Musing - Holy Week, or Mark’s Wartime Gospel

Hebraic Musing - Holy Week, or Mark’s Wartime Gospel

Holy week starts next Sunday, Palm Sunday, April 9^th.  During Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Passover and Resurrection Day, Mark’s gospel documents Jesus’s daily and hourly events with military precision.  Mark’s gospel is a wartime gospel in context of the times, the culture, and most important, the political and spiritual condition of Jerusalem and the temple practices.  Jesus’s symbolic actions and parables are generally interpreted individually, but taken as a whole, His actions and words proclaim the already present kingdom of God is pitted against the kingdom of Rome.*  The Jewish high priests were in collaboration with the Roman domination of Jewish Israel.  For a clear example of Rome’s dominion, consider that Rome changed the high priests many times; whereas God appoints the great high priest for a lifetime.  The appointments were corruptly acquired, and the people knew it! Consider these events in light of the corruption:

·         Mark 11:1—(Palm) Sunday: “When they were approaching Jerusalem …”   Jesus enters on a donkey with the people cheering him wildly.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate was entering in a regal procession in order to be present and quell any uprising that may occur during this major Jewish feast of Passover.  Palm Sunday starts with a declaration of war by God’s kingdom against Rome’s dominion by mocking the governor with Jesus’s parade.  (Incidentally, His cousin John had been baptizing for the forgiveness of sins, which was supposed to be a temple duty.)  The friction between righteous people and Rome’s priestly appointees was already building.

·         Mark 11:12—Monday: “On the following day…”  Jesus says to a fig tree, “may no one ever eat fruit from you again.”  Thus He cursed the symbol of Israel and Jerusalem by pointing out the lack of fruit.  Why?  The high priesthood was controlled by Rome; the sacrificial system was corrupted; the temple was built by Rome; and God was no longer in charge.  Then He symbolically desecrates the temple by turning over money changers’ tables.  He calls the Temple a “den of robbers”.   A den is what robbers call home and where they hide out and feel safe.  The authorities were using the temple as a hiding place for their misappropriation of authority.  In Mark 11:19, He and His entourage have to get out of Jerusalem.

·         Mark 11:20—Tuesday: “In the morning …”  The fig tree has withered.  Jesus talks to His disciples of “throwing a mountain into the sea”.  Could this be reference to Mount Zion, Jerusalem, which needs to be moved through serious prayer?  The corrupt leaders challenge His authority, and He in turn rightly challenges theirs for good, godly reason.  In Mark 12:1–12, He indicts the temple leadership with a parable of the wicked tenants.  Read it in this light.  It is frequently preached as a foretelling of the beloved Son’s coming; but that message misses Jesus’s indictment of the tenants, stewards, and authorities in the temple who were greedily using their positions for their own aggrandizement.  In Mark 12:13–17, the ruling party tries to trap Him on the issue of paying taxes.  He responds , “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”.  The people were forgetting to distinguish between, or choose sides between, God and Caesar.  Then in Mark 12:18, He starts to attack the Sadducees who did not believe in the resurrection.  (That is why they are “sad, you see.” [pun]) In chapter 13, He says, “Not one stone will be left on another” which is prophetically forty years before Jerusalem was utterly destroyed. Then he discourses on the end of the age.

·         Mark 14:1—Wednesday: “It was two days before Passover…”, and the chief priests and scribes were out to get Him.

·         Mark 14:12—Thursday: :On the first day of Unleavened Bread when they slaughtered the lamb for Pesach…” over their seder (feast meal), He says His good-byes, shares the cup, prays, and gets arrested by the corrupt Sanhedrin, members of the leadership body.

·         Mark 15:1—Friday, 6 a.m.: “As soon as it was morning…”  some of the Sanhedrin “reached a decision …”.

·         Mark 15:25—Friday, 9 a.m.: “It was the third hour when they crucified him”. The worst possible curse for an Israelite: to be nailed and hung on a stake.

·         Mark15:33—Friday, noon: “At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.”  I wonder what the corrupt leaders were thinking then.

·         Mark 15:34—Friday, 3 p.m.: “At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice …”   And in  verse 38, the curtain of the temple was rent from top to bottom. Could that be the Father tearing His garment in mourning for His Son?  In verse 39, a Roman centurion became a believer.

·         Mark15:42—Friday, 6 p.m.: “It was Preparation day, the day before a Sabbath…”  And Joseph of Arimathea, one of the righteous leaders who had become a disciple, claimed Jesus’s body and buried Him before sundown, which began the Sabbath.

·         Mark16:1–2–Sunday, “early”: “When the Sabbath was over … very early in the morning they were on their way to the tomb…”   A good Jew would not walk that far or go to a tomb on the Sabbath.

I hope and pray that we will all read Mark’s gospel during Holy Week, with fresh perspective, and be inspired to identify the dominions that we are called to protest in today’s world.

The dates used in this Insight are somewhat traditionally understood.  The next Insight, “Three Days in the Grave?” spells out an alternative and more logical dating which differs from tradition.

Points to Ponder

Is He the same yesterday, today, and forever?

What dominions are we called to protest
 in today’s world?

Happy Resurrection Day! (April 16^th)

Yosef   a.k.a.  Joe Brusherd                                   April 4, 2017

Author: “Hebraic Insights – Messages exploring the Hebrew roots of our faith” 
“Biblical Marriage” “Musings - A Victorious Life”  “Musings - The Torah and New Testament”
Weekly “Hebraic Musings”      www.InsightsByYosef.com

This ‘Musing’ is reprinted from Insight #64 in Hebraic Insights – 95 Messages Exploring the Hebrew Roots of our Faith, by Yosef.  Available from Amazon.

*  Inspired by  Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s  “The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’ Final Days in Jerusalem”  (New York: HarperCollins, 2006).