On Facing The Cross 

  Original Image and

Poem by Wal Anderson

A VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS 

I am fascinated by the way in which Mark's Gospel connects the ending of the Gospel with its beginning.  The words, "he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you" of  16:7, reconnect with 1:2, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will construct your way".   Is Jesus the referent in each case?  A detailed reading of Mark 1:1-3 suggests that this is a possible understanding.  There is another reason to suspect that Mark may be leading his readers / hearers down a subversive path, for the words that he introduces as, "written in the prophet Isaiah" are not to be found in Isaiah!   It appears that Mark begins his Gospel with a riddle.

The first sentence of the Gospel acts as a title: The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mk 1:1)  The second sentence introduces what appear to be introductory quotes from Scripture; As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,¹ "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you (lit. before your face), who will construct  (Gk. kataskeuasei) your way;  however, this is actually a redacted compilation from Exodus 23:20 and Malachi 3:1 and it serves to introduce the quote from Isaiah 40:3, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight (or 'straightway'),'  (Mk 1:3)

Checking the three Scriptural quotes in the Septuagint (LXX), which was the Greek version of the the Hebrew Scriptures from which the Evangelist quotes, shows the following:

 [Ex. 23:20 LXX]² And, behold, I send my messenger (Gk, angelon)  before your face, that he may keep you in the way, that he may bring you into the land which I have prepared for you (Gk. verb, htoimasa) .

[Mal. 3:1 LXX]³ Behold I send forth my messenger and and he shall survey the way before me and the Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come into his temple, even the angel of the covenant, in whom you take pleasure: behold, he is coming, says the Lord Almighty.

[Isaiah  40:3 LXX]⁴ A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare (Gk verb, etoimasate) the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Each places focus on "the way" which is the expression used for the Gospel's central motif of discipleship for which the referent is Jesus.   In compiling his composite text, Mark has used a verb not found in any of the LXX texts, he uses kataskeuasei (construct, create) with reference to constructing the way.  The one in the Gospel who constructs "the way" is Jesus so whose voice is it that cries in the wilderness?  Is it Jesus, too, or  John/Elijah, or the Evangelist, himself? As the only exception to Mark's other occurrences of the use of 'voice' pointing to the identity of Jesus, is found in Jesus' own cry from the Cross (See 1:11, 1:26, 5:7, 9:7, 15:34), the voice crying in the wilderness may well be that of Jesus, too.  

Drawing on the wilderness theme in verse 4, traditionally John the Baptist has been seen as this voice in the wilderness, going ahead of Jesus, heralding the One who will construct the way.  The Gospels of Matthew, and John Luke develop this viewpoint, but the Markan text is unclear, ambiguously allowing multiple interpretations and presents us with a puzzle.  This is a feature of the Gospel, for Mark uses multiple imagery, as will be discussed below.   As the Gospel unfolds, Jesus will be the One to "go before" the disciples "on the way" (Mk 10:32; 14:28) and He is the One who "cries out in a loud voice" from the cross (Mk 15:34 c.f 1:3), when all seems lost in failure.  He is the One who is announced at the empty tomb as "going before you to Galilee" (Mk 16:7), a place already prepared in the Gospel as the locus of discipleship.  As the end of the Gospel redirects us to the beginning again, Jesus is the One sent before the disciples, as messenger, and constructs the way of discipleship anew.   Until they follow with understanding, Jesus is the One crying as a voice in the wilderness.  The triumph of Christ is thus mirrored in the failure of the disciples.  He goes before them, calls them to himself, restoring hope, thus solving the riddle within the very opening verses of the Gospel.  For these reasons I take verse 4 to be the beginning of a new idea, in which the riddle of identity, the wilderness theme and the voice of John point us to Jesus. 

FOLLOW AFTER ME: a call to discipleship

Like the people of the Gospel's first audience, two generations after the events within the narrative,⁵ we are asked to see ourselves within the company of the original disciples and to share their awakening to the realities of radical discipleship.  At each moment, we have the same opportunity to learn, to act in faith and understanding, or to reflect upon our living praxis. Yet, at any one point along the way, we already know more than the disciples in the story know.  From the outset, we are told that we are hearing "the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Thus Mark⁶ presents his christology in his opening verse, in which Jesus is given a three-fold name as Jesus-Messiah-Son of God (Mk 1:1).  We may already come to the story with this belief or understanding. We may come with disbelief or doubt. Like the disciples, we are called to see or comprehend and believe that which we have been told, and to take action. To take action with Christ or to be as Christ, is radical discipleship. 

Ched Myer⁷ presents an convincing interpretation, that, as Mark's Jesus engages the dual, political powers, of Roman and Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, and meets death at the hands of those powers, Mark wants us to understand that an "activist ideology of discipleship" is at the heart of the Gospel, through which the old world gives way to the new.  The invitation is to bring transformation through new social practice and "costly political engagement.⁸   Mark thus presents us with his apocalyptic conviction that a new beginning has come in the person of the Human One on the Cross, whose way sets free a new wave of liberation, a new exodus from captivity by the dominating system.⁹  Initially the concern for new community resides with mark's own community, some two generations after the events in the narrative.  The Gospel itself rose out of the experience and needs of an early circle of discipleship communities.  Through discipleship we may bring transformation within ourselves and our own communities.

To avoid losing sight of a relevant theology of the cross may be Mark's prime purpose in writing, to remind his community of the centrality "of the cross and the true meaning of discipleship." (Matera, F., What Are They Saying About Mark?, pp.16-17)  Accepting that an early dating of the Gospel, from between 66-69/70 CE being most likely, given the Markan criticism of the temple and that the internal political and economic climate is one of unrest and the likelihood of war in Palestine, Mark composed his gospel during a period of hardship, persecution.  Teaching his community a transformative, radical discipleship is the Evangelist's main concern, his strategy for renewal and hope. Mark explores a wide variety of motifs that work in a dialectical relationship with each other, to direct the reader to reflect and to uncover meaning at several levels and directions of insight. Exploring some of these will serve to give a glimpse of the many levels of meaning that Mark places within his crucifixion scene, and uncover his religio-political motives for writing. 

MULTIPLE MEANINGS:

The fact that the two cries from the cross frame two Messianic symbols of Elijah and the cup, both of which share the ironic nature of the two cries, reinforces my interpretation that Mark intends his readers to understand Jesus as "a voice (that) cries out, "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." (Isaiah 40:3; Mark 1:3). In this way, Jesus is shown as the one sent to prepare the way in the tradition of Exodus 23:20, Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1. The "way" is the way of discipleship, the halachah of Jesus, and the voice is the voice of solidarity with despair and suffering under oppression. This is made clear, for the next voice that we hear in the narrative, is the voice of the oppressor, the executioner, and we hear the Roman centurion declare that this man was a son of god. The Roman's own witness, like the words of sentence attached to the cross (Mk 15:26), ironically bears moral witness against Rome and the way of military might. 

Traditionally, the statement from the centurion is usually taken as a christological statement of Gentile recognition of Jesus, the Son of God. However, it could equally be taken as a common, Hellenistic statement of respect: "Truly, this man was a son of God." Thus it carries a cultural and political meaning as well as any christological rendering that we may read into the text.¹¹ 

In interpreting the words of the centurion in this way, I contrast the different understanding presented by Drury. For him the centurion is the one "who transcends and resolves all previous attempts to identify Jesus."¹²  Jesus is the Son of God. Drury connects this acclamation with the way into the kingdom that Jesus' death has opened for the Gentiles. He draws upon the narrative importance of the riddle of the one-loaf, the feeding of the two crowds, the exchange with the Syro-Phoenician woman and the loaf transformed at the Last Supper, as a "train of coded events associated with bread,"¹³  that are theologically and existentially transformed into new traditions of Christ's life and body. It is the genius of Mark's Gospel that weaves so many themes, multiple meanings, nuances, histories and transformations into the narrative, that it is pregnant with diversity. 

As Drury says,

Then suddenly, with Markan, narrative haste and surprise, the sanctuary curtain, which divides the Holy place from the Holy of Holies within the temple, rips from top to bottom, thus symbolically heralding the end of the old order. Perhaps a more radical interpretation is that the presence of God has deserted the temple, mirroring the feeling of divine desertion of the One on the Cross. The reverberation of His cry rends the curtain, stills the crowd and brings full focus, of the reader, upon the person of the Crier. 

Morna Hooker regards the cry of dereliction from the cross as being central to Mark's understanding of the death of Jesus.¹⁵   Other voices from Scripture come to mind: this last cry becomes another call to discipleship! 

I am going to send a messenger  (Heb. malak) in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; (Exodus 23:20-21a)

 A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken." 
A voice says, "Cry out!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" (Isaiah 40:3-6a)

See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight -- indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? (Malachi 3:1-2a)

We are given no rest at the cross, no time to absorb, reflect or recoil from the impact. The voice of the centurion intones an ambiguous benediction, as the final words and breath of Jesus still ring in our ears. We are lead to see the women standing, viewing, at a distance, and the focus shifts to a remnant of the disciples, to the new order present in the women. This new order is invested in the powerless-ones. Yet it is the action of the women, and the redirection given by the young man at the tomb, that calls the followers of Jesus to reinstatement as disciples. Where they had expected great things, they had been shown only selflessness and service towards others. Their desertion and failure are of no count: Jesus has "gone before them, into Galilee," the Promised Land of the new Exodus.  Jesus again has prepared the way, in the tradition of Exodus 23:20, Isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1.  The young man at the tomb issues another call to discipleship, implying, "follow him into Galilee".   Thus it all starts again; the end is the new beginning; a voice has cried in the wilderness; a prophet has prepared the way; follow if you dare!

In doing this, Mark skillfully leads his audience, first one way, then another, weaving a path of discovery through direct revelation of his intent, as well a through indirect, ironic, ambiguous or mysterious experiences.  Mark's rhetoric is one of indirection that is radically provocative, indeterminate and open-ended, leaving the reader to make responsive decisions. Yet much of Mark's mystery remains permanently obscure, ambiguous or uncertain. The reader, as a new witness or a new watcher, must fill in the gaps, make decisions and move onwards. Thus there is always the possibility of renewal, or of a new start, arising out of failure, uncertainty or obscurity. The Good News is that the old has given way to the new, and will continue to do so, for the Messiah has come. To take up His cross and follow after Him, is to participate in the new beginning. Because Jesus "goes before" us (16:7), there is always the possibility of a new start being made on the discipleship adventure. 

UNITY OF ACTION:

Jesus is very much located with us, in "Galilee," which is the metaphorical site of disciple-practice and the living place of the historical Jesus. Mark presents us with an invitation, the very, initial invitation of Jesus to "follow after me," (1:17) which is reiterated in the words, "he is going before you to Galilee." (16:7). It is an invitation to follow, in radical discipleship, in orthopraxis, that begins with our humanity, in touch with The Human One, and follows in companionship with Him, as herald of a way through the wilderness. As Jesus goes before us, into Galilee, a new exodus from captivity by the dominating system, emerges.  Was this a reality for Mark, in which the flight from Jerusalem is the new exodus?  The journeying begins again, as one "follows after" Jesus who has gone before us "to Galilee" the ground of discipleship.  

My response rises from compassion for the suffering Jesus and indignation at the gross injustice of the event. It was only when I truly suffered rejection that I began to grasp the significance of the crucifixion. Thus the cross calls me with a loud voice, to commit myself to confrontation with the dominant structures of church and society, to align with the marginalises and those made poor by patriarchy and its dominant, heterosexist hegemony. I stand in solidarity with gay and lesbian people who seek to transform dominating and crucifying structures, both within and outside of their communities. 

The cross becomes for me, a symbol of the struggle to find self and community, in life and wholeness, within a structure that largely communicates death and marginalisation through the pursuit of its own imperial dreams. 

Mark builds his Gospel around the tragic failure of Jesus' disciples. Jesus is betrayed by one, denied by his right-hand man and deserted by the rest. They all fail in the end. Yet forgiveness rings out from the resurrection: Jesus waits in Galilee. Mark wants us to comprehend the failure, see it and feel it, and then move on to experience the resurrection, and the experience of forgiveness, of one's self and of others, that is implicit in it. The central focus of the new community, then, as now, is forgiveness. (Mk 9:49f.; 11:25: 16:7). I seek to appropriate this spirit of forgiveness, both to experience it and to offer it. 

in "the end, whether or not we will find a way to carry on with this story of biblical radicalism, this way of living and dying together, this way into a new heaven and earth, depends upon our understanding and acceptance of the tragedy and hope of our failures. For it is there that our discipleship will either truly end or truly begin."¹⁷ 

So far the cross teaches me justice-making and love-making as appropriate praxis.  Just as Mark's narrative is full of multiple meanings and multiple opportunities for choice, I believe that the same plurality of possibility exists for Christian expression. Its unity lies in its solidarity with Christ, against domination of the powerless-ones and in its calling for reconstruction, with a bias towards the poor and the oppressed, who are caught in a hard place. 

The "wilderness" or "desert", is a hard, hostile place, and, in Mark's use of the word, it corresponds to "Galilee", the site or place of discipleship. For Mark, the wilderness set the scene for the beginning of the Gospel story. It was the place in which the paths were levelled; it was the place of Jesus' testing and the place of his retreat and solitude. He fed the crowds there, in imitation of Yahweh feeding the people of the Exodus (Ex. 16:4ff.). Jesus was also crucified in the wilderness, outside the city walls, in a barren, marginal place that became the site of the wilderness of despair. For the disciples, it became the site of a community in flight into which the Gospel narrative voices the apocalyptic hope of deliverance, the promise of a new Exodus and a political revival.  As a place of marginal existence, hardship and testing, "wilderness" is a powerful metaphor for discipleship, in an existential geography of hope. Those marginalised people, who experience the church as occupied territory, understand wilderness as their place of witness, the ground of their existence. For many, the church is "occupied" by tyrants who impose their dominant ideologies, prejudices, theologies and social constructs to enforce marginalisation. For the persecuted faithful, wilderness is a place of refuge and hope. For the activist, it calls forth a view of discipleship that equates with a specific social practice and costly political engagement, that will hopefully inaugurate transformation. 

In practice, we are to discover the presence of Jesus, in our decisions and actions, risking the despair of the cross and the ambiguity of failure, as we seek to follow. There are no given answers, only questions of decision and commitment to the Reign of God. The "way" is the life-giving way of Jesus, the way of the cross, and the voice is the divine voice of solidarity with despair and suffering under oppression. 

It is noteworthy that in each of the places where the Gospel presents specific sayings of The Human One (Mk 2:10,28; 3:4), they function to liberate human life, and to enrich it, bringing wholeness and integration and not to marginalisation. The great irony of the cross is that Jesus taught people to minister life, not death.  His death speaks as a witness against those who minister "death" to others.

In experiencing administered "death" of this kind, I find myself coming to doubt the ability of the church to repent and bring change and minister to all who believe. I find myself countenancing disbelief - disbelief that leads to unbelief! I fight against myself, and, in moments when I relax and turn to the people and places that restore me, I find Christ again. He leads me out of the wilderness of my disillusionment. Each time it is with the same words, "follow me." As Moloney observes, 

"as we read the Gospel of Mark, our own terror and failure can be given sense and purpose. He 'is going before us into Galilee.' There we will see him, as he has 'gone before us', summoning us towards our experience of resurrection, as we continually meet him, touch him and we are inspired by his living presence in our 'Galilees'. His never failing presence to the failed and failing disciples always has and always will make sense out of our nonsense."¹⁸

NOTES:

1.  Some ancient versions of Mark omit 'Isaiah' and have 'in the Prophets'.
2.  Ex. 23:20, LXX has: kai idou egw apostellw ton aggelon mou pro proswpou sou ina fulaxh se en th odw opws eisagagh se eis thn ghn hn htoimasa soi
3.  Mal. 3.1, LXX has: idou egw exapostellw ton aggelon mou kai epibleyetai odon pro proswpou mou kai exaifnhs hxei eis ton naon eautou kurios on umeis zhteite kai o aggelos ths diaqhkhs on umeis qelete idou ercetai legei kurios pantokratwr.
4.  Isaiah  40:3, LXX has: fwnh bowntos en th erhmw etoimasate thn odon kuriou euqeias poieite tas tribous tou qeou hmwn
5.  I accept that an early dating of the Gospel, from between 66-69/70 CE, is most likely, given the Markan criticism of the temple and that the internal political and economic climate is one of unrest. See Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 41.
6.  I use the name 'Mark' to refer to the Evangelist traditionally acknowledged as author of the Gospel According to Mark. 
7.  Myers, C., Binding the Strongman, p.416.
8. Ibid.
9.   Myers, C., Who Will Roll Away The Stone?, pp.250-251.
10. Matera, F., What Are They Saying About Mark?, pp.16-17.
11. Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p.393.
12. Drury, J., Mark, p.416.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Hooker, M., St Mark, p.375.
16.  Myers, ibid., pp.361; 365; & 382, note 1, makes the interpretation that the last supper was a Seder meal.
17. Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 457.
18. Moloney, The Living Voice..., p.41.

REFERENCES