Being a child of the
sixties/seventies, one of the memories of church life in my youth, is of the
impact of the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. There are many lines from the
songs that I remember, but none more so than the line sung by Herod during his
part in the trial and tormenting of Jesus. Herod asks for a spectacular sign
which, if offered, would, he says, lead to his releasing Jesus. He sings – ‘prove
to me that you’re no fool; walk across my swimming pool.’ Nearly every time
that I think of a sign being demanded of Jesus, that line of that song comes
into my head. There is a great deal about signs in the gospel account, and Mark
often records comments about things being understood, or not understood.
Miraculous events do take place, but never as a means of proving a point.
Here it is the Pharisees
who demand a sign. They are using it as a test, and so there are clear echoes
of the temptations (or testing) of Jesus. But that kind of response is not
consistent with Jesus’ mission. He has come to proclaim the greatness of God,
in action and word, but as a means of bringing healing, or salvation, not in
order to attract followers by doing ‘stuff’ that defies the conventional laws
of nature. So, he sighs. He declines the request and goes away. As on several
other occasions, he gets into a boat as a means of, for the moment, putting
distance between himself and the particular demands that are being placed on
him.
The point is that Jesus’
ministry and mission speaks for itself. If the Pharisees, or anybody else,
cannot see that, then that is how it is. As Denis McBride (The Gospel of
Mark: A Reflective Commentary) puts it – “For
Mark, there is nothing more for Jesus to say, there is nothing more that Jesus
can do to satisfy his recalcitrant opponents. So Jesus leaves them behind,
climbs into the boat and heads back across the Sea of Galilee to the Gentile
side.”
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