Mark's Gospel as sequel: Understanding the Backstory, part II: Elijah

 

     From the very first verses of his Gospel, Mark plugs his story into the narrative of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., Old Testament).  Mark has written a story (Gospel) about a first-century Jew who lived in Northern Palestine (Galilee).  Mark is presenting the story of Jesus as the fulfillment of the story of Israel, which began in Gn. 12.1-3 with God’s calling of Abra(ha)m.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and all the other OT characters were part of the “people of God”, the family that God promised to give to Abraham that would be God’s agent of salvation in the world.  God revealed his name (Yahweh) to Moses in Ex. 3.14, and as the Israelites gathered at the base of Mt. Sinai, Yahweh renewed and expanded the covenant that he had first established with Abraham (Ex. 19—20; cf. Gn. 12, 15, 17).  A covenant is a sacred agreement made between God and his people, with promises of blessing for faithfulness and cursing for unfaithfulness (cf. Dt. 28—30).  Mark’s “Gospel” (i.e., “good news”) is the astounding and incredible news that Yahweh has kept the promises he made to his people throughout the 20 centuries which had passed since Abraham.  Yahweh has proved himself faithful (i.e., “righteous”, “just”) to his covenant promises, despite the persistent unfaithfulness of his people Israel.

     To fully understand Mark’s “sequel” to the Scriptures of Israel, we need to look at 7 previous “episodes”, 7 OT characters which shed light on what Mark is saying about John the Baptist and Jesus in chapter 1.  The second character from the “original story” is Elijah.  Elijah was a 9^th century B.C. prophet to the Kingdom of Israel, known for his confrontation with the King and Queen, Ahab and Jezebel, who had led Israel into idolatry, i.e., the worship of false gods, especially the chief Canaanite divinity called Baal (cf. 1 Kings 17—18).  Mark describes John the Baptist in terms reminiscent of Elijah (compare Mk. 1.6 with 2 Kings 1.8).  Further along in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus identifies John with Elijah (Mk. 9.9-13; some people thought that Jesus was Elijah: cf. Mk. 6.14-16; 8.27-30).  Indeed, Elijah haunts Mark’s Gospel – from John “channeling” the spirit of Elijah in the opening verses as he calls Israel to repentance and renewed faithfulness to Yahweh, to Elijah’s appearance with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mk. 9.2-8), to the bystanders’ misinterpretation of Jesus’ last words spoken from the cross (cf. Mk. 15.35-36) – Elijah’s shadow falls across the pages of the story from beginning to end.  In order to better grasp this rather bizarre phenomenon, it’s important to remember that there was an expectation among first-century Jews that Elijah would return to herald the coming of the Messiah, i.e., the king who would rescue Israel from her enemies (cf. Gospel of John 1.19-28; Malachi 4.5-6; Gospel of Luke 1.13-17).  Indeed, all four Gospels present John the Baptist as being “Elijah”, i.e., the one who prepares the way for Jesus, the Messiah (“Christ”).  The reason that people were expecting Elijah to return was the fact that in the Scriptures, Elijah is described as having never died, but as having been taken to heaven in a “chariot of fire” (cf. 2 Kings 2.9-14).  Interestingly, this “assumption” of Elijah into heaven took place on the eastern bank of the Jordan River…

     Mark’s identification of John with Elijah alerts us to the fact that John is announcing a word of warning about coming disaster.  Elijah had called the Northern Kingdom of Israel to “repent”, i.e. to “return” to being faithful to Yahweh, to the exclusion of all other gods.  Sadly, Israel largely ignored Elijah’s warnings, in spite of the spectacular demonstration on Mt. Carmel of Yahweh’s power as being far greater than that of Baal (cf. 1 Kings 18).  A century after Elijah’s “departure”, disaster finally struck – the Assyrians invaded the Northern Kingdom, destroyed the capital city of Samaria in the year 722 B.C. and exiled the population into the far reaches of the Assyrian empire.  If John is, like Elijah, calling the people of God to return to faithfulness to the covenant with Yahweh, what king of disaster might befall Israel if the people ignore John’s message?  Let’s not forget that in the first century, Palestine was under Roman hegemony – the situation of the people of God was already far from ideal.  Could it possibly get any worse?  Would the Messiah announced by John transform Israel’s situation?  So many questions, so much expectation…