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Mark 9:2-9
Epiphany 6B
We transition towards Lent with the Transfiguration. Similar to Matthew and Luke’s account, the Transfiguration event takes place after Jesus prophesies his future suffering. In fact, it’s this suffering speech (in Matthew) that leads Peter to try to rebuke Jesus, and to be subsequently told by Jesus, “Get behind me, Satan!” Though we can’t know…
Mark 1:29-39
Epiphany 5B
SO MUCH IS HAPPENING HERE! Welcome to the Gospel of Mark. Last week felt like it was quite the scene, but look what the rest of the day brought! Jesus and the disciples leave the synagogue and go to Peter (still being called Simon) and Andrew’s house, where Jesus performs a private healing of Peter’s…
Lent 2B: Quite Openly
It is a familiar story in the gospel of Mark. Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi. That question from Jesus; “who do you say that I am?” Peter’s confession; that’s what the tradition calls Peter’s response to Jesus. The always puzzling Messianic secret; Jesus sternly ordering the disciples not to tell who he was….
Mark 1:21-28
Epiphany 4B
Jesus has called his first disciples and now they have all gone to Capernaum. It’s the sabbath and Jesus takes the opportunity to teach those who gather in the synagogue. Immediately, the people are impressed: this rabbi is different. He speaks and the people can recognize his authority—it felt like a sharp contrast from the…
Mark 1:14-20
Epiphany 3B
The lectionary makes it a habit of giving us two weeks from two different gospels stories of Jesus calling his first disciples. Moving from John’s gospel to Mark’s, it’s as though our perspective in the calling narrative has changed to Jesus’s side of things. “Fresh” from the desert and the evil one’s temptations, Jesus is…
Mark 1:4-11
Epiphany 1B
If you were following the Gospel lectionary texts in December, then the first four verses of our text today will be familiar because they were also in the passage for the second Sunday of Advent. In my commentary for that week, one of the things I focused on was the fact that God decided that…
Mark 1:1-8
Advent 2B
Comments, Questions, and Observations The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ starts with someone else. In fact, from this point-in-chronological-time of John the Baptist in Mark 1.1-8, Jesus the Messiah is still a future prospect (in verse 8, John uses the future tense in reference to the Greater One), the story seems to…
Mark 13:24-37
Advent 1B
Advent comes in with an apocalyptic bang! This series of verses has come to be known as Mark’s “Little Apocalypse,” a snapshot of the turning point that ends this world and begins the new. I must confess that I can easily get lost in the devastating or destructive depictions in apocalyptic literature to the point…
Palm Sunday: The Indignant Re-entry
In the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible illustrator Barry Moser provides hundreds of haunting images to accompany various Bible passages. His engraving for the Triumphal Entry captures something of this story’s essence. In the picture we see Jesus astride a little donkey colt. Jesus looks a little ridiculous riding on such a small animal–one of his bare…
Lent 2B: The Lenten Fork
According to that great font of wisdom, Yogi Berra, “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Mark 8 is a kind of theological fork in the road. This chapter is the hinge of Mark’s gospel. Not only is this the exact middle of Mark in terms of chapters and verses, it…
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