It is night—seemingly at
midnight, a night that seems like there will never be a dawn. One of the reasons the Christian faith still
resonates with me is because in the deepest night, these First Century people
found a path in the wilderness.
The Gospel of Mark was written around the time
between 66 CE to 70 CE when Jewish rebellion had captured the city of Jerusalem
and the Roman Empire took notice. Jewish
rebellion had been sparked by the priestly caste in Jerusalem and over 600,000 Jews
from Judah and Galilee rushed to Jerusalem to join the fight. The
Romans reorganized, amassed their troops, and were going to make sure that every
last bit of that rebellion was forever destroyed. While the Romans patiently built ramparts for
an eventual assault on the Jerusalem city walls, the Jerusalem defenders ran so
low on food that many starved, and others began to flee. Those caught by the Romans were promptly and
prominently crucified, so that the Jews within Jerusalem could see—and, as the
corpses rotted, smell—whom they were dealing with.
The Roman siege lasted most of a year, during which
something like ten thousand crosses sprouted in a ring around the inner city of
Jerusalem, each with its stinking cadaver.[1]
The rule for populations conquered by Rome was straightforward. Submit or die. When Mark is written, Romans were crucifying
five hundred Jews every day.[2]
This Advent season we begin our work in the gospel
of Mark, considered the earliest of the gospels in our Bible, even earlier than
the gospel of Matthew. As I shared, scholars
believe that Mark was written around the year 70 CE, either just before,
during, or after the Romans were laying siege to the city of Jerusalem. The everyday reality for First Century Jews
is filled with every day torture, trauma, and loss. All looked bleak.
In response, the Gospel of Mark is a treatise which
shares how the Jewish people are to conduct their lives when death seems
imminent and inevitable. One of the
reasons the Christian faith still resonates with me is because in the deepest
night, while the cross is known as a symbol of terrible trauma, torture, and
death, these people found a path of mutual healing, food sharing, and confrontational
non-violence in the wilderness.
The Scripture passage for today is
just three short verses, and I would like to focus on that first verse for this
week’s sermon: “The beginning of the
good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
This is language that tells everyone in the First Century that this
Mediterranean Jewish peasant is certain to be crucified.
When the Gospel of Mark, in Chapter 13, states: “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars,
do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For
nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be
earthquakes in various places; there will be famines,”[3]—this
is not apocalyptic fortune telling but a writer sharing with the world what
they see in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Too often what we have said is that Jesus’s trauma,
torture, and death on the cross is unique.
What we learn from the history is that the suffering of Jesus is in
keeping with so many Jews who suffered at this time. In Mark’s story of Jesus’s death, when the
Temple is torn in two, the symbol of Roman savagery was complete. One could only imagine surviving this
savagery because the story told that the trauma, torture, and violence that
happened with Jesus did not end with a Roman cross.[4]
To understand any of life’s truisms, however, we
must begin with a baseball story. The
Champaign-Urbana American Legion baseball team had come to play a double header
at the famous Al Mulberry Field in the humble hamlet of my hometown,
Now my brother is very sensitive
about such comments. He is a very quiet
and humble person, which, if you are not listening closely, can come off as
simple and unintelligent. Which my
brother is definitely not. But he is
very aware how people might stereotype him.
So when he first told me this story, he shared how he and his teammates
slapped around the opposing team’s best and hardest throwing pitcher and would
yell to each other with a thick southern drawl, “Hey, sit on his change-up and
adjust to his fastball.” They would
repeat some of the hick comments made by the visitors. I’m sure the visitors from the great
metropolis of Champaign-Urbana didn’t quite know what to make of Metamorons talking
their own smack to poke fun at them.
When I told Andy I was going to use
this story for my sermon, he ended his reflections with a defiant, “And we
swept the doubleheader.” Clearly, some of the anger, still fresh in his mind.
I am reminded of the Broadway musical
and movie, West Side Story, which had
Puerto Rican immigrants singing about their new country, America. In the movie, the chorus of the song “
Similar layers are found in John
Fogerty’s, “Fortunate Son,” Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” or John
Mellencamp’s, “Little Pink Houses.”
Because these are sung by white men who love the troops, the language in
them makes people assume they are patriotic songs. Looking underneath the language, however, is
a revolutionary critique that is critical of the American project. The language, at closer look, invites you in,
makes you sing along, and then uses language to upend American capitalism,
militarism, and imperialism.
In the same manner as my brother
using the language of the other team to poke fun back at them or the song
“America” satirizes freedom and opportunity in their new country, the gospels
use the language of the Roman Empire as a form of sarcasm, a way of critiquing
the political and religious claims made at the time. The language used by the gospels was
language used long before Jesus arrived on the scene. That first verse of the gospel of Mark is
loaded with that meaning. “The beginning
of the good news of Jesus Christ, Son of God.”
The first verse of Mark acts as a title for the
entire gospel and lets us know that there is a conflict between Rome, its
emperor, and Jesus of Nazareth from Galilee.
Even the use of the words “gospel” or “good news” was language used to
declare a military victory for Caesar. Evangelists
would travel around the empire sharing that good news, proclaiming Caesar to be
the incarnation of the Divine human.
This was Roman propaganda and it began with the joyful messages spread
across the Empire proclaiming Caesar’s divine birth.[5]
To understand how closely tied the
political and religious were during this time period, cities receiving the good
news of Caesar were said to offer sacrifices in honor and devotion to the gods.[6]
The evangelists of Caesar Augustus, the ruler we
read in the birth-story of Jesus in Luke’s gospel, sent out joyful messages
that Caesar had been born to the god, Apollo.
To use good news or gospel for this Jesus fellow then, cut against the
legitimizing rhetoric used by Caesar and his evangelizers.
The author of Mark goes on with a
title for Jesus we have come to think of as Jesus’s last name. This is the beginning of the good news of
Jesus Christ. “Christ”
literally means “Anointed One” and was the Greek translation of the Hebrew
word, “Messiah.” The term “Messiah” was
usually reserved for a political king or ruler who delivered or liberated a
people from oppression or war. For
example, Cyrus of Persia, the ruler who liberated the Jewish people from
Babylonian captivity and exile, was referred to as a Messiah. The title originally referred to the ancient
kings of
Finally, the title of Mark concludes
with the good news of Jesus Christ being proclaimed as the Son of God. In a place called Priene, on the western
coast of
Six different coins were minted during the reign of
Caesar Augustus and on every single one of those coins is the phrase, “Caesar,
Son of God.”[10] Caesar was not only known as Son of God, but
God Incarnate, God from God, Lord, Redeemer, Liberator, Prince of Peace, and
Savior of the World.[11]
The author of Mark is intentionally placing this
Jesus of Nazareth in direct conflict with
The author of Mark is not writing a biography of
Jesus. The author is not trying to share
an objective history. Rather, the author
is trying to make it very explicit that this is satire and resistance
literature over and against Rome and its Caesar. The author of Mark has a viewpoint, a
perspective.
As Christians, over the course of this Advent
season, we must recognize the two distinct choices given to us by the gospel
writer. Caesar Augustus and Jesus of
Nazareth are two distinct choices. How
are loyalty and love for Jesus Christ, Son of God, different than loyalty and
love for Caesar, son of god?
This is Mark chapter 1, verse 1, “This is the
beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The content of who that Jesus is, a journey
of unarmed truth and unconditional love matters. In mutual healing and the sharing of food,
Jesus seeks to weave together an alternative empire. He seeks to upend the Roman gospel that is
filled with violence and domination. In
a community where militias gather to threaten violence in our own state, we, as
people of faith, need to say that we walk a different journey which will never
be secured or promoted through violence.
This is only reinforcing the gospel of Caesar. So we must be prolific, we must be
evangelistic, and we must say that this is not who we are or what we want for
anyone.
It is night. The
Doomsday Clock, which has become a universally recognized indicator of the
world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and
disruptive technologies in other domains, has been moved closer to midnight
since its founding in 1945. As of January 2020, the Doomsday Clock has
been moved to 100 seconds before midnight.[12] May we have the will to read on beyond this
gospel’s title, and the wisdom to see the difference between the two paths,
Christ and Caesar, and the courage to choose love and loyalty for the path that
does not promise success, power, or wealth.
Caesar’s evangelists are forever threatening to beat down the door if we
do not heed their good news. Christ
stands outside the door knocking . . . waiting . . . hoping against hope that
the world will come near enough, to carve a new path in the wilderness, and
thus, to hear good tidings of our God’s great joy. Amen.
[7] Wolfhart Pannenberg, The Apostle’s Creed in Light of Today’s Questions (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 53.
[9] Craig Evans, “Mark’s Incipit,” ((OGIS 458; ca. 9 BCE).
[11] Ibid.
[12] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Doomsday Clock,” https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/#:~:text=Previously%2C%20the%20Clock%20was%20moved,recognition%20of%20its%20historic%20nature.
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