Kata Markon

["Kym Smith" <khs AT picknowl.com.au>]

Dear Jeffrey,

I have read responses to your article in other lists and, on writing my
own - which took some time - thought that this would be the proper place
to post it. Sadly I have not read the discussion here but will do so.

I read your article and was –  though a little skeptical to begin with –
quite taken with your idea that the disciples were being cautioned not to
test the faithfulness of God. I do not think that it necessarily excludes
the idea that they were to pray that they did not succumb to temptation –
perhaps succumbing to temptation should also be seen as testing God’s
faithfulness.

In Part III you suggest three things to support the conclusion that
‘putting God and his faithfulness to the test’ was what Jesus meant in Mk
14:38. Two I have no argument with, but your second, that in Gethsemane
Jesus himself was praying that he not put God to the test is, I believe,
based on an incorrect – though quite traditional – understanding of Jesus’
words there. When Jesus prayed for the cup to be removed from him, I do
not believe that he was praying that he not have to go through with the
crucifixion. He had always understood that the cross was his Father’s
intention for him and never swerved from his calling. Rather, as he
entered the garden and with, I suggest, the sin of humanity increasingly
weighing upon him (c.f 1 Pet 2:24 – Jesus ‘carried our sins in his body up
to the cross’) he was ‘distressed and troubled’ (14:33) and, as he said,
his soul was ‘very sorrowful, even to death’ (34). What concerned Jesus
was not going to the cross but that he might not *reach* the cross. He
understood that the cross was his goal but was worried that he might fall
short of the goal and die in the garden (c.f. Heb 5:7 which, as far as we
know, only fits the crisis in Gethsemane and in which Jesus prays to be
saved – and is heard (i.e. is saved) – from death). That Jesus concludes
his prayer with, ‘…yet not what I will, but what thou wilt’ is not a
reluctant giving in to his Father’s will (i.e. a brutal and public death
on the cross) but an acceptance that, unbeknown to him and contrary to all
he had understood to be the plan, his Father may have decided that he
should die (obscurely) in the garden. Luke has an angel strengthen Jesus
as he prayed (Lk 22:43).
This understanding of Gethsemane best fits all we know, especially of
Jesus’ determination to do his Father’s will. It does not support your
usage of it.

As to Mark’s audience, if I may insert my own thoughts, I think there is a
more probable option than that he wrote in 69-69 to ‘those professing
loyalty to the God of Israel who were sufficiently caught up in the
revolutionary fervor of the years 68-69 to be drawn over or severely
attracted to the Zealots cause’ (i.e. ‘holy war’). By 66 the Christians
had already deserted Jerusalem.

My position flows out of my understanding that the Revelation had already
been given (in 62) and that the Church understood that the beast of the
Revelation was Nero and that the end was very near. Mark (which, I
believe, was primarily Peter’s work in mid-late 64) was written to support
the Church for the short time (only a few years) until Jesus’ return and
the age ended (c.f. 2 Pet 1:12-15). The gospel was circulated rapidly
around the Mediterranean, almost certainly by Mark (hence the title given
to a book for which Peter would have seen no need to name). The Church
knew that it was about to face a time of great trial and testing and, in
that sense, your comments, Jeffrey, about 14:38 may apply. Mark’s
intrusion into Jesus’ speech in 13:14 after mentioning the ‘desolating
sacrilege’, i.e., ‘let the reader understand’ was because the readers
understood who the ‘desolating sacrilege’ was. They understood it to be
Nero, but it would be far too politically dangerous to make that obvious.
The reader understood, and all that was contained in Jesus’ eschatological
address pertained, they thought, to them.

Rather than correcting believers who may have been inclined to ‘holy war’
instead of ‘the way of the cross’, Mark was an encouragement for all
believers to continue in ‘the way of the cross’ knowing, as he is
portrayed in Mark, that Jesus himself had already faced and defeated all
the powers (demonic and earthly) with which they were likely to be
confronted in the coming tribulation. It would be a time in which they
would be subjected to great temptation to waver in their faith, it would
also be a time in which they would be sorely tempted to test the
faithfulness of God.

Sincerely,

Kym Smith
Adelaide
South Australia
khs AT picknowl.com.au