Tracy S. Daub - Holy Disruption: Discovering Advent in the Gospel of Mark

HOLY DISRUPTION

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HOLY DISRUPTION

Discovering Advent in the Gospel of Mark

T RACY S. D AUB

2022 Tracy S. Daub

First edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

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Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.

Carol of the Epiphany by John L. Bell, 1992 WGRG c/o Iona Community, GIA Publications, Inc. agent. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Incarnation by Sarah Klassen is reprinted by permission from the January 7, 2015, issue of The Christian Century, 2015 The Christian Century. All rights reserved. Draw the Circle Wide by Gordon Light, 1994 Common Cup Company. www.commoncup.com. Used by permission.

Book design by Erika Lundbom-Krift

Cover design by Marc Whitaker / MTWdesign.net

Cover art by Virginia Wieringa. Used by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Daub, Tracy S., author.

Title: Holy disruption : discovering Advent in the Gospel of Mark / Tracy S. Daub.

Description: First edition. | Louisville, Kentucky : Westminster John Knox Press, [2022] | Summary: Presents a fresh understanding of the holiness of Christmas grounded, not in a conventional cozy Christmas message, but through Marks disquieting gospel, which invites its readers to experience Gods disruptive but transformative love for us and our worldProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022013451 (print) | LCCN 2022013452 (ebook) | ISBN 9780664267384 (paperback) | ISBN 9781646982592 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. MarkCriticism, interpretation, etc. | Advent.

Classification: LCC BS2585.52 .D373 2022 (print) | LCC BS2585.52 (ebook) | DDC 226.3/06dc23/eng/20220610

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013451

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013452

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To Vic and Janet and their example of steadfast love

To the Western New York congregations of Central Presbyterian Church, Buffalo; North Presbyterian Church, North Tonawanda; and University Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, whose educational ministries gave rise to this book

And to my husband, Timothy Wadkins, whose encouragement and support made this book a reality

CONTENTS

I MAGINE ITS EARLY D ECEMBER AND, LIKE many folks, you head up to the attic to retrieve the Christmas decorations. One of the boxes you carefully open is the nativity set. To your surprise, you cannot find the stable with its giant star glued to the roof. Nor can you find shepherds grasping their crooks or any fluffy sheep to group around them. The box contains no regal-looking magi, no weary camels, no winged angels in long flowing robes. You are shocked to discover that the box contains no infant Jesus or his little manger bed either. Wait a minute, you wonder. Wheres the baby?

Turning to the Gospel of Mark at Christmastime is like trying to arrange a nativity set without the key characters. Marks Gospel contains no story of Jesus birth. There are no shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, no heavenly band of angels announcing the Messiahs birth, no wise men who follow the star, meet up with King Herod, and offer gifts to the Christ child. Most significantly, there is no baby Jesus. Those characters that populate our nativity sets come entirely from the birth narratives in Matthews and Lukes Gospels. Admittedly we are drawn to these nativity stories because in the midst of a very hard and harsh world, the babe is a gift of tenderness, hope, and innocence. Matthews and Lukes birth narratives provide origin stories to explain the beginnings of this extraordinary man of God, this extraordinary man of love. He began as a baby, a gift of love wrapped in swaddling clothes. We cant imagine Christmas without the baby!

While the Gospel of John does not include the birth of the baby Jesus, it does provide a type of origin story for Jesus. John offers a theological explanation for Jesus entry into the world. Describing Jesus as the Word, John writes that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And then John offers his version of Jesus birth when he writes, And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a fathers only son, full of grace and truth (John 1:1, 14). Johns Gospel supplies the fundamental theological meaning of Christmas, which is the belief that in some mysterious way, God became human in the person of Jesus. These passages about what Christians refer to as the incarnation are cherished Christmastime Scriptures and join the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke in providing glimpses into Jesus origins.

In noticeable contrast to Matthew, Luke, and John, Mark offers no origin story for Jesus at all. Mark bypasses Jesus birth and his childhood entirely, makes no mention whatsoever of Jesus father, and offers only a few passing references to Jesus mother, Mary. Instead, Mark begins his account with a fully grown Jesus as he commences his ministry.

It could be argued that Marks beginning story for Jesus is found at Jesus baptism, where God declares, You are my Son, the Beloved (1:11). A case could also be made that Mark considered his entire Gospel to be Jesus beginning story. Mark opens his Gospel by stating in the very first sentence, The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, giving the impression that the entire sixteen chapters are but the start of the story of Jesusa story that continues to unfold in the lives of Christs followers even today. Nevertheless, since Mark offers readers no account of Jesus origins prior to his official ministry, it might strike us as incongruous that we would have any use for the Gospel of Mark when celebrating Christmas.

Yet the Gospel of Mark does indeed have very important implications for this season of incarnation, especially if we understand Christmas not merely as the birth of the baby Jesus but more broadly as the coming of Christ into our lives and world. However, be warned! Like a jolt of electricity, Marks message about the coming of Christ should absolutely shock us from our often complacent and self-satisfied lives. Mark will not permit us the soothing, sentimentalized Christmas our cultures have created from the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke, nor will it let us reduce Johns incarnational message into a set of abstract and remote ideas. For Mark, the coming of Christ is a thoroughly countercultural event, disrupting our lives and calling for an inversion of the prevailing social order. The Christmases we construct for ourselves often amount to a kind of passive adoration of the sweet smiling baby in the mangera reverence that romanticizes the child and asks little from us. In Mark, however, the incarnate presence of God comes in the One who challenges the status quo, engages the harsh realities of our world, and summons his followers to join him in a costly kind of commitment.