Common Denominator: Through the Bible -- Mark 4:35-5:43

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Through the Bible -- Mark 4:35-5:43

Previous chapters of Mark at bottom.
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1. The end of Mark 4 and Mark 5 happen around the Sea of Galilee. After the Parable of the Sower, which also happens by the sea, Jesus and his disciples set out on the lake in a boat. Archaeological remains suggest this would have been a relatively small boat of about 27 feet length, 7.5 feet width, and a little more than 4 feet high.

The "Sea" of Galilee itself is only about 8 miles wide at its widest point in the center. Most of the places Jesus would have traveled would have been more like 5-6 miles wide, and the traditional location of the scene at the beginning of Mark 5 (Kursi) was about 5-6 miles across the lake. It would have been about an hour and a half to two hour journey depending on the winds.

At the end of Mark 4, the disciples find themselves in a wind storm on the sea. If you look at the picture to the right, you can imagine how terrifying it would be for the seas to get rough in a storm in such a boat. The sides were only a little more than 4 feet high and water was coming in.

Jesus sleeps. He was fully human. No doubt his ministry was physically exhausting even though he was perhaps only 30 years old. The disciples think he is crazy to sleep through the storm. They awaken him. "Don't you care that we are going to die?!"

Nonchalantly, Jesus rebukes the storm. The wind stops. The lake becomes calm. He rebukes them for their lack of faith, fitting with the "dullness of the disciples" theme in Mark.

Meanwhile, they are shocked. Jesus can not only heal. He cannot only cast out demons. But Jesus has authority over physics as well. Of course, they would not have divided the world up the way we do. We might put miracles relating to the laws of nature in a completely different category than exorcism. But we note that the Gospels point to such abilities on Jesus' part.

2. The story in Mark 5:1-20 is one of the more bizarre in the Gospels. They reach shore in the land of the Gerasenes, perhaps about halfway down the east side of the lake. [1] As they disembark, they are greeted by a man who turns out to have not just one but a legion of unclean spirits.

He stays near tombs. He has extraordinary strength, as is often reported of those who are possessed. He is often crying out, often hurting himself. He is outside of human society. He abides in a liminal zone that is outside the boundaries of human existence.

The demons recognize Jesus. They know him as the Son of the Most High God (5:7), and the possessed man bows before Jesus as before his king. [2] Jesus commands the demons to come out, and they beg Jesus not to torture them.

Jesus asks their name -- possibly a reflection of the fact that Jesus did not function with his omniscience while he was on earth. After all, Jesus will say in Mark 13:32 that he does not know the hour of his return. In short, the Gospel of Mark does not present Jesus as omniscient on earth. [3]

The demons' name is "Legion" because they are many. In a military context, a legion consisted of as many as 5000 men. The text indicates 2000 pigs received the demons (5:13). The demons beg Jesus to go into the pigs, a request that he grants. The pigs then rush down into the sea and drown.

The fact that there are pigs there indicates that they are not in Israel. The Jewish Law of course prohibited the consumption of pigs. The loss of such pig life might not have been of great concern for a Jew. But of course for the pig owners, this represented a huge financial loss, and they beg Jesus to leave their country. They are understandably afraid as well (5:15).

However, it is a fantastic development for the possessed man. Previously naked, now he is wearing clothes. He is now in his right mind. He wants to go with Jesus. But Jesus bids him to stay and be a witness to Yahweh to his people. As a result, he spreads the word about Jesus throughout his land. In a sense, he is the first Gentile (non-Jewish) missionary in the New Testament.

3. The final scene of Mark 5 is what we might call a "sandwich" construction, more technically called an intercalation. The "bread" of the sandwich is the story of the healing of the daughter of a synagogue ruler named Jairus. These verses (5:21-43) begin and end with the story of Jairus.

In the middle is the story of the woman with a blood flow. It is the "meat" or the "peanut butter and jelly" in the sandwhich. This intercalation structure brings two stories together in a way that they inform each other. We will see the structure later with the story of the fig tree (the bread) and Jesus' action in the temple (the meat). So the story of Jairus begins. Then "we interrupt this story for the story of a woman with a hemorrhage." Then "we resume the story of Jairus still in progress."

The story of Jairus is the first time that Jesus raises someone from the dead. Jairus leaves his dying daughter at home to find Jesus. He has faith that Jesus can heal his daughter. Jesus is his last hope. He finds Jesus and falls at his feet, begging him to come heal her.

The story is of course interrupted by the story of the woman with a blood flow. Doctors had been of no use to her for years. They had only brought her torment with their treatments.

Like Jairus, she also has faith in Jesus. She thinks that she will be healed if she can only touch him. She manages to touch his clothing. She is immediately healed.

Again, Jesus did not seem to be aware of her presence until she touches him. He feels a power go out from him. Interestingly, it only took her faith for her to be healed. Jesus does not have to say or think anything for it to happen. Her faith is sufficient. Yet, at the same time, we are told that a power goes out from him.

He asks who touched him. His disciples think he's crazy. He's being mobbed, after all. But the woman identifies herself, and Jesus indicates that it is her faith that has made her whole once again.

4. Then the story returns to Jairus. A healing to a woman is about to take place here as well. They were on their way to Jairus' house when some from his house meet them. They inform Jairus that his daughter has died. They suggest he need no longer bother the rabbi Jesus.

But Jesus tells Jairus to have faith and not to fear. The quelling of fear, by the way, has been a continual theme throughout these verses today. When they arrive, Jesus tells the wailing group that the girl is only sleeping. Wailing was presumably part of the mourning ritual, although no doubt they were sad. They mock him for saying she was only sleeping.

Jesus enters her room with only the parents and his core disciples Peter, James, and John. In Aramaic, he tells the girl, "Talitha cumi" or "Girl, arise." The twelve year old girl immediately arises. Jesus tells them to give her something to eat.

Jesus tells them not to tell anyone what has just happened -- part of the messianic secret theme in Mark. Although often the people he tells this do not listen, in this case, we have no reason in the text to think that they disobeyed him. Presumably the story was told by Peter and the others later.

Although it is not a primary argument, the fact that Mark has more Aramaic in it than the other Gospels is often seen as a supporting argument for it being the earliest Gospels. It also supports the majority view that Aramaic was Jesus' primary if not exclusively language spoken during his earthly ministry.

[1] The traditional site is a place called Kursi today. The oldest and best manuscripts read "Gerasenes" in Mark and Luke but "Gadarenes" in Matthew. Both Gerasa and Gadara were too far inland to be the precise location of the event, but both accurately depict the same region. "Gergesa" would have been more precise, and some later manuscripts have it, but it is not the most likely reading of the original of any of the Gospels.

[2] Although it is a point of debate, to "proskyneo" before someone could refer to a range of activities. In the hindsight of Christian theology, we immediately jump to the concept of worship. But you also proskyneo-ed before a king, and the expression "Son of God" was a royal title. I suspect that in Mark's audience's mind, bowing before a king comes closer to the original connotation here.

[3] To harmonize our theology with the biblical texts, I have suggested that Jesus did not access his omniscience while he was on earth. It would be mildly heretical to suggest he emptied himself of his omniscience, since orthodox theology holds that the divine attributes of the Trinity are immutable. So, I have suggested a willful bracketing of divine prerogatives like omniscience. You might say that he kept his omniscience in a divine subconscious while he was on earth.

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Mark 1:1-13
Mark 1:14-15
Mark 1:16-45
Mark 2
Mark 3
Mark 4:1-34