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What is the cross? For Mark, the cross is not so much Jesus' passive suffering as His last great act of power.
While Matthew shows Jesus as the great teacher of Israel, Mark shows Jesus as a man of action. In the first verse of his gospel, he identifies Jesus by the royal title "Son of God," and as Son of God Jesus moves immediately from place to place conquering and to conquer. He casts out a demon from a man in a synagogue and a legion of demons from the Gadarene demoniac. He is the stronger Man come to bind the strong man.
Toward the middle of this gospel, however, the tenor of Jesus' ministry changes, as He begins to tell His disciples He is going to Jerusalem to be tried, rejected, and crucified. Mark's point is not that Jesus ceases to be the conquering Son of God when He arrives in Jerusalem. Rather, Mark is showing that Jesus' last and greatest work of power is His death on the cross. The cross was not so much passion as His one final conquering action.
Though Mark tells us that Jesus is Son of God, throughout most of the gospel no human being recognizes Jesus as Son of God. The Father identifies Jesus as Son of God at His baptism and transfiguration. Even demons recognize Jesus as the Son of the Highest. But neither the Jewish leaders, nor the crowds that follow Him, nor the disciples themselves acknowledge Jesus is Son of God. The only human being who recognizes Him is the centurion at the cross, who sees the way Jesus dies and says "Truly this was the Son of God."
This is Mark's gospel message: Jesus is king, but Jesus is a king in a far different way than all other kings are kings. As king, He comes endowed with salvation, humble, mounted on a donkey, even a colt, the foal of a donkey. As king, He conquers by offering Himself for His people. And if we want to share His conquest, we must go and go likewise.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 08:18 AM
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