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The Disciples’ Faith Still Needs to Mature
The center of the Gospel according to Mark is Peter’s profession of faith. We find it narrated in chapter 8, specifically in verse 29. The evangelist places this central story after the first part of the narration, where the evangelist showed the path of the deaf and blind disciples, unable to comprehend who Jesus is. This constitutes the summit of the first part.
Jesus is outside the traditional borders of Israel, in the north, in the region of Cesarea Philippi. There, together with his disciples, he asks what the people think of him, the outsiders, the distant ones who know Jesus superficially, externally: What do they say about him? The disciples mention current opinions that have already formed. They say that Jesus could be John the Baptist, or a prophet, one of the past, like many others.
The second question Jesus asks concerns the individual opinions of his disciples, who lived with him, saw him work, heard him speak, and shared his life. What did they think of him? Peter replied: “You are the Christ.” Unfortunately, many have the habit of merging the Gospels, and when asked, “What is the profession of faith of Peter?” the answer is generally given as the formula found in the Gospel according to Matthew. But now we are reading the Gospel according to Mark, so it is good to learn to observe the differences.
We must not reconstruct a hypothetical fifth Gospel by piecing together the four canonical ones; we must respect each canonical story and enhance its details and particularities. In Matthew, Peter’s profession of faith says: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Mark does not report it this way. Rather, Mark intentionally distinguishes Peter’s profession of faith at the top of the first part from the Roman centurion’s profession of faith at the top of the second part. Peter says, “You are the Christ.” The centurion truly recognizes that this man was the Son of God.
At the beginning of the Gospel, the first verse, which serves as the title and summary of the work, speaks of the origin of the good news that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God. There are two truths to be recognized in Jesus. They are two important but distinct titles. Christ is a functional title, denoting the messianic role of a king, the legitimate successor of David. To this, the disciples arrive in the first phase.
The episode immediately preceding Peter’s confession is the story of the healing of a blind man in two phases, a story that shows that the disciples, and many others, come to the Good News through a gradual process. After the first healing intervention, in which the blind man says he has the impression of seeing men as walking trees, he still cannot see clearly. He only begins to glimpse something. A second intervention is needed to give him a clear vision that truly corresponds to reality, as happened to the disciples, who came to recognize that Jesus is Christ, the Messiah. But this is not the summit of faith, because it was not yet clear what kind of ‘messianism’ they understood, what the Messiah had to do.
Each had his own idea. The numerous movements in Israel at the time of Jesus held different ideas about the Messiah. In any case, the Greek term ‘Christ,’ which corresponds to the Hebraic ‘Messiah,’ is a political term that indicates a king and therefore implies a civil-administrative claim that can be used in controversy against the Romans, who are, in fact, the masters of the situation at that time. Jesus never explicitly presents himself as the Christ and does not claim to be recognized as the Messiah because he knows that this title is ambiguous and misleading. He is, but saying so creates more problems because it can be misunderstood.
Jesus responds to Peter’s statement by telling him: “Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him” … With severity, Jesus forbids the disciples from repeating their profession of faith, not because it is wrong, but because it is ambiguous, equivocal, and can create confusion.
Immediately after, the second part of the story begins. We find an explicit verb: “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.” This is the first prophecy of the passion. The narrator leaves a trace of his pattern: “He began to teach.” It is a new beginning. This time, Jesus does not begin ‘to announce’ but ‘teach.’ These are the two shades the evangelist assigns to the two phases of Jesus’ mission. The first is a public announcement, technically called ‘kerygma’: the moment of proclaiming the kingdom, accompanied by the great signs by which Jesus seeks to make his announcement credible. On the other hand, the second part is didactic. It is the moment of catechetical teaching, the formation of the small group that gathered around him, of those who recognize and accept him as Messiah, but they are the ones who need further training because they must understand that the Messiah’s task is to die. Unimaginable.
None of the movements present in Israel at the time of Jesus supported such a thing. They dreamed of a military Messiah, a conqueror, a good political governor, a social administrator, a religious reformer, a prophet capable of explaining the new rules… but the fundamental task of the Messiah, which is to give life, was not part of any human plan. And here is the shocking revelation.
Jesus uses the term ‘Son of Man’ to speak about himself. It is a term that says little to us, or, worse, risks saying the opposite of what it means. Son of Man does not mean man… it means a superhuman figure, because it refers to an Aramaic term used by Daniel, a book of the Old Testament, in which, as opposed to four beasts, the symbolic figure of a ‘son of man’ is presented, to whom God, the ancient one, hands over all power, glory and the kingdom. The ‘son of man’ is a glorious, transcendent character, one who comes on the clouds of the sky, a character from the other world, therefore glorious and powerful. It is paradoxical, however, that Jesus says:
‘The Son of Man’ (that is, I) must go to Jerusalem and be killed. The Son of Man is a glorious figure who comes on the clouds of heaven and cannot be taken, arrested, rejected, or killed. Jesus began to teach that the Son of Man, from the apocalyptic tradition of Daniel, identifies with the suffering servant of the prophetic tradition of Isaiah.
In the very person of Jesus, these ancient words are realized. Jesus is a glorious figure of the other world; he is the Lord, even if he is truly a man. And he is the Messiah of Israel, yet his role is to be rejected. He knows very well that the religious authorities will not appreciate the full and mature revelation of God that he brings, and they will do everything to silence him. Jesus knows that his preaching will be hindered and that they will suppress him if he does not change. He could remain in Galilee and create an autonomous movement, but instead he wants to go to Jerusalem; he must go to Jerusalem. He must confront reality. He does not flee; he does not isolate himself; he does not create an alternative on his own.
He confronts history directly with those in charge and wisely realizes that, because he foresees that this encounter will become a confrontation the authorities will not accept, they will reject him. The goal is not to die. The goal is to announce the Word of God truly, but Jesus realizes that this announcement will not be accepted and that it will lead to a tragic death. Jesus could change his mind. He could retract, moderate his words, avoid going to Jerusalem, and compromise with those in power to properly fix the situation. He could have thought of many reasons, but none were consistent with God’s plan.
And Jesus is the Son, the transparency of the Father, and does not accept compromise. He trusts God, even if he knows from the start that this will cost him his life. This is the meaning of the prophecies. Three times during this itinerary, Jesus explicitly repeats his awareness that a tragedy will happen in Jerusalem; it will be a disastrous event. He clearly announces to the disciples that in Jerusalem they will eliminate him, they will kill him, but he always adds the prophecy of victory. “On the third day,” that is, after a very short time, the Son of Man will rise.
Still, the prospect of the resurrection was unclear to the disciples. They could imagine what the messiah’s death meant, but they could not imagine the resurrection. Yet they memorized this fact well. Jesus repeatedly emphasized it. The second part of Mark’s story, beginning precisely at 8:31, can be structured into three distinct moments.
In chapters 8, 9, and 10, the journey to Jerusalem is narrated, and this section is marked by three announcements of passion, each followed by a hint of misunderstanding that underscores the disciples’ struggle to accept Jesus’ perspective. Therefore, Jesus engages in formative catechesis. It is a moment when he teaches the disciples what God’s way is and what the Messiah’s style is, since they believe Jesus is the Messiah. They are right; he is the Messiah, but the Messiah has characteristics they do not understand. It is a formation of mentality.
At the end of this itinerary, we arrive in Jerusalem. Chapter 11 narrates the triumphal, messianic arrival of Jesus in the holy city, followed by episodes of dialogue with the authorities in the temple. This encounter becomes a polemical clash and culminates in Jesus’ exit from the temple and the eschatological discourse that announces the end. Chapters 11 to 13. The third section of this second part of the Gospel contains the stories of the passion, chapters 14 and 15, and the announcement of the resurrection, the fulfillment. Things happened as Jesus foretold.
The second summit is that of the Roman centurion, who, at the foot of the cross, recognizes Jesus as the ‘Son of God,’ more important than the Messiah. He is a Roman of the same race as the recipients of the Gospel, among those catechumens of Rome who listened to the story of Mark. Seeing Jesus die that way, one of them recognizes his divinity. It is an excellent catechumenal catechesis that leads to baptism and to the entire profession of faith of the Christian who recognizes in Jesus, dead and resurrected, the Son of God. Not only the Christ of tradition, the king, the Son of Man, the suffering servant, who died and rose again. By believing in him in this way, the believer is identified with Christ, is baptized, dies, and, too, rises, and the formative itinerary proposed by the evangelist Mark reaches its fulfillment.