"Do you ever see anything new in these studies?"
                                                                    

It's a fair question.  In fact, it comes up all the time.  

After a couple of days of working with first-time students in the Gospel of Mark, someone invariably asks, "How long have you been teaching this book?"  I have been studying this book (off and on) for over 36 years, and teaching it (off and on) for more than 34 years.  Almost without fail, someone immediately wonders, "Do you still see anything new after all these years?"

I tell them the truth:  I do not always see new things in the text of Mark itself.  But yes, even after all these years, I continue to learn things and to see things in new ways.  

Of course, much of the variety I encounter when teaching Mark's Gospel comes from the unique opportunity presented by each group of learners.  Once I learned that my role is not to tell people what to think, but to help them discover for themselves what is in the text, I knew that no matter how many times I went through Mark with a group of people, it would never grow old.  It never has.

But there is more than just the novelty of journeying through the text with new companions.  From time to time, I experience the joy of a genuinely new-to-me discovery, question or hypothesis.  I explain to my students that mostly it comes down to whether I have eyes to see and ears to hear.

This week, the need was ears to hear.  Specifically, ears to hear Jubilee.  

Brother Jubilee is a pastor among the Karen people of Myanmar.  He serves a village church.  It was clear that he felt a little out of his element in the big city of Yangon.  He was fairly quiet during the week, preferring to let the city pastors and young seminary graduates do most of the talking.

But when I asked the group to list various possibilities for understanding Mark 9:1, Jubilee spoke up.  The task was to think about all that we had seen in Mark and to imagine various things Jesus might possibly have been referring to when he said, "there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power" (NRSV).  Most groups quickly mention the transfiguration (Mark's next story), the resurrection and the second coming.  The Karen pastors I was with were no different.  Except Pastor Jubilee.

"I think Jesus is referring to himself, his own ministry among them," said Jubilee.  It took everyone in the group at least a few seconds to understand what Jubilee meant.  And, his suggestion may or may not be what Mark wanted us to see when he included this statement from Jesus in his Gospel.  But, at the very least, Jubilee's suggestion came from a serious attempt to read the text very carefully.  That's what we discovered when I asked Jubilee to explain what he meant.

Jubilee called our attention to the first summary of Jesus' message that Mark offers:  "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe" (1:15).  Then, he reminded us, in the next few stories Mark shows us how the kingdom was present in Jesus' authoritative teaching, calling, healing and exorcisms.  Jubilee continued, noting that Mark then weaves into his description of Jesus' ministry a series of conflict stories.  While many flocked to Jesus and were amazed by what they saw as the power of God at work in him (2:12), others decided he was a fraud, leading the people astray by displays of power that actually came from Satan (3:22).  

Jubilee said, "What Mark shows us in Jesus' ministry is the kingdom of God coming with miracle-working power, but not everyone has eyes to see it.  The promise of 9:1 is that some of the people standing there with Jesus that day would not die before they 'got it.'  They would actually see what they were already looking at, the presence of the kingdom in Jesus."

What a great moment!  Jubilee's suggestion might not finally carry the day with the majority of New Testament scholars.  But it is worthy of consideration.  And it certainly was a thoughtful effort to work carefully with the details that Mark gives us--precisely the kind of thing I had spent the past three days encouraging workshop participants to do.  

Jubilee's suggestion was not what I expected to hear, but it was a delightful surprise.  Thank you, Jubilee!   And thank you for praying that God might give me ears to hear this week!  I'm glad I was able to hear Jubilee.

As we celebrate this week once again the long-ago events of Jesus' death and resurrection, may the Lord give to all of us, eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to respond to God's activity right in our midst!

Blessings,

Stan, just back from Thailand and Myanmar