March 30th, 2024

This Sunday is a familiar and well-loved one, the ‘official title’ being the Resurrection of Our Lord. In the writings of this website, we are currently making our way through the gospel account that does not have a lot about the resurrection of our Lord, but this account does make up for that unique perspective in other ways.

One of those ways is that, of the three similar gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—the Gospel according to Mark has, by far, the most historical presents. (An historical present is where a past tense verb is expected, but a present tense is given.) The presence of an historical present helps to point out the present ramifications of such an ancient text. Jesus lived, he died, and he came back to life again, and he is still alive today. And the ramifications of that life, death, and resurrection are often hard to see. That fact is often compounded by the fact that we often like to focus on all the obvious negativity that is going on within our little corner of the world. (And with the benefit of the news broadcasters, we get to hear about all the other negative things that are going on in the rest of the world!) With these writings are currently looking at that very rich historical-present Gospel according to Mark, and we are taking a little bit each time, enough to remind us of the One who is in charge of it all, but He is One who does not show that ‘in-charge-ness’ by using his power. He, instead, has chosen to let his love predominate.

What follows could be called a somewhat-literal translation of the latter half of what is usually called chapter eight of the Gospel according to Mark (8:22-38; you may wish to look at other translations or a study bible to help understand the text; and the words in bold print below are the historical presents):

And they come into Bethsaida. And they bring to him a blind one, and they exhort him that him he would touch. And having grabbed the hand of the blind one, he brought out him, outside the village, and having spit into the eyes of him, having laid on the hands of him, he was questioning him, “If anything you see?”

And having looked up, he was saying, “I see the men, that as trees, I behold, walking.”
Then, again, he laid on the hands upon the eyes of him, and he saw through, and he was restored, and he was looking on, plainly, everything. And he sent him into house of him, saying, “Not into the village you may come into.”

And he came out, the Jesus, and the disciples of him, into the villages of Caesarea of the Philip; and in the way he was questioning the disciples of him, saying to them, “Whom, me, they say, the men, to be?”

And they said to him, saying, “John the Baptist, and others, Elias, now others, that one of the prophets.”

And he, himself, questioned them, “Now you, whom me, you say, to be?”

Having answered, the Peter, he says to him, “You, yourself, are the Christ.”

And he warned them that no one, they may say about him.

And he began to teach them that it is necessary, the Son of the Man, many things to suffer, and to be rejected by the presbyters, and the archpriests, and the scribes, and to be killed, and after three days, to rise again, and plainly, the word he was speaking. And having taken aside, the Peter, him, he began to rebuke him. Now the one, having turned around and having seen the disciples of him, he rebuked Peter, and he says, “Go behind me, Satan, because not you think the things of the God, but on the contrary, the things of the men.

And having summoned the crowd with the disciples of him, he said to them, “If anyone wants, after me to follow, let him deny himself, and let him take up the cross of him, and let him follow me. For whoever wants the life of him to save, he will lose it; now whoever will lose the life of him for the sake of me and the gospel, he will save it. For what profits a man to gain the world, whole, and to lose the soul of him? For what might give a man, an exchange of the soul of him? For whoever is ashamed of me and the, my, words in the generation, this, the adulterous and sinful, also the Son of the Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of the Father of him, with the angels, the holy.

In the first part of the above text, it is interesting that there is another very similar text to this one. At the start of the above text, there are three verbs in the historical present—to come, to bring, and to exhort. The last two of the three appeared very recently, near the end of the previous chapter. In that situation they bring a man with a speech difficulty, and they exhort Jesus to heal him.

Before the previous chapter, when that word ‘exhort’ was used when talking to Jesus, there was usually a ‘happy ending’, where those who are asking get what they want. In both of these instances, the one above and the one in the previous chapter, there was a healing, but along with that healing came some negativity. Jesus sighed in the previous occurrence (7:34). In the above situation, there was a gradual healing. And these two instances of the word are the last two times that this word appears within this gospel account.
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This special use of the word ‘exhort’ in this gospel account may encourage the present-day Christians not to focus on the smaller things or to focus too much on the Lord’s power. Jesus had the power to take all sin and to pay for it on the cross. That is enough power to last us for eternity. Jesus did that very powerful thing while on earth, and his forgiveness comes in a very loving way.