A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (2)

 


“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mk. 1.1)

     We have seen that Mark, through his Gospel, is calling his readers to follow the King whose strange story he has told.  If it was difficult for Jesus’ contemporaries to see him as a king, it is doubly difficult for us who have inherited 2,000 years of Christian piety which has more often than not obscured the fact that Jesus, from the moment of his baptism, lived and died as a public figure, claiming to occupy the highest office among the people of God, that of the anointed Son of David, i.e., the Messiah, the King of Israel and – in virtue of that fact – of the nations.  As Israel’s “Christ”, Jesus claimed to be inaugurating the very kingdom of Yahweh, making it a reality “on the ground” (as in heaven, one might add).

     In 2 Samuel 7.8-16, we have the story of the founding of the Davidic covenant – God’s promise that there would always be a descendant of David on the throne of Jerusalem, forever.  It repeats the key features of God’s covenant with Abraham, which “gave birth to” the people of God (cf. Gn. 12.1-3).  God promises David three things: a great name, that Israel will be “planted” securely (cf. Jer. 1.10) in the Promised Land, and an everlasting line of descendants upon his throne (2 Sam. 7.8-13).  The wider context – and play on words – is that David had recently expressed his desire to the prophet Nathan to construct a “house” (i.e., Temple) for Yahweh (2 Sm. 7.1-3).  God replies that, in fact, he will construct a “house” (i.e., dynasty) for David, and that David’s son (Solomon) will be the one to construct God’s house/Temple (7.11-13; cf. 1 Kings 1-8).[1]  Indeed, God’s renown is tied up with the renown of David and his dynasty (7.26).  To the extent that the dynasty thrives, Yahweh will be seen to be great, the One who empowers/protects his king(s).[2]  Indeed, the one who ruled from Jerusalem was Yahweh’s viceroy on earth, and Yahweh ruled his people through his “anointed”, and would one day, promised the Psalms, rule all the nations through the king of Israel (cf. Ps. 2).

     Indeed, in Psalm 2, the king of Israel is called “my son” by Yahweh (Ps. 2.7, quoted in Mk. 1.11); in 2 Sam. 7.14, God tells David that he will be a father to David’s son Solomon.  So, when Mark calls Jesus the “Son of God”, he’s calling him the King of Israel (cf. Jn. 1.49).  In the Hebrew Scriptures, the nation of Israel is first called the “son of Yahweh” (Ex. 4.22; Hosea 11.1).  This divine adoption was then narrowed down to one individual – the Davidic king.  As “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” were being baptized by John in the Jordan (Mk. 1.5), Jesus is “anointed” (i.e., baptized) as the Son of God, the King of Israel, the Lord of the nations.  Since the promise to David was that he would have an eternal dynasty, the Messiah was known as the “son of David”, a title that is applied to Jesus (cf. Mk. 10.47-48; 11.10; 12.35-37; cf. Ps. 110.1).

     Jesus’ message concerns the “kingdom of God” (Mk. 1.15).  In the Psalms, Yahweh is described as King of the world (Pss. 47, 93-99, etc.).  Yahweh ruled the nations through his “son” enthroned in Zion (Ps. 2.6).  The dream of the Hebrew Scriptures is for Yahweh to establish his reign (kingdom) over the whole earth, through his son/viceroy, the King of Israel – one world, one God.  This is the dream that Jesus invites his followers to share, although, as they would eventually realize, Jesus had his own unique vision of what the kingdom of God would look like.


[1] David was the exemplary king, the standard against which all subsequent monarchs of Judah were judged.  The last time that David is mentioned in the 4-volume Books of Kingdoms is 2 Kings 22.2: “(Josiah) did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the way of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.” (cf. Joshua 1.7).  After this point, it’s a downward slide into disaster…

[2] Waltke, Bruce K.  An Old Testament Theology, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007, p. 661.  God’s covenant-partners are always in peril.  In the case of Abraham, his wife and the wives of his son/grandson were all sterile until God miraculously intervened to enable them to conceive and give birth, thus beginning to fulfill his promise of many descendants (cf. Gn. 12-30).  God’s promise to David was put to the test (for a first time) in the mid-9th-century B.C., when the royal family was massacred, leaving only baby Joash alive, who was crowned king of Judah at the age of six (2 Kings 11.4-12): cf. Ibid., pp. 731-32.

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