Thursday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Mark 8:27-33
We now come to a high point in Mark’s Gospel which the texts of previous days have been leading up to. Since the beginning of this Gospel the question has been continually asked: “Who is Jesus?” Today we get the answer. The blind and deaf disciples show that they are beginning to see more clearly.
So Jesus himself puts the question that has been underlying all that has gone before:
Who do people say that I am?
The disciples give a number of answers reflecting the speculations of the people. These include:
- John the Baptist come to life again
- Elijah, who was expected to return to earth just before the arrival of the Messiah
- One of the other prophets
Then Jesus asks his disciples what they believe:
But who do you say that I am?
Peter speaks up in the name of all:
You are the Messiah.
This is indeed a dramatic moment. Jesus is not just an ordinary rabbi, not just a prophet. He is the long-awaited Christ, the Messiah, the anointed King of Israel. This is a tremendous breakthrough for the disciples. However, they are told to keep this to themselves for the time being. There were many expectations about the Messiah and Jesus did not want to be identified with them.
But it is not the end of the story. There is a sudden and unexpected twist for which they were not at all prepared. Jesus immediately begins to tell them what is going to happen to him in the days ahead: that he will suffer grievously, be rejected by the religious leaders of his own people, be put to death and—perhaps most surprising of all—after three days rise again. And there was no mistaking his meaning for:
He said all this quite openly.
The religious leaders mentioned here are part of the Sanhedrin, a 71-member ruling council of the Jews consisting of elders, the chief priests and the scribes. Under Roman rule, the Sanhedrin had authority in religious matters.
For the first time in this Gospel, Jesus refers to himself as the “Son of Man”. He will do this many more times. The title was first used in the book of Daniel (7:13-14) as a symbol of “the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7:27), referring to those faithful Israelites who receive the everlasting kingdom from the “Most High” (i.e. God).
In the apocryphal books of 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, the title “Son of Man” does not refer to a group, but to a unique figure of extraordinary spiritual endowments—who will be revealed as the one through whom the everlasting kingdom decreed by God will be established. Of itself, this expression means simply “a human being”, or, indefinitely, “someone”, and there are instances of this use in pre-Christian times. Its use in the New Testament is probably due to Jesus’ speaking of himself in that way, “a human being”, and the later Church’s taking this in the sense of the Jewish apocrypha and applying it to him with that meaning.
It is not difficult to imagine how the disciples must have been profoundly shocked, and could not believe their ears at what Jesus was telling them. Peter, their impetuous leader, immediately begins to protest. They have just pronounced Jesus to be the long-awaited leader of the Jewish people, and now he says he is going to be rejected and executed by their very own leaders. It made absolutely no sense whatever. Jesus turns round, looks at his disciples and scolds Peter with the terrible words:
Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.
This is what the gradual opening of the eyes of the blind man in yesterday’s story indicated. They had reached the stage where they had made the exciting discovery that their Master was none other than the long-awaited Messiah. They had answered the first question of Mark’s Gospel: Who is Jesus? But they were still immersed in all the traditional expectations that had grown up around the coming of the Messiah as the victorious and triumphing king who would put all Israel’s enemies to flight.
But they would have to unlearn all this. The rest of Mark will answer the second question: What kind of Messiah is Jesus? or what does it mean for Jesus to be Messiah?
And a further question follows from that: What will all that mean for the disciples—and for us? We will see some answers to that tomorrow.
Read more
Thursday of Week 6 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on Genesis 9:1-13
After the Flood, God extends his blessings over Noah and his family and over all the animals that have survived. Furthermore, the mandate given to the Man in the garden is repeated. The family of Noah, effectively the ancestors of all humanity, are to be fruitful and multiply. In addition, Noah and his descendants are given responsibility and lordship over every living thing—on the earth, in the air and in the water.
In the Garden, Man had been blessed and was consecrated lord of creation; he is now blessed and consecrated anew. All creatures are now at his disposal. Now, not only are plants given as food (as was the case in the Garden), but the other creatures, too, like animals, may be taken as food. They may also be used for doing heavy work (e.g. ploughing) or for their skins (e.g. to make tents and clothes). In the Garden, where answers to all needs were readily available, there was no need to work nor, in their innocence, to wear clothes. Humans and animals alike were plant-eaters only. Now the animal can become the victim of Man’s needs.
And, with the eating of animals, a new element is introduced with the prohibition to eat meat in which blood, the source of life, has not been already removed. Israelite law also forbade eating animal flesh torn in the field by other animals (here, there is a reading back into pre-history of regulations that only were legislated later on).
Furthermore, there is to be absolute respect for human life and no spilling of human blood, for every human person is made in the image of God. Animals, too, were to be punished if they caused the death of a human person. According to the Mosaic law, a domestic animal that had taken human life was to be stoned to death.
Because a living being dies when it loses most of its blood, the ancients regarded blood as the seat of life, and therefore as sacred. Although, in itself, the prohibition against eating meat with blood in it is comparable to the ritual laws of the Mosaic code, the Jews considered it binding on everyone. This was because it was given by God to Noah, the new ancestor of all mankind. And so the early Christian Church retained this restriction for a time (see Acts 15:20,29).
God himself is the great defender of human life, which is precious to him because Man was created in his image, and because Man is the earthly representative and focal point of God’s kingdom. God then makes his first covenant with mankind to last forever, a covenant which includes every living thing that was with Noah in the ark.
…never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
The sign of that covenant is a rainbow crossing the skies. Rain and the rainbow doubtless existed long before the time of Noah’s flood, but after the flood the rainbow took on new meaning as the sign of the covenant with Noah. Every time it appeared, it was a reminder of the covenant. Rainbows, too, are the sign of sunshine after rain.
The covenant with Noah, which is represented by the rainbow, involves the whole of creation. Later covenants will be more specific. The covenant with Abraham, the sign of which is circumcision, was to be limited to his descendants only (Gen 17). The covenant with Moses was to be confined to Israel alone and entailed corresponding obligations: fidelity to the Law and to Sabbath observance in particular.*
For us, of course, the final covenant is the New Testament between God and the world, signed in the blood of Jesus on the Cross and celebrated in every Eucharist. But each one of us can and does dishonour this Covenant every time we violate the Way that Jesus has shown us. This New Covenant is renewed every time we celebrate the Eucharist together, but the keeping of this covenant depends on how we live our daily lives in relationship with God, with those around us and with ourselves.
__________________________________________
*For a list of covenants, see the section about this in the NIV Study Bible.