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Catholic Bible Study
Lectio Mark: Question and Answer
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As the study comes to the end, we pause to reflect on some questions that have arisen during our journey through Mark's Gospel.
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Welcome. I wanted you to be able to join us for a question answer time in light of our series on the Gospel of Mark. And so now I want to just be able to take some questions that have arisen that you reflected on during our study of Mark's Gospel. Mark's Gospel, of course, moves quickly, right? There's immediately, immediately, and there's a kind of a breathless pace. And I think sometimes I was moving immediately and maybe I moved too fast at certain areas and places where you want to fill in. So feel free to ask any questions you have. Yes, Ashley. So in chapter 11, when Jesus curses the fig tree, it says that it wasn't the season for figs. So why is he upset to not find any figs if it wasn't the season for figs? Great question. A lot of people have that question. So, yeah, why does, in chapter 11 of Mark, why does he, you know, when he goes up to this fig tree looking for figs because he's hungry and he curses it because he finds no fruit. But then Mark tells us that wasn't the season of figs because it's Passover, it's early, early spring. Right. So it seems a bit unreasonable. And so that tells us that there's something deeper and symbolic going on. And so Jesus is looking from the fig tree for fruit. And of course, the fig tree was a symbol for Israel. So in the prophet Hosea, for example, Hosea9, he refers to Israel as a fig tree. So I think part of what's going on there in Hosea 9, 10 and following Israel is imaged as a fig tree. And Jesus is coming to Israel looking for fruit, but he's not finding it right. And he kind of plays on that a little bit further. He's already thinking of the idea looking for fruit. He plays on that just a little bit later in chapter 12, where he talks about a vineyard and the son who's sent to get the fruit, but the tenants chase him off and ultimately kill him, and he can't get the fruit. So this idea of coming and searching for fruit, now in Isaiah chapter 5, which Jesus is referring to in that story of the vineyard, in Isaiah 5, God plants Judah and Israel as his vineyard, and he looks for the fruit, which is righteousness and justice, and they don't produce those fruits. So the idea of him looking for fruit is, in a sense, he's symbolically, it's kind of a bit of an allegory that he's looking for the fruit of fidelity and righteousness and justice from Israel. But Instead of justice, he sees the temple as a den of thieves. And then of course, the fig tree will become the symbol also of the fate of the temple. Because the cursing of the fig tree and then the withering of the fig tree sandwiched in between there is that the temple is a den of thieves, Right? And of course, the den of thieves, the idea of stealing, which again goes back to the parable of the vineyard, the wicked tenants, which also goes back to Isaiah 5, where God's looking for good fruit and he doesn't get it. So I think all those things kind of fall in the background. But again, it just brings out that when something doesn't seem to make sense or something seems very simple in the gospel story, there's usually a deeper meaning behind it. And that deeper meaning, I think, always goes back to the story of Israel. It's that connection between Jesus and Israel that becomes the key to making sense of these things. Right. So great, great question. Seemed a bit unfair in that poor fig tree, right? You guys are all like that poor fig tree, right? But it was a prophetic action. And I think part of what we have to see here is prophets were known for doing prophetic actions, which means something very symbolic. Ezekiel shaves his beard, and that signifies losing honor and dignity. And then he cuts it up, and that signifies the fate of Jerusalem is going to get slaughtered by the Babylonians. You know, another time, the prophet Isaiah has to run around naked. He's prophesying the spoiling of the city and of Israel. And so the idea of these prophetic actions have symbolic meaning beyond the literal. And Jesus overturning the money changers tables signifies the overturning and destruction of the temple. Or the cursing of the fig tree would be another symbol of that. You know, for Jeremiah, he takes a clay vessel and he throws it against the wall, and he says, that's what's going to happen to the temple. The shattering of the clay vessel signifies the destruction of the temple in Jeremiah's day. So these actions that are symbolic are kind of prophetic actions. Prophets are constantly doing parabolic deeds, so to speak. Other questions. Yes. So you spoke many times that Mark emphasizes a lot of the way. I was wondering if you could speak more on how much of that is a way to something, a destination, and how much of that is the journey itself? And especially in light of the entire scriptures. Great question. So when Mark talks a lot about the way, is it just simply a destination or is it a means? Is it an end or a means? Is it the. Is it the process, is it the journey or is it the goal? And I think for Mark it has a sense of both. So of course taking up from Exodus 23 that he does verse 20, the idea is the Exodus way, the way to the promised land. So it's a journey and it's a journey that the people at that time are afraid to make. And so God's going to lead them himself. So the promise of the way is that the Lord will lead the way. Right? That's the key promise. Now ultimately the way ends in the promised land for Israel. And of course ultimately it will lead to the new promised land, which is heaven. That's the ultimate destination. Now Jesus way, as Mark will depict it, is going to be the way via Dolorosa, the way of the cross. But Jesus by taking the lead in this way is again the people of Israel were afraid to go into the wilderness. They were runaway slaves from Egypt. They were paralyzed by this new bound freedom. They didn't know where to go and what to do. And God says follow me. And so God's glory cloud led them in those 40 years in the wilderness and led them to the promised land. Jesus is going to be the Lord who will lead Israel and His 12 apostles. He will lead us on the way. And that way ultimately intensifies in that central part of Mark and called on the way which Jesus is announcing his passion predictions. And so that way now gets zoom lens then as the way of the cross. But that way which ends with Jesus death doesn't end with his death, it ends with his vindication and resurrection. Right. And so I think that that's the idea. And the good news is Jesus leads the way for us. He goes through death and out the other side to give you and I hope and faith that we too and our loved ones can go through death and out the other side to the true promised land of heaven. Yes. Is there a cosmic relationship between the destruction of the temple and the end of the world? Yeah, great question. What is that relationship of the destruction of the temple that Jesus foretells in Mark 13 and the end of the world? And I mentioned that a little bit. St. Augustine had a great insight on this and I think people like Fr. Alfred Lullzy would have profited if they would have read Augustine. But they were so busy into Greek and archaeology and all the new stuff that they forgot the old stuff, the old studies. But there's a danger in that in biblical studies to forget what the tradition and the Church had reflected on earlier because there's insights that can become lost. And I think this is a good example of Fr. Alfred Lozzie losing the the wisdom of the tradition. Augustine made this observation in the City of God. He said, when you read Mark 13 or the eschatological discourse, it's very hard to know when Jesus is referring to the end of the Temple and when he's referring to the end of the world. So it gets confusing. So even for a guy like Augustine, who's brilliant, he's like, that does kind of get confusing. So how do you adjudicate that? How do you navigate the end of the world and the end of the Temple? Well, the way I wanted to paint it for you is that Jesus himself wasn't expecting the end of space and time within a generation. I want to focus on the idea that Jesus was focusing on the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, which prophetically was fulfilled 40 years later in 70 AD. But think of it this way. Jesus comes at the end of the old covenant. And the old covenant is with one nation, Israel. And at the end of the old covenant, he comes looking for fruit, as we spoke of before, and he doesn't find it. And there's a judgment and the city and the Temple will be destroyed. But Jesus is going to have a second coming. In the second Coming, he will come at the end of the new covenant. And the new covenant is with all nations and all peoples. But at the end of the new covenant, Jesus will come and he will come looking for the fruit. And if he doesn't find it, there will be a judgment that will be the final judgment at the end of the world as it's described in other places in the Scriptures. And so what happened to Jerusalem and Israel at the end of the old covenant and that judgment that we hear about in Mark 13, all the signs leading up to the destruction of the Temple, all the judgment that happens then is a prefigurement of what will happen at the end of the world when Jesus comes the second time and he judges the new covenant and this time he'll judge all nations, because all nations were given the opportunity to know and believe and to bear fruits of righteousness. And so there's a. In a sense, that's why Augustine said it's hard to know what's Jerusalem in 70 AD and what's the end of the world, because the destruction of Jerusalem is a sign and a prefigurement of the world. And that's why even the Temple itself was a microcosm of the cosmos. Philo as well as Josephus Describe that the temple had the altar which represented the land and the candelabria. Above it was the seven great lights, which was the five known planets and the sun and the moon. And so the destruction of the temple was. And of course, the temple veil looked like the constellations. So the destruction of the temple is a prefigurement of the destruction of the world. So think of it this way. I like to think of it kind of three aftershocks. The first great day of the Lord, the judgment happens to Jesus. First, his death, he's the true temple. His death on the cross then sends an aftershock that will lead to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. which then sends an aftershock that will lead to the destruction of the world 2000 plus years later. Right. So there's, I think, a chain reaction, so to speak, in that symbolism. So it's a rich symbolism, but I think that there's a lot there. So the idea that there'll be false messiahs and tribulations and other things that will happen that will heat up and intensify until the second coming, I think that's the way to read Mark 13. Yes. You identified in Marx a lot of actions in words that were symbolic with a lot of different things with Peter's words, I do not know him. Do you see some symbolisms there? Yeah. You know, as we're learning from the Gospel of Mark, all these words and deeds are just full of meaning. Right. And of course, Peter's denial, I do not know him. That itself is highly symbolic, because to know in Hebrew, yada means to be in covenant. And so when he says he doesn't know him, he's actually cutting himself off from a covenant relationship by that denial. Now God in his mercy will restore Peter. And we know from the Gospel of John that after the resurrection, up in Galilee, Jesus will be sitting by the shoreline in chapter 21 with a charcoal fire. And Peter and some of the boys are on the boat. And then Peter hears it's the Lord. He dives in, swims to the shore. But there's only two times they have a charcoal fire in the Gospel of John at the shore. And where Peter denied him three times in John 18 at that fire. And then of course, Jesus will ask Peter three times, do you love me, Peter? Do you love me, Peter? Do you love me, Peter? He gives him a threefold opportunity to. To undo the threefold denial, which is just extraordinarily beautiful when you see that connection. Yeah. Other questions, Thoughts? Yes. In the book, come be My Light, which is the book of letters by Mother Teresa. She experiences a great, great darkness and a feeling of abandonment by God for over 40 years. And she likens it to those first lines in Psalm 22, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And she, you know, relates to that in Christ's life. Right? Yeah. No, that's a great. It's a great connection. So Mother Teresa of Calacatta, of course, suffered what we know now from her letters to her spiritual directors. This great darkness, this great desolation which Saint John of the Cross talks about, the dark night of the soul. Right. And so she feels that God has abandoned her, and she feels that abandonment. And she speaks about identifying with that line of Jesus from Psalm 22, verse 1, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? I think there's. I've got two ways to explain that. The first way is that Mother feels abandoned, just as Jesus feels physically abandoned. When you're being crucified and abandoned by everybody, you feel abandoned. That doesn't mean you think that you're abandoned. And so Jesus feels the abandonment of God, but he knows that he's not. And of course, he knows the ending of Psalm 22, even though he's living the first half of Psalm 22 at that point. Right. So he knows where the story ends, and so he doesn't think God has abandoned him utterly. Right. And now I think another insight about Mother on this. And I remember talking to one of the sisters who was very close to Mother. She had Mother as a principal. She's one of the first missionary Charity Sisters. And I've gotten to know her, and she's a dear friend, and she's been a prayer warrior for me over the last decade. And I remember talking to her when this came out. We were in Harlem, and I was doing a retreat for the missioners of Charity Sisters. And she had a great insight into that darkness of Mother. She said that Mother, at the beginning of her ministry, wanted to identify so much with the poor that she really had a rule where they would live with the poor, they would beg. And she didn't want to be above the poor, to go down and serve the poor and then go back to a nice place. Right. She wanted the sisters to live with the poor. That's why, you know, when they were, you know, I remember the story when they were going to San Francisco, she wanted the water heater cut off, you know, and she didn't want hot water. That would not be the way you would live. With the poor. The poor don't have hot water. And they were going to give them code for the retreat house of the Mission of the Charity Sisters in San Francisco. And I said, well, then we'll leave. And I said, okay, okay, we'll make an exception, you know. But here's the beautiful thing that this sister said about Mother. And she gave Mother's eulogy at her funeral. And she said this. She said Mother wanted to identify with the poor so much that she didn't want to simply identify with their poverty in terms of the poverty of food, the poverty of having hot water, the poverty of a nice bed. Because, you know, it wasn't just that poverty. She wanted to experience the ultimate poverty of the poor in spirit. The poor who don't know God, who don't feel the consolation of knowing Jesus Christ and his love. And so she took on the suffering of the poor, even in that poverty of spiritual poverty. And that's what Jesus made her feel, so that she could carry that like Jesus carried the sufferings for our sake, so that the good news could go out to the poor and. And many of them could know the gospel and know the consolation of God's love. She lived without that. In fact, she lived in the absence of that because she was carrying that cross for the sake of the poor. And I think that's a beautiful insight into. Again, prophetically, a prophet embodies their message. And Mother embodied that. The poorest of the poor and the poverty of the poor. And so she embodies that sense of feeling that she was abandoned even though she knew she wasn't. That God loved her, but she didn't feel it. And that was a desolation. And that's part of what St. John of the Cross talks about in the dark night of the soul. That in the dark night of the soul, you can feel desolation. You can feel that God is very far from you. Even if you know in the Scriptures and by God's promise that God hasn't abandoned you, you may feel it. And there's a difference between feeling doubting. As John Cardinal Henry Newman said, you know, a thousand difficulties don't equal a doubt that we can't give in to doubt. And so she didn't doubt God's love or God's presence, but she didn't feel it. And that was part of her Christ bearing. She was taking on the mission of Christ bearing the suffering of the people. There's a lot of mystery to that, but I think that's the right angle. And I I think when I think of Sister Theresa who shared that insight about Mother, I found a lot of insight in that. Other questions? Yes, I was wondering if Mark sheds any more light maybe or different light than the other gospels about the women that were ministering to Jesus. And just wondering if there's any traditions or any other information about the that we can find in Mark. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, what does Mark have to say about the women disciples? And you know, it's interesting. We do get a bit. So even that abrupt ending where it's the women in Mark who are the witnesses of the resurrection, they're the witnesses of the empty tomb. They're the first to be there, right. They're faithful and they see the place where the tomb is, they go back there early the next morning, they want to honor Jesus body and anoint him for burial, which they couldn't do because it was the Sabbath when he died. So they couldn't complete the normal burial process. It had to be very quick and abrupt. So the sense of wanting to honor Jesus, to care for him, the courage to go there, the vigilance, we see all that. And they are the first eyewitnesses. Now, of course, in the ancient world, women weren't seen as reliable eyewitnesses. And one of the beautiful things about Christianity is they rely on the witness of the women at the empty tomb. And that's remarkable. And so Mark is faithful to that and he's abrupt. He stops right there. You know, he doesn't give you the other stories that you'll get in some of the other gospels of other people who then go to the empty tomb later on when Peter and John run to the tomb and find it empty after they hear from the women, right? So it's a strong sense of that. But Mark is moving so fast, he's so action packed. The gospel that really opens up the importance of a lot of the women who are disciples of Jesus is the Gospel of Luke. It's Luke in particular who does that. And by the way, remember I told you that at the framing of Mark's Gospel is Peter's eyewitness testimony. He's the first one named and the last one named, which means he's the eyewitness testimony. So in the ancient world, for the Greeks, remember we said that if you got your testimony from an eyewitness, you would name that eyewitness at the beginning and end. Well, in Luke's Gospel, he names women at key points who are eyewitnesses for his testimony. And the center of Luke's gospel is unique to Luke. And at that center In Luke chapter 8, he names several women who are following Jesus and then he names them again at the end of the story of Luke and those women who are giving eyewitness testimony to to Luke, all of a sudden in that section you find Jesus interacting with women in very important and significant ways that don't get mentioned near as much as in the other gospels. So Luke is the best window into that. He interviewed our lady and so he gives us a window into Mary and he also interviewed Susanna and Mary and others. So Luke is the best gospel for that. So we'll have to do a lection on Luke. Yes. I wonder if you could comment on Mark 4:38, the storm in the Sea of Galilee and the irony of the disciples saying, teacher, do you not care if we perish in light of John 3:16? Yeah, yeah, exactly. When you look at that story at the end of Mark chapter four and they wake up Jesus by saying, teacher, do you not care that we perish? Of course Jesus does care a lot, which is why he's there. As John 3:16 says, God so loved the world that he gave his only son that they may not perish, but have life eternal. And so of course Jesus cares. And there is a great irony, again, it gives you the sense of misunderstanding that they have. They think he doesn't care and it's like he wouldn't be there if he didn't. As we're going to see for the rest of the story. Teacher, do you not care that we perish? And I like that he must have been attempted to rebuke them, but he actually awoke and rebuked the wind and the waves instead. So Jesus had good self control. Good question. Other questions. Yes. Is there an allusion to Daniel when Jesus is accused of saying, I will rebuild the temple in three days, but it will be not with human hands? Yeah, there is a. So good question. So the question is, is there an allusion to the book of Daniel with Jesus during trial, put on trial and someone says, I've heard him say that I will destroy this temple and in three days I will build another not made by human hands. And that comes back to Daniel chapter two, which where there's an image of a stone that was cut by no human hand. And what's significant about that stone is that juxtaposed to that, Daniel sees a vision of a statue with four different metals. And that statue represents four kingdoms, the Babylonians and then the Medo Persians and Then the Greeks and then ultimately the Romans, who will conquer and rule over Israel. And opposed to that statue. And is a stone that Daniel sees that represents the kingdom of God. And that stone comes and crushes and shatters the statue. And of course, the statue represents four pagan kingdoms. But more importantly and more specifically, that statue represents pagan idolatry, which is the very point of the next couple chapters of Daniel when the king tries to get them to worship a statue of himself and his great humility. But the point that that small stone cut by no human hand grows into a great mountain in Daniel's vision in Daniel 2. And that great mountain, I believe, is Mount Zion. And so the idea is that idolatry will be destroyed and monotheism represented by the Temple Mount Mount Zion will cover the whole world. It will become a mountain as big as the world. And so it's a prophecy that idolatry will go away and the monotheism of the Jews will rule the world. Now, for somebody who is in the time of Babylon, or even if you want to date it later in the time of the Greeks, or if you even want to date it in the time of the Romans, which even no scholar does, that that's still ridiculous prophecy. To say that Judaism and its idea of monotheism, of belief in one God is going to spread throughout the world and destroy all idolatry is a ridiculous prophecy. But it happened. And Augustine makes this point in the City of God. He's like, hey, look, in our time, there was idolatry everywhere. Pagan Romans were pagan, all the cultures were pagan. Now Christianity and the Gospel's gone out and now there's no more idols. All the pagan idols and statues have been torn down. And now there's just this belief in the one God. So it's a beautiful fulfillment of prophecy. And of course, I think part of that illusion is Jesus saying, the stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. And so the beloved Son in that parable and the stone that's rejected are paralleled in Jesus parable there. And in Hebrew there's a pun on that, which I talk about in my dissertation on the Temple. And I suggest that the word for stone is Eben, and the word in Hebrew for son is Ben. And so the Eben and Ben who are paralleled. And of course, in Daniel, you have two key visions. You have a vision of the stone that I talked about in Chapter two. But then in Daniel seven that we heard a lot about, there's four beasts. And after the four beasts, there's a son of man. And so you have four medals in the statue in chapter two. And you have four beasts in Daniel seven. And the four statue parts of the statue are followed by a stone and the four beasts are followed by the son of man, Eben and Aben. And Jesus is the son of man and he's the stone who comes at the end of the four kingdoms. So I think there's a lot of tie ins with Daniel. And Daniel's an important prophecy for the kingdom of God. And that's a key theme of Jesus. So I think Daniel is a key backdrop. I want to do a lectio Bible study on Daniel. I'm trying to convince Michael Barber to do that. So that would be a great Bible study. There's so much there. Other questions. Yes. Sometimes it's hard for me to wrap my head around, like the implications behind Christ's dual nature. And I'm wondering if, you know, I read his prayer in the garden and I think about how human of a moment that is for him. And I'm wondering if maybe you can expound upon that and talk about to how that illustrates so great question. So that great, very poignant moment as Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, he's praying, father, if it is possible this cup pass for me, let this hour pass for me. But not my will, but yours be done. And you see Jesus, and I think sometimes we don't know what to do with the beauty and the truth that's profound and over all of our heads that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. And so it's easy to kind of get to think in dualism, you know, is Jesus 50% human and 50% divine? And we threw that out in the early church and we said, no, no, he's fully human. And people who thought that he was fully human, therefore he couldn't be zero percent divine. And the idea is that Jesus is 100% human and he's 100% divine. And that's a hard mystery. The hypostatic union is what we call it theologically. The hypothetic union is a hard mystery to get our minds around. And we can never get our mind around it. We can only get our heart to submit to it. But by doing that, we see Jesus in his full human nature. He knows what he's going to suffer. So he has divine foreknowledge of the passion. And in his human nature, he knows that's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot, you know, and that's intense. And so he's praying, and he confesses to his disciples, to Peter, James, and John, my soul is sorrowful even unto death, and I'm in such an agony of heart. And he prays to the Father that this passed him but beautifully. He says, not my will, but yours be done to the Father. So you see the fullness of his humanity, but you also see the divine knowledge he has in his divine nature, that he knows what's coming, and yet his human will is willing to submit to that. His human nature is going to suffer, and he's willing to submit to that knowledge and to that will of the Father. Yeah. I find Mark's Gospel so powerful. You know that phrase of no one knows of that day or that hour in Mark, but if you follow the narrative logic, like I hope we did, we see in chapter 14 that Jesus does know that hour. He announces the hour. And so that all these kinds of seeming contradictions and problems. There's a narrative logic to it. Right. And I think the danger theologically is to pull something out of a text of Scripture and take it away from its context and try to understand it. Whereas if you do theology with the text and with the context of these texts, the theology makes much more sense. Well, I think my last thought is how, if this is Peter's memories and preaching that Mark is writing down as Mark's being Peter's interpreter, it's striking that Mark is more detailed on Peter's denial than any of the Gospels. And what I love about that is it tells us that Peter was honest about his failings and he used his failings as good news to his flock. That I denied Jesus and I failed, but he forgave me, and that we can fail and be forgiven. That's how big God's mercy and love is. And that is why this story filled with human failure like Peter's is good news.