University Avenue Church of Christ

UA-NT-10 Essay on Mark 7-9

Written by Eddie Sharp Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Religious people can be a mess sometimes. In Mark 7, we get up close and personal with the Pharisees and teachers of the law from Jerusalem. They have come from Jerusalem to question the orthodoxy of Jesus. They shouldn’t have bothered. When they question Jesus, he turns his pure light on their attitudes and actions.

The Pharisees complain that Jesus doesn’t teach his disciples to wash according to the tradition. Jesus fires back that the Pharisees and their little friends are hypocrites. Their traditions subvert the will of God. They use the law to disrespect their parents. Those who are ceremonially righteous are rotten on the inside. At 7:20 Jesus gives a list of evils issuing from the human heart that looks much like the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. Paul is echoing this teaching of Jesus.

After this teaching section, there are three miracles. When Jesus leaves the Pharisees and travels northeast to the coast near Tyre,  he meets the inverse of the Pharisees—a Syrophoenician woman. Jesus really has not come to focus on the Gentiles. The ministry to the Gentiles will come through Peter, Barnabas and Paul. Still the lady’s daughter is terrorized by a demon. She is not afraid to ask the one whom she believes can help. Jesus shares from the Jews’ table and blesses her daughter.

Jesus returns to Galilee where he heals a man who is both deaf and hardly able to talk. Jesus tells him not to tell anyone, but a man who hasn’t been able to hear or speak cannot help but use his new speech to tell the story. We should imitate this man.

The feeding of the 4,000 is another example of the compassion of Jesus. Again Jesus takes a little food and feeds a multitude. The apostles have two opportunities to observe the power of Jesus in the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. They should never doubt Christ’s ability to provide, but in a heartbeat they are in a boat in a dispute about their lack of sufficient bread.  Jesus lectures them like they are class of third-graders. Jesus wants them to see him more clearly.

The healing of the blind man at Bethsaida is a teaching miracle. In the same way that the man’s blindness is healed first by getting him to the point of seeing a little bit and then, with another touch, seeing clearly, Jesus is hoping that his disciples are seeing him better as they spend more time with him.  I hope we see Jesus more clearly the longer we walk with him.

After the healing, Jesus and the disciples head north to Caesarea Philippi. Jesus asks them who people say that he is. They answer that some say he is John the Baptist. Others say he is Elijah or some other prophet. When Jesus asks what they think, Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ.

Jesus tells them that being the Christ means that he must be rejected by the religious establishment,  be killed and rise again. Peter doesn’t like Jesus’ talking about dying. Peter probably didn’t like hearing that all disciples of Jesus would bear their crosses either.

Peter’s confession in Mark 8 is followed by the endorsement of the Father at the transfiguration. In a graphic way, God declares that his Son is greater than Moses and Elijah. As Peter, James and John come down the mountain with Jesus, Jesus asks them not to say anything about what they had just seen until after he had risen from the dead. This is the second mention of his dying and rising since Peter’s confession. The cross is moving into sight.

Mark wants to give us some insight into the relationships among Jesus, his disciples and those people found around them. The disciples cannot cast out an evil spirit because they have not prayed. Jesus has mercy on the boy and his father, who at the same time proclaims his faith and his need for more faith. The father wants more faith; the disciples need to develop the discipline of prayer. 

Jesus mentions his death and resurrection a third time. Ironically, soon after Jesus speaks of going to the cross, the disciples are arguing about who is the greatest. Jesus suggests that they need servant hearts. They need to practice welcoming children.

The next glimpse of how the disciples think and act comes when someone outside the group is casting out demons in the name of Jesus. This must sting a bit because the disciples have been having trouble doing that. They want Jesus to tell the outsider to stop it. Jesus is not willing to stop the freelance exorcist—“whoever is not against us is for us.” We can learn lessons here about how we regard our friends who share our faith in Jesus but not all of our doctrinal conclusions.

The warning about causing another to stumble immediately follows the section about the exorcist who didn’t belong. Discouraging another person from exercising his or her faith may cause them to stumble. Causing someone to stumble is very bad.

The disciples need to work on their prayers, their humility, their exclusivity and their example before others. Disciples in all the years since Christ have needed to work on the same things.