Gospel of Mark: Jesus foretells His death and resurrection

Jesus foretells His death and resurrection

Text: 8:22 – 10:52

Outline:

A. 8:22-26, Jesus heals a blind man @ Bethsaida

 B. 8:27-30, Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ

  C. 8:31 – 9: 13, 1^st Foretelling of Jesus' death and resurrection + Transfiguration

   D. 9:14-29, Father with demon possessed son

    E. 9:30-50, 2^nd Foretelling of Jesus' death and resurrection + Who is greater?

   D'. 10:1-31, Family issues: divorce, little children, and rich YOUNG man

  C'. 10:32-34, 3^rd Foretelling of Jesus' death and resurrection

 B'. 10:35-45, James and John ask for positions at the throne of resurrected Christ

A'. 10:46-52, Healing of blind man – Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) @ Jericho

Comments: Since we have this long passage, I will divide it into three blocks. First we are going to talk about healing of the blind men. Then I will show the progression of Jesus' foretelling of His fate and the response He got from His disciples. Third, we will address some family issues. Transfiguration we will save for the next time – it is too important...

First, healing of the blind men. As you can see – two stories serve as the boundaries for the whole section. Why? I think Mark is trying to tell us that one needs a supernatural eye-opening procedure done by the Holy Spirit to recognize that the death and resurrection of Jesus IS the most important thing – see St. Paul saying it in 1 Corinthians 1:23: we preach Christ crucified... (note that 1 Corinthians ends with the proclamation of the resurrection – the whole chapter 15 is dedicated to this).

Healing at Bethsaida. This is not the first time when Jesus came to Bethsaida (6:45). The name means “House of prey.” It can be fish (most of the dictionaries do it), but (!) Tsaid in Hebrew means provision of food (Ps. 132:15) and hunter/hunting (Gen. 10:9)]. Also, it was the hometown of Andrew and Peter, Phillip and Nathaniel (John 1:43-46).

This is the first time when Jesus heals a person in two stages: does it mean that His battery died and He needed a jump start? I don't think so. He opens up the man' eyes for him to see the interconnections of the created world – he sees people like trees (Ps. 1:3).

Healing of Bartimaeus happened at Jericho. His name is Son of Timaeus (noble or highly prized one).

If there is any connection between Bar-Timaeus and Plato's tractate Timaeus (about the nature of the world), we should state that it is only the Son of David – new Solomon – can heal “the son of Plato's Timaeus” from blindness.

Jesus foretells His death and resurrection (3 times). The first time it is preceded by the confession of St. Peter. Mark presents the same case but in a different way – Peter immediately responds, rebuking Jesus and then … the complete silence. It went straight over their heads. But, they should've picked up on the meaning of Christ... When Peter confesses Christ, apparently, he was referring to Christ from Psalm 2 – kiss the Son etc. But Jesus wants to teach them the full meaning of the Messiah – being the one who lays down his life for others – Isaiah 53 type Christ.

The second time His words are followed by a discussion of who is the greatest? Again, they are looking for the ways of power or dominance. Yet, He reveals the great secret to them – the greatest is to receive a little child in HIS name. Children are God's investments into this world. You can give life to a child, raise a child, and disciple a child – three factors of godly task (9:36-37).

The third time actually James and John got it but in their own weird way – they ask about the positions in heavenly realms after Jesus' resurrection (10:35-37). We call dibs on the prime-minister' and foreign affairs chairs... Again, they twisted the whole idea of the ministry, and Jesus explains them once more – before they come to Jerusalem (for it the next story after this section). He set the juxtaposition of the Gentile rulers and the Biblical ones – to be served or to serve. And He is the perfect example (10:45).

Family issues (D and D'). There are two sides to these accounts. Father can't heal his son, the disciples of Jesus can't heal the son... He is unstoppable bringing son to Jesus. A good parallel story to it might be the story of a son being resurrected by prophet Elisha (2 Kings 4:18-25, 32-37).

On the other side we have (D') “regular” problems in family life – divorce (10:1-12), children are not brought to Christ (10:13-16), as a result – they are not raised in the LORD (10:17-31).