Why the Gospels are Such as They Are

To expand on my notion of the Gospels as "thematic representations," I will turn simply to the present blog's theme of "roused, readied, reaped."  While it is perhaps possible to maintain that there is some semblance of natural order to "roused, readied, reaped" being understood as, say, "beginning, middle, end"--evoking thereby connotations of regularity and completeness to the assumed cycles--this assumption of natural order cannot be held to be warranted by actual experience.  Those persons "roused, readied, reaped" over a lifetime of three score and ten are neither more nor less "roused, readied, reaped" than those cut off in the flower of youth--the former instance simply seems to be more "natural" to us.

What "roused, readied, reaped" means in the context of the Gospels is the experiential phenomenon of human beings understanding that things begin, last for a time, and end--and in each instance of experience there is the possibility that a unique duration or degree of profundity will be evidenced.  Our lives--even viewed in our conceit of concrete, objective reality--are characterized by experienced cycles long or short, deep or superficial, mundane or surprising.  If we believe that divine superintendence is in play, then we are challenged to find meaning in experiences--or at least to find meaning in lives shot through with unanticipated and often unwelcome experience-arcs of greater or lesser import.

What I mean by the Gospels as "thematic representations" is that the Gospels seen as repositories of information about Jesus are best seen as writings that present themes themselves as being preeminent over the conceptions of humans about the expected workings-out of those themes.  What the Gospels talk about are themes before which are subsumed any possible illustrations of those themes.  For example, the Gospels speak of Jesus as the one-and-the-same Creator of Creation, but this theme--similarly with all other contentions about God--cannot be ratified by expectations that the theme will fulfill the conditions of some conceptualizable warrant.

Jesus created the fig trees.  In one parable, he speaks of a fruitless fig tree, the owner of which declares that it ought to be rooted out and replaced with something more productive.  The gardener suggests that the tree ought to be tended for another year in hopes that it will become fruitful.  The listener can nod sagely at the message of the parable--but there is no message.  The parable does not illustrate a theme--the parable exists because a pre-existing and pre-eminent theme overshadows it.  The shadow of the Reaper hangs over all in the mortal realm, and this truth is founded in the existence of the sovereign Creator.  The parable does not teach something because it conveys a message--the parable teaches something because it exists, and it exists because Creator Jesus exists.

Then there is the fig tree that Jesus curses.  Any notion that Jesus curses it because he can tell that it will fail in the coming season of harvest is folly--because the story has it that Jesus is hungry.  Jesus curses the fig tree because it has not borne fruit out of season.  The fig tree has been roused, and it has--to the purposes of God--been readied, and it is then (in the parlance of this blog) reaped.  The fig tree has displeased its Creator.  One might contend that Jesus is not being "fair," but the speaker cannot conjure up any notion that the fig tree deserved its existence to begin with, nor any notion that there are rules by which the Creator is bound.  One might as well--and as saliently--contend that is it "unfair" that the fig tree (or any creature) has a finite lifespan, it being accepted that Jesus could have made all creatures immortal.

The point is that any parable or illustration or story about the qualities of Jesus must exist either as something struck off as a spark or a shard from the ineffable and infinite essence of Jesus, or it must exist as a warrant-condition attached to his person--a warrant-condition that, if not co-equal with Jesus, is by necessity co-equal with some corresponding quality of Jesus, and is therefore a most blasphemous presumption.  There are no teachings about Jesus--there are simply teachings that exist because Jesus exists, and his existence leads to inescapable implications.  This is why the Gospels are such as they are, and--unsurprisingly--that "such as they are" quality is displayed in the Gospels being unanalyzable either as literature or as history.

Literature develops themes, and history uncovers themes, but the divine--as the author of themes--cannot be comprehended thematically.  That is why the Gospels read like plays.  The effulgence of God dances about the scenery, and it highlights from moment to moment the actions of particular characters, but its withdrawal will leave the stage dark and the action suspended--there are no self-existing nor self-actuated themes at play in themselves.  In the Gospels, the reality is always latent offstage, and the "reality" expressed in terms relatable to our concrete surroundings is always provisional.

The Gospels as Thematic Representations

There is a notion about the gospels that has impressed itself upon me while trying to write a "plotting"--as it were--of the Gospel of Mark.  I don't hold with the idea that the gospels are myths or fictions or satires or even symbolic representations.  Of course there are certain tenacious problems with maintaining that the gospels are factual accounts or even "histories" (the latter notion from commentators often attended by assertions that we must have a more or less flexible idea of what "history" meant to the ancients.)

All of the above ideas, I am afraid, ranging from the "history" of the literalists to the "myth" of the critics, address the notion of reliability of the gospels from a set standpoint of presumed representation about our world and about the place of "the man or the myth" of Jesus in our world.  What if the gospels were never intended to be representations about our world?  I know I am introducing here the idea that the religious quality of the gospels might presume a reality of more ostensible substance than our collective notions of "hard and fast" concrete reality--manifestations of physical reality as a norm being accepted presumptively by nearly all of the interpretation camps I alluded to above.

But to say (as we might reflexively) that there is a reality of more objective substance than that of some ideation of the gospels as addressing a "hyper-reality" (or some such) detracts in no way from the tentative assertion that the gospels as intended were written in light of contentions about how Jesus' realm is rightly viewed in distinction to the realm of our concrete reality.  One need not accept the contentions of an author's premises, in order to understand those premises as being key to understanding the author's intended message.

At the beginning of Mark there is a mention of John's ministry in light of some more-or-less correctly attributed, more-or-less correctly translated Old Testament passages.  The passages as presented in Mark speak of one crying out in the desert to make way for the Lord; the passages as presented in the Old Testament speak of one crying out to make a way for the Lord in the desert.  Much might be made of notions about the attribution, translation, and application of those passages--but conventionally those considerations are held in light of a notion that the Gospels are going to show how the lordship of Jesus is to be established through the workings-out of the Gospels, gospels that end in the deserved lordship of Jesus displayed in the Resurrection and in the effectual lordship of Jesus over the evil-ridden world existing as a promise of the End Times.

But Jesus is, in the conceptualizations of the messiah playing out through the Gospels, always the Lord.  However the passages about John's appearance play out, one thing they do not convey is the notion that Jesus is an aspirant to the lordship of the world.  We are confronted by the approach of the King, not of the man or god or god-man who Would Be King.  When Jesus (in gospels other than Mark) is offered the world by Satan, Jesus' refusal to Satan's offer is founded on piety--on rightful worship given only to God--rather than on ratification of Satan's "possession" of the kingdoms of the world as being of any substance in the realm of Jesus' lordship.

Even the lowliest of Jesus' followers is--in the conceptualities presented by Jesus--possessor of houses and fields and family innumerable, as the consequence and reward of renouncing such houses and fields and family as they might exist in our visions of concrete reality.  The price of such possession--training ourselves to thank God for his blessings on people who might not be ourselves but who yet are manifestations of our Savior--can be a difficult price to pay, but we are assured that in the eyes of God we are credited with offering back to God an entire world with our thanks for having created the entire world.

The world that we offer back to God is only in some manner of representation ours to give (or ever to possess) yet such notions are critical to understanding the ministry of Jesus and the message of the Gospels.  How much more, we might say, are the kingdoms of the world (now and ever and always) the possession of Jesus.  This is no small consideration, in that the standard conceptualizations of proper Gospel interpretation are founded on the idea that God has intruded thereby on the pitiable realm of humanity.  (Commentators like to use such terms as "in-breaking" and the like.)  This is not so.  The Gospels do not show Jesus coming in to the realm of humanity.  The Gospels show humanity--by such means as we have eyes to see and ears to hear--being provided glimpses and whispers of the overriding reality of Jesus' lordship that the Gospels presume.

The notions above are my attempt to show what I think the Gospel writers took as foundational premises.  Accepted or not as they might be by any critic--their believability or their savor is of scant import as to meaningful interpretation of the Gospel writers' intent.  It remains to my feeble efforts to name what I think is the best conceptualization of what the Gospels are (rather than myth, fiction, satire, symbolism, etc.): I think the Gospels are best understood as "thematic representations," such themes being of varied length and import and relationship respectively to the most basic intelligible premises of the Gospels' content.  One of the chief of those themes, as I have described above, is the perpetual lordship of Jesus, as against a persistent and mistaken theme evinced by most other commentaries: that the Gospels tell the story of Jesus attaining (or re-attaining) his lordship.

The truths about Jesus are themes that exist always, not stories about this or that coming or going, and the only way to understand this reality effectively is to understand that Jesus exists in the true reality, and our mutable concrete world is but a shadow of that.

The Prodigal Son and His Brother

There is an aspect of the gospels that has struck me of late.  It has to do with the experience-life of Jesus, and it has to do more broadly with the idea of the genuinely human Jesus as the divine Son of God.

That Jesus would be by some objective standard "perfect," is of little application to us, in that it is we who must presume thereby on analyzing such an ostensible standard.  This, of course, we cannot do perfectly, and if we fuss over the notion that Jesus was perfect because of this or that we merely make ourselves ridiculous.

Then we are left with the only sort of legitimate (or at least honest) assessment we can make about Jesus' perfection: it seems to us that the case must be so--it seems to us that Jesus is perfect.  At least by accepting our limited means of assessing the perfection of Jesus we can draw ourselves up to responsible assessment of what we do know about Jesus.

For example, Jesus complained.  The utterance "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" is a complaint.  There is no pretending otherwise, though in the Jewish heritage the notion of a supplicating complaint is distinguished from a sinful complaint.  Jesus was behaving genuinely, and he was behaving so while in the throes of suffering that would make no sense as a sharing in humanity's torments if Jesus was not sharing simultaneously in the contortions of thought that accompany human suffering.

That is not the only time Jesus complained--though the commentators seem eager to ignore that reality.  Repetition as a motif in Scripture--something said (or done) twice or three times--is taken usually to indicate authoritative finality.  If Jesus, having asked in the garden to be spared his suffering, had accepted God's refusal the first time and returned to his place of prayer twice again only to ratify that acceptance, the notion of repetition in that sequence would surely be taken by the commentators to indicate the profundity of Jesus' resignation to his fate.

But Jesus was not resigned in such manner to his fate.  He prayed to escape it, and then he prayed twice more to escape it--having evinced an initial resignation.  He did what human beings would do.  He did perfectly what human beings would do, an ideation of Jesus' incarnation that is infinitely more profound than the centuries'-worth of cant from the churches to the effect that their Jesus did "God-things" while hauling around a human husk.  It is no wonder that the harrowing repetition of Jesus' agonized complaint to his Father is overlooked so routinely by the denominations.

This realization about the character of Jesus is attached for me to the story of the Prodigal Son (and indeed this realization is crucial if we are to understand a large part of that parable.)  We all know about the younger son who wasted his inheritance, and we all understand the father in the parable to represent our loving and forgiving Father.  It is not surprising that the prodigal's journey and the father's welcome capture our attention.  Nor is it surprising that the elder brother's anger is less captivating to us.  I have heard the second part of the parable brushed aside as merely a sorry (though cautionary) reference to a "legalistic older brother," or some such.

But the elder brother's complaints have the virtue of being entirely true (or at least ratified as such by the father.)  "Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment . . . . And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Luke 15:29).  The profundity of these two statements from the father ("thou art ever with me" and "all that I have is thine") could not have been greater in the milieu of the gospels.  The second is perhaps more pertinent to the parable at hand, in that it concerns the (as-yet-to-be-settled) fate of the younger son.  The younger will not be as one of the hired hands of the estate, but neither--having forsaken his patrimony--will he be elevated again to the stature he might once have held.  Moreover--and this seems to be forever lost to the commentators--the younger son's diminishment will be two-fold.  Not only will his stature be lessened, but the unavoidable implication of his father's blessing on the elder ("all that I have is thine") is a conferring upon the elder of the headship of the family.  The father and the elder are bound in such manner as could never be experienced by any others of the household--certainly not a lesser son.

The first statement from the father ("thou art ever with me") is even more profound.  The elder son is blessed perpetually with an unequalled fellowship with the father.  In that the implication of the parable is as a model of the forgiving and merciful love of God, the most logical conclusion about the figurative character of the elder brother is as a representation of Jesus.  Jesus has complaints against his siblings, complaints that have the unquestioned virtue of being entirely true.  There is nothing wrong with voicing complaints, as long as one is willing to accept a legitimate answer.  Moreover, there is nothing wrong with repeatedly voicing the same complaint, so long as one is working genuinely to try to understand and be reconciled to the situation.  That is how one can approach perfection as a genuine human being, and we should not be surprised that scenarios (such as the Parable of the Prodigal Son's Brother) that illustrate the moral character of Jesus depict Jesus as a perfect human being, not as a perfect being pretending to be human.

Plotting Mark Through the Passion Predictions

I ended the last post with:

"Three times Jesus predicts his fate, and still it seems that the disciples never get the message.  As we will see, however, when Jesus predicts his fate he always foretells the fate of humanity--though all the ages of Christianity seem not to have gotten that message."

This is one of the places where "roused, readied, reaped" rises to the fore as a mode of analysis.  The fate of humanity is usually displayed by Jesus in the form of experience--how people will feel about what happens to them--and this can be represented by the notion of "experience-arcs" as espoused by this blog.  We will experience things in consequence of, and in concert with, the elements of Jesus' ministry.  Inasmuch as Jesus demands transformation, there is very little in the spectrum of expected experience-arcs that will not be unsettling--to say the least.

Jesus came to the world to give up his life, and to get us to give up our lives (usually a rather more piecemeal and partial occurrence.)  Three times in the Gospel of Mark Jesus predicts his death (or so have the conventional commentators numbered it), and I will not fail to note that the conventional view is as well that Mark is the earliest and most straightforward of the gospels.  Each of these predictions, however, is followed by a series of events that cinches together the elements of Jesus' fate with those of his followers.  This phenomenon of reflection of our experiences against those of Jesus has apparently escaped the commentators, who have superimposed upon the experienceable workings of the organ of Creation their own conceit--that is, this or that set of contentions about the interactions of discrete characters on the fancied stage of a surveyable Creation.

The three instances of Jesus predicting his own death are in Mark 8:31-33, Mark 9:31-32, and Mark 10:32-34.  We will see how each prediction introduces and is followed by an exposition of the disciples' experiences as participative in the elements of the prophecy.

Mark 8:31-33: And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (KJV)

". . . the Son of man . . ." :  Here, as in the other two predictions, that which is quoted or described as the actual utterances of Jesus always uses this enigmatic phrase.  That choice of phraseology is at the least worth pondering.

". . . must suffer many things . . ." :  After excoriating Peter for attempting to rebuke him for the prophecy, Jesus is described as convening "the people unto him with his disciples also" and he launches into, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

". . . and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes . . ." :  The next narrative element has Jesus take Peter, James, and John--the most prominent candidates for leadership among the disciples--up onto the mountain to view the Transfiguration.  This is an episode that--for all its evocative quality--drives home the logical point that the very nature of Jesus as the Son of God (shown here in a radiance that must eclipse Moses and Elijah) annihilates any notion that Jesus is some sort of outgrowth of Judaism or some sort of enhanced manifestation of "the elders . . . chief priests, and scribes."  Even Moses and Elijah are lost into the cloud, and similarly is lost to the disciples any hope of fellowship with the authorities of Judaism as authorities in themselves.  Affinity on some levels with the leaders of the Jews might yet exist for the followers of Jesus, and well as some hope that such leaders might join the company of believers, but the burgeoning seed of mutual rejection is sown with, "This is my beloved Son: hear him."

". . . and be killed, and after three days rise again . . ." :  Immediately following the Transfiguration the narrative deals with the notion of the now-murdered John the Baptist having constituted in some way the re-animated (one hesitates to say "resurrected") Elijah.  Then, having just come down from the mountain, Jesus and his three companions are confronted with a large crowd disputing about a demon-possessed boy.  Naturally, Jesus cures the lad, but not before we are provided with the detail that "he was as one dead; insomuch that many said, He is dead.  But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up; and he arose."  The business of dying, and of death not being the end, is meant by Jesus to be an ever-present experience of the believer.

". . . and after three days rise again . . ." :  This is, of course, a detail idiosyncratic to Jesus' death (though only a matter of some approximation, as if exactitude mattered), but such notions as "three days" or even "a thousand years" or "a watch in the night" are of small consequence against the underlying notion that, for the believer, death is not final.

The experiences of suffering, of rejection, of death, and of the prospect of new life (or, as I would put it, the experience-arcs of moments and moods attendant to such things) are intrinsic to the teachings of Jesus and are intrinsic to the logic of the Gospel of Mark.  This is evident in the first prediction by Jesus of his own death, and we will see the same things in the following two, which appear in quick succession.

Mark 9:31-32: For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day.  But they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask him.

". . . delivered into the hands of men . . ." :  This is the chief difference between the second prediction and the first, standing in the place of the first prediction's mention of suffering and rejection.  So what is the second prediction, including "delivered into the hands of men," followed by?  A lengthy and multi-part discourse on the things that people do to each other, particularly when in positions of power.  The disciples "were afraid to ask him" about "the saying" that they did not understand, but that does not stop Jesus from teaching about the ramifications of power, about "the hands of men."

Jesus launches unbidden into teaching about how, "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all."  As regarding children, "Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me."  As regarding those of other denominations, "Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me."  As regarding charity from outsiders, "For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward."

Of course, there are dark aspects to human power: "And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea."  And of what little power we have over ourselves: ". . . if thy hand offend thee, cut it off . . . ."  This leads still further, into the notion of being "salted" with the "fire" of self-appraisal, and of negotiating the delicate matter of supportive yet responsible social interactions: "Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."

And when confronted shortly with the matter of divorce, it is not the question of licentiousness that occupies Jesus, but the question of harsh power--the question of what people do to others who have fallen into their hands.  "For the hardness of your heart he [Moses] wrote you this precept [divorce]."  "Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.  And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, committeth adultery"--the latter a fascinating manifestation of first-century feminism.

It is the powerless little child, or the person who attains a like status, who is "of the kingdom of God."  And it is the rich man who cannot part with his goods who will fail to "inherit eternal life," while those who willingly give up all will gain all.  All these lessons about power crowd the interval between Jesus' second prediction of his death and his third.

Mark 10:32-34: . . . And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him, Saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles: And they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him: and the third day he shall rise again.

". . . and the Son of man shall be delivered . . ." :  And presently the sons of Zebedee, desiring the places of preference in glory, deliver themselves to their fate: "But Jesus said unto them, ye know not what ye ask."

". . . and they shall condemn him to death . . . " :  Asked by Jesus if they can "drink of the cup" that awaits Jesus, the sons of Zebedee say, "We can."  "And Jesus said unto them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of."

". . . and shall deliver him to the Gentiles . . . " :  To admonish the twelve over the dissention that follows the presumption of the sons of Zebedee, Jesus says, "Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them.  But so shall it not be among you."

And then lastly, before the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, there is the episode of blind Bartimaeus who, regardless of his nationality, addresses Jesus as "thou son of David"--strikingly reminiscent of the pleading Gentile "woman of Canaan" of Matthew 15.  The episode of the blind man is short, but not so short as to fail to mention that "many charged him that he should hold his peace."  The savior who was soon to face the degradations he listed in his prediction did not fail to succor a lowly man who apparently was routinely degraded.

It is usually the matter of experience--the simple, accessible matter of what human beings think and feel--that provides the best understanding of the teachings of Jesus.

Plotting Mark to the Caesarea Foreboding

I ended the last post with:

"To envision the Creation as a landscape of comprehensible references that we can piously call the rightful possession of God is in fact an appalling act of arrogance.  All that we can truly call the rightful possession of God is everything that we think and feel.  This is where the Gospel of Mark is going from here--indeed, this is where it has been going all along."

8:27-9:1)  "And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi: and by the way he asked his disciples, saying unto them, Whom do men say that I am?"  The disciples list briefly the conjectures abroad about Jesus, and then--in response to Jesus' query about what they themselves think, Peter responds with the famous, "Thou art the Christ."  (Across all these years, it is impossible to know--in the limited context of Mark--whether Peter is answering for himself or for the group.  It is perhaps telling that the only follow-up here is "And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.")

Any notion of stellar performance on the part of Peter is, of course, quashed by what follows immediately.  Jesus predicts his death, Peter tries to rebuke him for that, and Jesus calls him "Satan," "for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men."  Peter is thinking as humans think, not as God thinks, and then Jesus gives a discourse on how humans should think.  Humans should reckon their lives as nothing, and should give up their lives willingly in the service of Jesus and his teachings.

Only by such means can true and eternal life be obtained.  Of course, at this point the churches will usually interject that Jesus means we should be "dead to sin," or some such, and can continue to wallow riotously in the earthly blessings accorded to faithful children of God.  This might seem unfair to Christians who undoubtedly hold to the notion that one ought to display at least a modicum of abstemiousness, but a "modicum" (or some such) of this or that does not seem to fit with Jesus' pronouncements: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me."

This brings us back to my statement above, "All that we can truly call the rightful possession of God is everything we think and feel."  I would hope to be spared the notion that I espouse "pantheism," in that I attempt--in concert with Peter's assignment--to think as God thinks.  This endeavor, inescapably, will abut the unfathomable mystery of anything but God existing of its own--which of course includes the possibility that what we might call "pantheism" exists in some unfathomable way in the mind of God.  However, Jesus' charge to think as God does has its chief application in trying not to think as humans do--and we humans think of a surveyable universe of distinct phenomena against which we are ourselves distinct phenomena.  In this universe of conceit we range ourselves as pawns or cogs or actors or whatever, and concoct our religious schemes.  It is better that we think of the boundless and volatile implications of God's existence, and in doing so we can remember that we are charged to think as God does--we are not charged with doing that thinking particularly well, as if ever we could.

The main thing about Jesus' teaching here is the necessary embrace of his demand of total renunciation, not--as the churches will have it--the embrace of Jesus as savior, nor--as our natures will disallow--the practice of perfect self-abnegation.  It is the nexus of Jesus as living person and Jesus as living instruction--the divine manifested for the salvation of the world--that is focused upon here:

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it . . . . Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Three times Jesus predicts his fate, and still it seems that the disciples never get the message.  As we will see, however, when Jesus predicts his fate he always foretells the fate of humanity--though all the ages of Christianity seem not to have gotten that message.

Plotting Mark to the Bethsaida Foreshadowing

8:22-26)  We ended the last post after the episode in which Jesus reminds the disciples of the two miracles of the loaves, and then he asks, "How is it that ye do not understand?" (8:21)  We are now going to learn of the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida, in which we learn also of the derivation of the curious phrase, "men like trees walking."  Jesus sets out to give sight to a blind man, and it takes two gestures of ministration.  Then in a little while we are going to learn of the man with the demoniac son, the man who utters the plaintive cry, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief."  And this episode ends with the disciples, frustrated and bewildered after their former ability to work wonders, asking Jesus "Why could we not cast him out?"  Jesus responds by saying that the kind of demon presented here can be driven out only by prayer (though the source used by the KJV would have it as "prayer and fasting.")

It is not immediately obvious (especially given the obfuscations fostered by the churches) that here we are confronted by the inescapable manifestation of the kingdom of God.  The kingdom of God does not so much have to do with fellowship with God, nor with access to God, nor to the promise of salvation from God, nor with comfort from God, nor with obedience of God, or indeed with anything but one overriding element of the believer's relationship with God: The believer is the possession of God--as the kingdoms of old were understood to be the possessions of the monarchs--and (as is implicit in human relations and inescapable in spiritual matters)--possession by the monarch is not qualified.  That is, the thing possessed by the monarch is an element of the monarch's very self, and retains nothing but provisional identity.

The subject is nothing as against the will--even the very nature--of the monarch, and all the more so the believer is nothing as against the will and nature of God.  Inescapably, then, the thought life of the believer--of the subject of the kingdom of God--is understood truly in its barest essentials as consisting either of the ineffable joy of fellowship of God, or of the bottomless despair of alienation from God.  The notion of the equanimity of the more-or-less (and hopefully improving) faithful in the service of God is a perfidious sin-state (and all the more so as it is celebrated as some sort of quaint journey of foibles and failings.)

Only the dullness of inattention to God and the habit of presumption on God's patience constitute that part of the believer's life that might be called routine.  In the teachings of Jesus, the believer's consciousness is borne upon the ecstasy of fellowship with God or it is cast into utter agony at the sundering of that fellowship.  This is the experience of humanity, and it would be strange indeed if the experiences of Jesus did not range from the intimacy of "Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," to "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

To compress the above, the experience of God's mercy (like that shown to the blind man) can be incomplete, though such would seem to be counterintuitive; the experience of asking for mercy (like the frantic father) can hinge not on belief but on the realization of its lack; and the desire to work the will of God (like the disciples) can be chiefly about the impossibility of truly doing so.  This, we will be reminded, is the province of the Jesus who promises us that we can do virtually anything if we have but the slightest faith--and we are scarcely distinguished by the ability to do virtually anything.

If we are to understand the gospels--indeed, if we are to understand anything--then we must look past our tendency to see the gospels as the playing-out of matters of religion on the stage of Creation.  Religion that attends truly to the One God does not see anything that is other than God as being this or that entity engaged in activity against a backdrop of reference.  Existence--that mystery that we cannot comprehend even as we extend ourselves ridiculously to imagine that we can begin to comprehend God--is not an existence of parts against a backdrop we in our conceit call "reality."  Existence is one great organ writhing in its interactions, with us among its twitching parts.

To envision the Creation as a landscape of comprehensible references that we can piously call the rightful possession of God is in fact an appalling act of arrogance.  All that we can truly call the rightful possession of God is everything that we think and feel.  This is where the Gospel of Mark is going from here--indeed, this is where it has been going all along.

Plotting Mark Through Chapter Seven and a Half

The last post, dealing with what is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark, ended with:

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that experience is understandable, though perhaps only incrementally so.

If, as I contend, the ministry of Jesus recorded in the gospels is meant to be understood in story form, rather than as a formal account, then it would be expected that the prefatory sections would give way to the body of the story.  Ironically, since the applications of Jesus' teaching hinge on a few basic teachings--imparted naturally at the beginning--then the "body" of the story would have some of the tenor of a conclusion.  After all, in the framing of a theological system, there are certain basis premises that must be developed from the start--at least, that is what we might naturally expect.

This "playing-out" of the beginning premises is what we see in the Gospel of Mark, where that portion of the story between the prefaces and the onrushing of "Passion Week"--that is, that portion which is conventionally taken as an account of "teachings of Jesus" (usually broken up under the translators' headings)--ought really to be seen as an outworking of the teachings of Jesus.  What we see from the Mission of the Twelve onward to the Transfiguration--a progress viewed most neatly through the framework of references to The Baptist--is a display of how the teachings of Jesus must be assimilated by the disciple.

As I wrote in the preceding post about the sending of the Twelve: "They have been prepared by him to face the world.  And the message they are to impart?  'And they went out, and preached that men should repent.'  The Baptist could have told them that."

6:6b-29)  And then now we have the familiar story of John's imprisonment and murder.  It is sewn into the text with a brief set of ruminations from various quarters about Jesus' personage, a set of ruminations that is not resolved but is rather left hanging (though Herod's contention that Jesus is a resurrected John leads into the account of the murder.)  We will revisit this phenomenon about multiple interpretations of a person's theological identity.

6:30-44)  Then we have the story of the First Miracle of the Loaves.  There has never been enough emphasis on what seems at first like a sarcastic response of Jesus to the disciples' concern about the unfed crowd: "Give ye them to eat."  Jesus really did mean that the disciples should draw forth enough for the crowd, something that Jesus then does himself.  Jesus does not wave a hand and create a pile of food.  Jesus draws it into existence.

6:45-56)  Jesus then creates a heightened version of the Calming of the Storm.  He puts the disciples in a boat by themselves, and contrives to have them placed to cry out as he appears in the storm.  The disciples are frightened both by the storm and by the apparition, but when they cry out in their distress he comforts them and calms the sea.  This is taken too often as simply a miraculous sign, as a lesson to the disciples in the sovereignty and mercy of Jesus, or as a display of how the disciples--and we--need to petition for the mercy and comfort of God.  All these are valid, but none of them addresses directly the lesson that the text brings:

"For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened."  Over and over again Jesus is teaching that the phenomenon of people obtaining benefits from God is really a phenomenon of them yielding themselves to the unmerited miracle of serving as vessels of God's bounty.

7:1-13)  The "Pharisees, and certain of the scribes" from Jerusalem then upbraid Jesus about his disciples' disregard for ritual washing.  It should be noted not only that he defies their contention that such rituals have divine warrant, but that he chooses a particular example of their unseemly traditions that bears on our topic.  Jesus speaks about how a son, though bound in fact by duty to his parents, can choose to withhold benefits to his parents by declaring such things of his to be dedicated to God--an exact opposite (and an impious one at that) of drawing forth from oneself the benefits of God.

7:14-37)  Jesus then, in speaking about "clean and unclean," reverses the standard notion of impurity.  Rather than pollutants being introduced to a person from without, says Jesus, "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man . . . . All these evil things come from within, and defile the man."  Whether for good or ill, the things that matter for a person's eternal fate arise from within--though of course the incomprehensible sovereignty of God transcends all bounds.  For the purposes of the disciple, and for the purposes of Jesus teachings, the kingdom of God does indeed reside within the person--and in that manifestation is to be looked to as a seat and source of blessings.

8:1-21)  Shortly thereafter, Jesus again feeds a crowd, and again he draws forth from what is at hand--from what the disciples already possess--enough for the multitude.  Then the text has Jesus, after sailing to Dalmanutha, dismiss abruptly a company of Pharisees looking for a sign.  And then comes an episode that must be left to speak for itself:

"Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf.  And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.  And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread.  And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?  Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?  When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?  They say unto him, Twelve.  And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?  And they said, Seven.  And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?" (Mark 8:14-21)

We have proceeded partway through the journey to the Transfiguration.  This gets us through Chapter 8, verse 21.

Plotting Mark Through Chapter Five and Some

The last post, dealing with what is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark, ended with:

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that experience is understandable, though perhaps only incrementally so.

In the last post I wrote, "The section we are dealing with here [Mark 4-1:34] might be recapitulated precisely along the lines of it being not really a series of teachings, but rather a series of lessons about learning."  What might also be said of Mark 4-1:34 is that it is written in the form of a narrative, of a story.  This need not have been so, but undeniably the author of Mark holds to a pattern ("And he said unto them," "And he said," "And he said . . .") that bespeaks a story progression--even though this emphasis on progression results in an inexactitude about who is Jesus' audience at any particular juncture.

4:35-6:6a)  The next section of Mark (the section we are dealing with here) is described similarly as a story.  (Actually, it is a narrative continuation of the preceding "story," but a conceptual break is inserted by the author: "And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.  But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples" (Mark 4:33-34).)  And now we have:

"And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side."  So we are given the episodes of the Calming of the Storm, and of the Gerasene Demoniac, and of the Woman with a Hemorrhage, and of the Raising of the Daughter of Jairus, and of Jesus' Visit to Nazareth.

The Calming of the Storm would seem to set the tone.  Jesus upbraids his disciples for their lack of faith, but there is no hint that his disciples understand that their lack of faith is in the face of their proximity to the Divine Son of God--nor is there any hint that Jesus would have the matter to be any different.  As the text has it, "And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"

Still less would the occupants of the accompanying boats have had cause to understand--at least directly--what had happened.  Why does the author even mention them?  The "story" quality of the text seems irrepressible.

Then Jesus is accosted by the Gerasene demoniac, and it would seem that Jesus' status is betrayed.  "And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God?"  Of course, the same objection to Jesus' status as being thus revealed can be raised here as before.  Why would Jesus tell unclean spirits to remain silent about him, when they are portrayed as shouting his status aloud?  Presumably the utterance of this multitude ("Legion") of unclean spirits was understood only by Jesus--and perhaps by the unfortunate afflicted man.

Certainly the people of the territory had no conception of Jesus as someone they would want around, although notably the cured demoniac--who might have absorbed the unclean spirits' estimation of Jesus--did not want to be parted from the messiah.  Jesus, however, tells the man to stay in his native land and tell people what "the Lord" had done for him--an injunction that the man turns into a license to tell abroad "how great things Jesus had done for him."  It would seem typical of Jesus that he would not want the cured man to speak in Judea or Galilee.

Then there is the episode of the Woman with a Hemorrhage.  Jesus does not speak directly about how he has cured her--much less does he connect the cure to his status as messiah.  "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole."  Then there is the cure of the Daughter of Jairus: "And he charged them straitly that no man should know it."

And so this part of the story of Jesus leads to his return to Nazareth, where even his own kin have no idea what is going on with him.  In the synagogue they say, "From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?"  And then follows the most puzzling part of all: "And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.  And he marvelled because of their unbelief."

The remarkable thing about this story is the persistence with which it refuses to say anything.  It presents itself as a cavity in the conceptual landscape of Jesus as Messiah.  Perhaps it is not for nothing that Jesus takes only Peter, James, and John to the house of Jairus--and includes them thereby in the company of those who will witness the miracle, and be told not to speak about it.  This is the same trio--Peter, James, and John--who witness the Transfiguration and who see the Old Testament figures disappear into a cloud as the voice instructs Peter, James, and John to hear God's "beloved Son."  And this is the same Peter, James, and John who are told to accompany Jesus in Gethsemane--and who have it demonstrated for them how weak and ineffectual they are, even in the very echoes of their claims of fearless devotion to Jesus.

In each of these events involving Peter, James, and John, the most profound thrusts of the lessons are in the negative.  Overall, the ministry of Jesus is essentially reductive.  Even the final revelations of Jesus' divinity, sonship, and fulfillment of the messianic role are propounded again and again by Jesus in terms of what the disciples already know--of what they have always known--rather than in terms of the building-up of some theological edifice.

Shortly we are going to hear about how Jesus sends out his Twelve.  They have been prepared by him to face the world.  And the message they are to impart?  "And they went out, and preached that men should repent."  The Baptist could have told them that.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that experience is understandable, though perhaps only incrementally so.

This gets us through Chapter 6, verse 6a.

Plotting Mark Chapter Four Parables

The last post, dealing with what is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark, ended with:

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that experience is understandable.

4:1-34)  This section is a series of parables.  The parables, which are described as Jesus' way of communicating with the masses, are interspersed with statements describing how the disciples are given more thorough explanations than the people at large.  Even here, however, there is a subtext to the effect that no thoroughness of explanation would ever be comprehensive.  After Jesus' first telling of the Parable of the Sower, we have:

"And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.  And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables."  This is capped off with an ominous passage from Isaiah.

However, it seems to be meant that the ability to "know the mystery" is not as definitive as it sounds.  Jesus could scarcely be described as patient with the disciples when he embarks on the promised explanation: "Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?"

At this point the narrator seems to lose focus on the use of pronouns translated as "them."  The first of these "them's," as recounted above, is the disciples receiving the explanation of the (somewhat vague) imagery of the Parable of the Sower.  The next "them" denotes the hearers of the following:

"Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?  For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad."  This "parable" would seem fitting indeed for the disciples, but the proper notion of the intended hearers might be borne upon the immediately following statement: "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."

Jesus seems to be challenging any and all hearers to challenge themselves respectively to understand what he is teaching--indeed, it seems that this emphasis on exerting oneself in understanding is the main thing that Jesus is relating.  The distinction between the great multitude and the lesser company of disciples is as fluid as the narrator's use of pronouns--seemingly used here of the crowds, and yet here of the disciples.  "Take heed what ye hear," says Jesus, and "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.  For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."

As I said, the narrator has not specified the use of the "them" denoting Jesus' audience at any particular moment, and without explicit description the oration of Jesus has slipped from that directed to the disciples to that directed to the crowd, such that the narrator ends with:

"And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it.  But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples."

The upshot is that this series of parables is not so much about the content of the parables, but rather about the message latent in the very methodology of Jesus' parable-telling.  Jesus is really teaching about the search for understanding, and more specifically he is teaching about the need for persistence and fearlessness in understanding.  "Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.  For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath."

The section we are dealing with here might be recapitulated precisely along the lines of it being not really a series of teachings, but rather a series of lessons about learning.

The Parable of the Sower is on its face a parable about what causes people to ignore or to forsake the word, but the greater thrust of this section is about how people can defy those obstacles, rather than merely fall prey to them.

The Parable of the Lamp is about how truth will out--and this being the ordinance of God.  The Parable of the Sown Seed is about the essence of God's kingdom exerting itself intrinsically.  The Parable of the Mustard Seed is about the essence of God's kingdom exerting itself irrepressibly.

In all of these parables, and in their implications for humanity, is expressed the fundamentally benign and accessible nature of God's Creation to human understanding--if people will address the matter so.  If, on the other hand, any person shunts aside his or her (potentially expandable) capacity for understanding--if they become "he that hath not"--then from them "shall be taken . . . even that which he hath."

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that experience is understandable, though perhaps only incrementally so.

This gets us through Chapter 4, verse 34.

Plotting Mark Through Chapter Three

The last post, dealing with what is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark, ended with:

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.

3:13-19)  This section, the appointment of the Twelve, is chiefly important in that it spells out their purpose: "that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils."  Not all translations agree with the KJV in including the "healing" part, and without it the possibility arises that the power "to cast out devils" might be suspected to be a dispensation from Jesus rather than an acquired trait of the Twelve at that stage.  In any event, there is no textual warrant to the effect that what the Twelve are sent forth to preach is any more extensive in substance than the brief sketch we have obtained above.  So far, what we have above is all that we can assign of necessity to any "gospel" the Twelve had to disseminate.  All else is either supposition, or is injected into interpretations from the other gospels.

3:20-35)  This section includes the famous Unforgivable Sin, bracketed by two episodes that describe Jesus' mutual alienation from his kin.  This is not a happenstance of story-collection, at least as the story is told in the text.  Jesus arrives back home, and the gathering of the crowd prompts his family to try to collect him, in that "He is beside himself."  Jesus then has his famous exchange with "the scribes which came down from Jerusalem," followed by "There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him."

Jesus then says that, "whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."  This is not the only time in the gospels when Jesus promises that a new community (of a sort)--even new possessions (of a sort)--are available to his disciples, if they can be reconciled to giving up any claim to those things that we usually consider essential to any life that we would value.  We are assured by Jesus that, even in the face of hardship and persecution, the overall tenor of existence is such that it is understandable and ultimately not inimical to tolerable experiences.

This also seems to be a message of the Unforgivable Sin exchange with the scribes, challenging and frightening though it may be.  Jesus speaks of the Unforgivable Sin because, as the text concludes, "they said, He hath an unclean spirit."  Jesus is responding at first to the scribes' contention that "by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils."  Jesus counters with two parables that bear on the same point.  A house divided will fall of its own weakness and dissention (and so will Satan's if he decides to undercut his minions for momentary gain) and a house may be plundered if its formidable owner is bound (such as is the case when Jesus renders Satan unable to prevent his domain from being successfully assailed.)

In both parables the upshot is the same: existence, even the heady and frightening existence called by some "spiritual warfare," is a straightforward enterprise.  Jesus seems to have no use for the type of religion that bedevils humanity with the constant worry that the face of evil can hide behind mask behind mask behind mask.  Evil is ultimately identifiable and understandable, and evil acts will bear evil fruits.  Existence is understandable, and any religion that purveys existence as otherwise spins off inevitably into madness, and all too often renders its adherents lost--as well as rendering the most pointed of insults to the Divine, as being the maker and sustainer of a diabolical intellectual mire.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.  Jesus taught that existence is understandable.

This gets us through Chapter Three.

Plotting Mark Chapter Two and a Half

The last post, dealing with what is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark, ended with:

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.

 2:1-3:12)  This is series of episodes remarkable for a set of conceptual gradations.  The four men lower the paralytic through the roof, and rather than bestow forgiveness on the paralytic as an act of unmerited grace, or to bestow forgiveness on the paralytic in response to the man's faith, it is said of Jesus that he forgives the paralytic when "Jesus saw their faith."

Jesus responds then to what he knows the scribes are thinking: "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"  Jesus responds in his fashion of presenting logically unanswerable quandaries: "Whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?"

Jesus then works the healing with the preface, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins . . . "  Jesus uses the enigmatic phrase "Son of man," coupled with the curious reference to the Son of man having power "on earth" to forgive sins--a strange way indeed for Jesus to speak of himself (as the denominations would have it) as the one and only divine Son of God, who would of course have the power to forgive sins always and everywhere.  The episode ends with the crowd praising God for what they have seen, not praising Jesus as divine or as the single holder of the honorific "Son of man."

Later, the episode of the disciples picking corn on the Sabbath ends with Jesus saying, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath."  If the phrase "Son of man" was intended to be limited to the divine Jesus, co-equal with God (as the standard notion goes), Jesus would be merely making the Pharisees' point for them: that the disciples were violating a realm notable in that here the divine "Son of man" as Lord and God had put down a law of time immemorial.

This set of episodes ends with Jesus healing in a great crowd, and with the unclean spirits loudly proclaiming "Thou art the Son of God"--an exclamation that in its renditions (despite its assignment of full recognition of deity by the churches) is not without a problematic quality, being--along with "messiah"--at times applied to obviously human persons.  More importantly to our present discussion, the unclean spirits are told by Jesus not to reveal his identity abroad--which would be a nonsensical notion in the midst of the crowd unless, as I have contended before, the cries of the unclean spirits are only heard or understood by Jesus.

To this point in the Gospel of Mark, neither the divine quality nor the messianic stature of Jesus is known to humanity, and this is of great importance if we are to assess properly Jesus' use of "Son of man."  Moreover, the phenomenon of forgiveness of sins has already been infused with a radical and unsettling set of elements: that forgiveness might be obtained on behalf of another, and that forgiveness might be--at least in part--bestowed by persons upon each other.  The entire topic of "forgiveness of sins" (when understood to involve eternal consequences under God) is one of the most perplexing in the ministry of Jesus.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.  Jesus taught that his disciples participate communally in the soliciting and the bestowal of eternal forgiveness.

This gets us through Chapter Three, verse 12.

Plotting Mark Chapter One

What is to be gleaned from the Gospel of Mark:

1:1)  The descriptors "Jesus Christ, the Son of God" are to be developed in the story.

1:2-3)  The quotes from Malachi and Isaiah are both inaccurate and improperly cited, and add nothing to the story.

1:4-8)  John's baptism was a ritual of repentance and confession, imparting nothing more than ritual solemnity and imparting nothing for the future.  Its universal acceptance in "all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem" is obviously not intended literally.  Johns' conclusion, "I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost," is described in no theological particulars.

1:9-13)  Jesus' spiritual experience upon being baptized was a personal experience, as was his testing in the desert.

1:14-15)  Jesus preached repentance, as many others had, and Jesus also proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.

1:16-22)  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.

 1:23-45)  As here in the synagogue, the unclean spirits addressed Jesus in such terms as "the Holy One of God."  Jesus' demand of silence from the unclean spirits would be pointless if the hearers among the crowds registered and understood what the unclean spirits and Jesus said to each other, so it must be assumed that these acclamations of Jesus' stature from the unclean spirits went unheard at the moment.  The text merely records the people remarking on Jesus' authority to command unclean spirits.  Similarly (and with a similar lack of ceremony) Jesus heals the sick.

Jesus proclaimed the nearness and the imminence of the kingdom of God.  Jesus told his disciples that they would enlist others.  Jesus drove out unclean spirits and healed the sick.

 This gets us through Chapter One.