Mark Story 3

I will continue to repeat that the whole of the Christian Scriptures are written in a narrative literary form used in many of the books in the Hebrew Scriptures. Each of the gospel writers have given us proof that it was their intention to write their gospel in this well-defined, invariable literary form. If you read what I call Mark’s Story 3 (1:32-2:5), it is evident that Mark intends for us to recognize here that the cleansing that Moses commands points to Jesus as the Lamb of God who reconciles us to God and neighbor. (In all four gospels, Moses’ words point to Jesus, who fulfills them.) So, how then does the wisdom statement of the Wisdom section, wW, ‘and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them,” give specific meaning to the story statement of the Story section, sS, where Jesus is going to the neighboring towns to proclaim the message of salvation?

Mark intends for us to realize that it is the Lamb of God who reconciles us to God and neighbor that gives specific meaning to the message that Jesus will proclaim to the neighboring towns in the sS.

Since the wAW is how or why the wW is put into practice, and since the wAW is, ‘your sins are forgiven,’ the following is the intention of Mark: the forgiveness of sins is why the Lamb of God was sacrificed put into practice for humankind.

The man paralyzed in sin, who is buried with Christ in baptism, verse 2:4, has received his sins forgiven—thus ‘your sins are forgiven’ became the wAW. In doing so, this means that the healing of the paralyzed man is meant to be spiritual healing of his sins. We can believe that there was a physical healing if we want, but that’s not the purpose of this Story!

Put another way, ‘Your sins are forgiven is why we believe Jesus as the Lamb of God has come to redeem humankind. Again, this is because the wAW is how or why we believe, or put into practice, wW.

Again, Mark uses the example of the leper because Moses commanded that when a leper is cured of his leprosy he would bring an unblemished lamb to be sacrificed by the priest as a rite of atonement. Here of course, Jesus is not only the Lamb of God, but also the High Priest.

What about the leper? Since the healing of the leper is the Reflection section, that reflects on the mission of Jesus to preach the good news of salvation for our redemption. The healing of the leper in this Story is a healing from that which keeps him from being in relationship with the community—and that is his sins. Again, we can believe that there was a physical healing, too, but that is not the purpose of this Story.

Every word in this Story can be given meaning by the literary form in which it was written.

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