salvation.
Given
this understanding of Isaiah 40, and its use in Mark to set the tone of his
Gospel as narrating the eschatological victory of God in bringing salvation, I
would propose that the miracles performed by Jesus in Mark’s narrative may be
viewed within the framework of God’s promised comfort for God’s people. Jesus
acts for God in answering God’s call to bring comfort. This point is
strengthened when we consider two other significant factors.
First,
since Jesus is presented in 1:14-15 as the one who proclaims the gospel of God,
we might interpret his miracles as actions which visibly proclaim that gospel;
the miracles function as acted parables. Again, we can hear the echo of Isaiah
40:9. There the herald of good tidings, the one who brings good news, is
commanded to proclaim, “See your God.”
In the
prologue to the Gospel, Mark portrays the in-breaking of God into the narrative
through the tearing of the heavens and the coming of the Spirit (1:10), and through
the way Jesus is presented as the one who proclaims that the dynamic rule of
God is at hand, and he calls on all to believe in the gospel of God (1:14-15). Against
the background of Isaiah 40, then, Jesus is the one who not only proclaims the
coming of God, but also acts for God in the bringing of comfort to God’s
people.
Further
substantiating this idea is the recognition that in Isaiah 40:11 God speaks of
coming to God’s people as a shepherd to feed them. This may shed light on
Jesus’ feeding miracles in 6:34-44 and 8:1-10. In both scenes Jesus is said to
have compassion (6:34; 8:2) on the crowd, and in 6:34 his compassion is because
they are as sheep without a shepherd to feed them. Thus in the miracle of
feeding the people, Jesus takes on the role of God as shepherd of the people,
bringing comfort to God’s people.
Jesus’ miracles serve to demonstrate that God was
fulfilling God’s promise of comfort for hurting people. Thus, Jesus’ acts of
compassion are within the context of God’s promises to bring compassion.
How are we following Jesus by bringing God’s
comfort and compassion to the hurting in our world?
No comments:
Post a Comment