Mark’s Messianic Secret

Attendees travelled from as far north as Wellsford and the North Shore and as far south as Mangere and Tuakau. The multicultural nature of our church was well represented with Māori, Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Indian and Pakeha preachers present. While mostly Methodist, there were also representatives from the Anglican and Presbyterian churches.

We were welcomed by Judy McFall, a member of the NZLPA national executive, who gave a brief history of the church and local area. Introductions around the room were followed by a short devotional opening and prayer. Hospitality and the sharing of food were key to setting a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere to the gathering.

We moved on to a brief exploration of the shape of worship. The liturgical renewal of the 20th century replaced the traditional hymn sandwich culminating in the sermon with a simple three step structure to worship, recalling forms found in the Psalms. We approach the worship of God with praise and prayers of adoration and confession before listening for a word from God through scripture readings, all-age learning, other readings, music, reflection and/or sermon. We then respond with an affirmation of our faith, prayers of intercession, offering and prayer of dedication/thanksgiving, followed by a dismissal and blessing. This structure gives direction and flow to worship and also allows for flexibility and innovation within the pattern.

We then looked at the synoptic problem which recognises the similarities in events recorded, their wording and even order within the first three gospels. How are they related to each other? Who copied whom? Most scholars now agree that Mark and a sayings source called Q (from the German word quelle meaning “source”) provide the original material for the writers of Matthew and Luke. They also added stories found only in their gospels such as their own particular narratives of the birth of Jesus. The traditional nativity play will usually produce a combination of the stories found in those two gospels. Mark has no birth of Jesus narrative.

With this background we then explored the first chapter of Mark in detail, drawing out the major themes of the gospel: Christology – who is Jesus? and discipleship – what will it mean to follow him? Minor themes in the gospel include Jesus’ preaching of the kingdom of God, crossing boundaries, confronting evil, rejecting greatness, liberating new life and redemptive suffering. One preacher reminded us that if we remove the ‘g’ from kingdom we get the word “kindom” emphasising the importance of relationships in the reign of God.

The Messianic Secret became more prominent as we turned to the mid-point of Mark’s gospel at chapters 8 - 10. We noticed the ‘sandwich structure’ at 8:22-26 and 10:46-52, both stories about Jesus healing blindness. Within these two ‘slices of bread’ were stories of Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ, the transfiguration, three Passion predictions from Jesus and examples of the disciples misunderstanding the teaching of Jesus. Why does Jesus order his disciples at 8:30 not to tell anyone about him? The answer is perhaps found at 9:9 where Jesus again warns them not to tell anyone what they had seen at the transfiguration “until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.”

The disciples do not understand Jesus’ teaching about suffering and argue with one another about who is the greatest. It will only be after the resurrection of Jesus that their blindness will be healed and they will begin to understand just who Jesus is and the cost of following him. Mark presents this as a way for his readers to also move from curiosity and blindness to understanding and healing.

Finally, preachers worked in groups on the lectionary readings for June focussing on the major theme of each reading. They used either mind-mapping or brainstorming as methods to explore the key words, images, questions and challenges in each text. Could they express the purpose of their sermon in one sentence? Were there links to the challenges we find in Aotearoa today? Could they find concrete examples, illustrations or testimony to back up their ideas? Perhaps listening to a lay preacher during the month of June you will be able to hear the fruits of their thinking!