Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Another motif that dominates the whole composition is Jesus’ authoritative “teaching.” The participants in the worship service are astounded at his way of interpreting Scripture. This authoritative attitude of Jesus is then linked directly to his power over demons. The people of Capernaum say, after the possessed man is healed: “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” At the end, then, in the final verse of the composition, the combination of powerful teaching and mastery over demons appears again, now summarized as “proclaiming.”

But we should not look only at the structural lines of the composition. We must also appreciate the overall mood: Mark depicts a fully rounded day replete with holiness. It is certainly a day near the beginning of Jesus’ activity. It is an example of many other days. It can be no accident that it is a Sabbath, for that means it is a day on which creation, according to the biblical idea, arrives at its perfection.

Of course, we cannot exclude the possibility that within the time of Jesus’ public activity this one day, with all the events depicted, actually happened. That is certainly possible. But it is more probable that Mark here artistically distributed several pieces of tradition over a single day. He arranged disparate memories in such a way as to produce a full day’s happenings—including the night that followed. He describes a day when people and relationships are healed, find rest, and are restored to balance. In this way he placed pieces of tradition that were already available to him and that had been already interpreted in the telling within a still broader context of interpretation.

The Role of Liturgy

But the process of interpretation goes still further. The gospels, after all, are not displaced texts floating somewhere in the air. They are the church’s texts and their true “life situation” is the liturgy. There, they are celebrated as the word of God. There they are proclaimed as Gospel and authentically interpreted. In the Catholic Lectionary the Old Testament reading from Job 7:1-4, 6-7 is assigned to be read with the gospel on the Sunday when most of Mark 1:21-34 is proclaimed.⁴ There, Job speaks of the misery of human life. He says that life is like hard servitude, full of disappointment and toil. People spend it like day laborers who have to work all day in the heat and long for the shadows of evening. But there is no rest even at night. Job spends his nights as a sick man who tosses back and forth on his bed and wishes for morning because the night is endless. His nights and days are empty and without hope. Because his life is empty it has no weight. It swiftly disappears, and the thread of existence is cut off.

That is the content and especially the tone of the reading that is assigned to accompany the gospel of the “day in Capernaum.” Was Job right? Of course he was. The torturous suffering he describes courses through the world and always has. So the liturgy creates a sharp contrast on this Sunday between the Old Testament reading and the gospel, and apparently that contrast was deliberately aimed at.

Job spoke of how dark, empty, and hopeless human days are. Mark, in the gospel, describes a full and fulfilled day that is complete in itself and is full of health, holiness, and salvation. But that creates a still more profound interpretive context. Now we are speaking not only about the power of Jesus’ preaching, and not only about his power over demons and sickness. Beyond that, we are speaking of his power over the world’s chaos.

It is true that Mark’s composition, viewed in itself, is not lacking in chaos. That is present throughout the day. It erupts in the man who begins to shout in the middle of the synagogue worship because he is being shaken by his demons. It appears in the illness of Peter’s mother-in-law. It shows itself in the many sick people and those plagued by the demons of society, the people who are brought to Jesus in the evening.

The chaos of the world, the chaos of society, this whole disorder and confusion is thus already present even in Mark’s composition. But through the liturgical composition—that is, through the church’s official interpretation—this motif now stands out in full force. Now, for the first time, we grasp the real profundity of the Markan text. But now we also grasp the extent of the salvation that is happening here. The world is, in fact, alienated from itself and without hope. But with Jesus the state of things comes back to plumb, people sink into rest, chaos is transformed, the demons of society to which individuals are helplessly surrendered are banished. The evening and the morning are no longer full of disappointment but are overflowing with messianic salvation.