Category Archive: Bible – NT – Mark
Three in Mark
In preparation for preaching through the Gospel of Mark, I’ve been reading David Rhoads and Donald Michie’s Mark as Story. Some of what they say — their discussion of “point of view” in narrative, for instance — just strikes me as pretty obvious, the kind of stuff you heard about in high school English classes. But at various points, they do draw attention to some significant features in Mark’s Gospel.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but Mark frequently works with threes. Three times, Jesus has conflict with his disciples in a boat. Three times, Jesus has conflict with his disciples about bread. Three times, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus predicts his death. Three times, his disciples fall asleep in Gethsemane. Three times, Peter denies Jesus. The events of the crucifixion happen at three stages at three-hour intervals: nine o’clock, noon, and three o’clock (pp. 54-55).
Rhoads and Michie point out the threes as a literary device which helps to build suspense, so that when something has happened twice the reader is keyed up for the third episode which will be the crucial one. That may be part of the literary effect of these threes. But I do wonder whether there isn’t some significance to the threes.
In Numbers 19:19, we learn that if a man touches a dead body, he has to be washed on the third day and then again on the seventh day. On the seventh day, he is clean. So what is the third-day washing all about? It appears to be a preliminary judgment, a first washing which puts you on track to receive the final washing.
That does appear to be how some of the threes in Scripture function. They’re linked to preliminary judgments, times when people are being challenged to make sure that they’re on the right track or warnings to lead people to repentance.
In the Samson story, for instance, threes abound: third day, thirty companions, three hundred foxes, three thousand men of Judah, three thousand Philistines. Perhaps those threes are hints that Samson’s judgment is the preliminary one, with Samuel’s victory (possibly a few weeks later) being a final judgment for the Philistines.
Do the threes in Mark serve such a role? I dunno. But it’s something I’ll try to keep in mind as I study the book in preparation for these sermons.
Why Did John Baptize?
Today, I worked on a sermon on John 1:19-28. In that passage, Jerusalem sends a fact-finding committee to John the Baptizer to inquire about his identity and about his baptism. I’ve preached on this passage before, but this time I spent a lot of time thinking about the significance of John’s baptism. After all, the Pharisees don’t merely ask why John is baptizing. They ask why he’s baptizing since he’s not the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet.
Joel‘s essay, “Baptism in Matthew and Mark,” was very helpful. Joel writes:
When John, Jesus, and the early church used water in ritual and symbolic actions, they did so within the already existent symbolic world of Judaism with its stories of floods and water-crossings, its rituals of washing and purification, and its prophecies of the outpoured Spirit and deserts made green.
He also shows the connection between the return from exile and John calling Israel to the wilderness, the Old Covenant washings, and the forgiveness of sins. Interestingly enough,
If John is calling Israel back to the wilderness, it can only be for a new exodus; but then Israel must now be living in bondage to new oppressors. Surprisingly, perhaps, these oppressors do not appear to be Rome in John’s mind, but the leadership of Israel herself. After all, what else could a washing of purification be, but a way of saying that Israel’s God was now offering through John’s ministry the purification and forgiveness that the Temple and other official rites had once promised?
Wonderful stuff! Thanks, Joel! And thanks, too, Bill, for reminding me of it. It was just what I was looking for.