Jesus: The Servant
Accepting the Mystery of Suffering
Monday, March 9, 2015
Mark likely wrote his gospel around 65 to 70 AD, much closer to the time of Jesus than the other evangelists. He gave us a picture of Jesus which was very close to the preaching of the apostles, but in a different context and with a very definite emphasis and intention. Mark began writing shortly after the great persecution in Rome (64 AD) in which both Peter and Paul had been martyred. They began to see where Jesus’ message finally led people. Until then, the gentile converts in Rome had experienced largely the glory of Christ, it seems.
The purpose of Mark’s gospel was therefore to remind Christians, who acknowledged Jesus as the messiah, that Jesus walked a path of “suffering servanthood.” We Christians say glibly that we are “saved by the death and resurrection of Jesus” but seem to understand this as some kind of heavenly transaction on his part, instead of an earthly transformation on his and our part. We need to deeply trust and allow both our own dyings and our own certain resurrections, just as Jesus did! This is the full pattern of transformation. If we trust both, we are indestructible. That is how Jesus “saves” us from meaninglessness, cynicism, hatred, and violence—which is indeed death.
God is Light, yet this full light is hidden in darkness so only the sincere seeker finds it. It seems we all must go into darkness to see the light, which is counter-intuitive for the ego. Our age and culture resists this language of “descent.” We made Christianity, instead, into a religion of “ascent,” where Jesus became a self-help guru instead of a profound wisdom-guide who really transformed our mind and heart. Reason, medicine, wealth, technology, and speed (all good in themselves) have allowed us to avoid the quite normal and ordinary “path of the fall” as the way to transform the separate and superior self into a much larger identity that we call God.
Gateway to silence:
The way down is the way up.
References:
Adapted from Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament, pp. 35-36 (published by Franciscan Media);
and Job and the Mystery of Suffering, p. 185 (published by Crossroad Publishing Company)
