The Passion According to Saint Mark

Mark, likely the oldest gospel, was written between 65 and 75 AD. Like the gospel as a whole, the passion narrative is lean, moving swiftly and hauntingly from the Last Supper to Jesus’ death and burial. Though each gospel has its own theological lens, the aim is not so much to tell what happened to Jesus but to help us grapple with the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for us.

The passion is a dangerous story. Though the passion of Jesus is meant to free us, it has often been used to keep the crucified peoples of the world—women, people of color, and other marginalized groups—on their crosses. Identifying with the crucified Jesus has given people strength to bear immense suffering, but it has also fed attitudes of acceptance of abuse and oppression, rather than empowering people to confront abuse and seek healing and transformation.

Betrayal

Throughout Mark the enemies of Jesus have hounded Jesus in opposition to his teaching, and now their hostility is sealed with a plot to kill him. A chilling addition: Judas—from Jesus’ inner circle—goes to the leaders and offers to betray Jesus to them. When do we crucify Jesus anew by betraying the values of our faith?

The Final Passover

The Last Supper occurs within a Passover meal. The Passover is the Israelite’s response to the final plague that God visited upon Egypt. As a form of resistance to Pharaoh’s unjust rule, the Israelites memorialized this day of liberation. The Eucharist also calls us to stand in solidarity with the poor and all those who long for freedom.

Gethsemane: Prayer and Arrest

In Gethsemane, we see a genuinely human Jesus, wary of death and crushed that his mission was at risk. Mark gives us a wrenching prayer of faith and fear on the lips of Jesus that would be fixed in Christian memory forever: “removed this cup from me, yet not what I want, but what you want.”

Mark presents Jesus as one abandoned by his followers, who has to face his hour alone. The disciples fall asleep while Jesus prays, Judas betrays Jesus, Peter denies him, and at the end all flee, leaving Jesus to die alone. Yet Jesus remains faithful to his disciples, no matter their failures.

Confession and Denial: Interrogation by the Sanhedrin

In Mark, Jesus is silent during his trial. In our context it could be deadly to reinforce silent, passive submission of abused persons and breaking the silence is important. At the same time, collective public silent protest of injustice can be an effective tool to confront oppression.

Three times Peter denies he even knows Jesus, with cursing and swearing. The crow of a cock brings the remembrance of the warning at the supper. The familiarity of the story may inhibit the incredible shock of the scene: the leader of the disciples renounces his allegiance to Jesus.

The Roman Trial 

In the passion narrative, Mark shows Jesus’ political purposes of subverting unjust rulers and liberating the oppressed. He proclaims God’s power over death, divine presence within deathly contexts, and liberation from the forces of death. Jesus’ action is subversive because his actions dethrones, delegitimizes, and dismisses old sovereignties that are now discredited and defeated. Easter means the dismissal of Pharaoh, Caesar, and all imperial power.

Jesus’ actions occur within the context of the people’s struggle against the Roman Empire. Jesus forms connections and proactive practices of resistance that bolstered his courageous movement through his arrest and trial and that furthers his mission beyond his death. The truth-telling revealed by Jesus leads Christians today to address issues such as climate change, racial justice, and cycles of poverty and oppression.

Crucifixion

Though many of us were taught that Jesus died for our sins, people without power may believe that they should accept whatever suffering God bestows. However, Jesus’ ministry reveals a God who desires that no one should suffer. Taking up one’s cross is a consequence of proclaiming good news to the poor, living in fidelity to the vision of the reign of God, and remaining faithful in the face of persecution.

Jesus’ cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” is not a prayer to be released from death. Rather, like the psalmist, Jesus knows his prayer is heard, but not yet answered.

In Mark, Jesus dies with a wordless scream that splits the veil of the temple, leading an unlikely Roman Centurion to make the first full confession of faith in the gospel: “Truly this man was God’s Son.”

Burial

Mark’s story is less a linear narration, but an open-ended, puzzling story that invites us to return to it again and again to ponder God’s profound love expressed in Jesus and to conform our lives ever more to his. The suspense is not what will happen in the familiar story, but that we do not yet know the surprising ways God will move us to shatter our illusions about God, the world, and ourselves—as we open our hearts to change and transformation.

Why I love the Bach Passions

by: Pr. Craig Mueller

There are three large choral works by Johann Sebastian Bach considered among the greatest treasures of Western music: the B Minor Mass, the Saint Matthew Passion, and the Saint John Passion. Since first singing the B Minor Mass in college, and subsequently hearing all three of these works live many times, I will do anything I can to attend an in-person performance of any one of them. 

On Sunday, March 13, the Saint John Passion will be performed by the Apollo Chorus at the Saint Luke church in the Lakeview neighborhood. Please consider joining me, chorus member Beth Kregor, and other Holy Trinity members and friends for this concert and a dinner to be arranged afterwards. Please order tickets on your own, but please email me if you would like to receive more information about dinner plans. 

Not only is Bach’s passion music considered both spiritual and sublime by people of faith and those of no religious background, perhaps after Martin Luther, Bach is the second most well-known Lutheran of all time. For some, Bach’s choral music is immediately accessible and for others it is an acquired taste, like a glass of dry red wine. The Bach Netherlands Society provides a brief introduction to the Saint John Passion, the full text, and a video performance of the complete passion which lasts approximately two hours. If you are new to Bach’s passion, consider listening to all or some of the work as this may enhance your experience of the concert.

For me the Saint John passion weaves together music, liturgy, theology, and spirituality. In addition to the biblical text, there are moving aria reflections and choral hymn stanzas that help us make the story our own. Bach also wonderfully uses music to accentuate the theological lens of Saint John’s passion. Whereas the other gospels portray Jesus as the suffering one, in John Jesus is the divine Word of God, victorious over sin and death. 

What a gift to live in Chicago where nearly every year we can hear one or more of the three major Bach works performed. Consider the March 13 concert as a way to deepen your observance of Lent this year.