charting unknown waters

For those who visit this site once in a while, I must say that this blog has lain dormant until now -- a month later. With trimesters per year, eight to nine subjects to cover by the end of the year, I get to explore more of the Bible, to track the maze of the diversified biblical materials and to develop the ability to learn fast, so that lessons can be prepared and concepts grasped in time. Thank God for seeing me through the first teaching term and into the second.
As I revisit the Gospel of Mark, the book of my master thesis' study, I realize that political subversiveness is an underlying theme in the plot. It is also an unspoken agenda borne by the immediate followers of Jesus, the Twelve. The "beginning of the euaggelion of Jesus Christ (son of God)" (1:1) ushers in a new era that boasts of a new hope of the beneficence of a new ruler -- the good news that a new Roman emperor would bring to his subjects. Jesus was expected to be the King of the Jews. Amidst cries of "hosanna" (please save!), he was given the red carpet treatment into Jerusalem. He, the son of David, was to usher in, in the words of the pleading crowds, the "coming kingdom of our father David" (11:10). When he failed their expectations of national/politcal revival, his disciples who had dreamt of basking in his glory, fled. Even the women who had followed Jesus to the tomb, out of fear, "said nothing to no one" of the last message Jesus has for them. On this note, the curtains fall on the drama of Mark, of a failed (in fact, nonexistent) insurrection. Jesus, nailed with the bandits, the insurrectionists -- Jesus, the purported King of the Jews. The desertion of Jesus' followers is a counterpoint to their hopes (now dashed) that they would become the left and right man to their purported king. The Messianic secret in Mark that has befuddled commentators is yet another counterpoint to the political subversiveness that the great miracles and exalted titles of Jesus would project if these were openly declared. Jesus forbid making these known. Conversely, he reminded the disciples a number of times that he has come to suffer and die. Even a hint of an exalted resurrection is left out of the original ending of Mark. The curtain draws on the gospel narrative in abject disillusionment in contrast to the opening line sowing the hope of the 'good news' (euaggelion) that the accession of a new political ruler would bring. Mark is, in my view, an apolitical reading of Jesus' ministry.
Charting unknown waters, represents one's biblical exploration. It also describes a dormant hope that things started in Edinburgh and with contacts elsewhere can have continuity and fruition. To you who are in Edinburgh and Netherlands, I wonder how you are and send you my best wishes.