A Whole New World: The Gospel of Mark

by John Blackwell, Ariana Philips (Foreword by)

Overview

John Blackwell’s insights into transformation and togetherness will help you find your way into an astounding new world.
 
What would it mean for me to live in a new way—with a new outlook, with completely new methods? What would this mean for my relationships? What would this mean for the ways in which I conduct myself? What manners would I change? What kinds of things would I stop saying? What kinds of things would I begin to say? Mark’s Gospel brings us right into the mystery of what it means to live as a member of God’s family. He raises the most important questions for us to ponder: What would it mean to be willing to lose my life and to take up my cross? How might I go about implementing this vision? The Gospel of Mark, the second book in the A Whole New World series, leads us into the heart of a whole new world of insight and transformation—right where we are. 
 
“This book was ministry, a gift, and a soul-tugging read. I challenge you to read this book and become spiritually transformed.” —Kyra Phillips, CNN anchor

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781600372292
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	10/01/2018
Series:	A Whole New World , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	125
File size:	885 KB

About the Author

John Blackwell is Dean of the Chapel at Kansas Wesleyan University. He teaches in the departments of Religion and Philosophy, English, Behavioral Sciences, and the Honors Program.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

right before our eyes

Oh, music's all very well. You know I love it. And anybody can write; it just takes industry. But painting — it makes people see. It makes them see God's work truly. ... The painter is a great moral force, Frankie. It's truly a gift of God.

— Aunt Mary-Ben, in Robertson Davies' What's Bred in the Bone

The novelist must be characterized not by his function but by his vision, and we must remember that his vision has to be transmitted and that the limitations and blind spots of his audience will very definitely affect the way he is able to show what he sees.

— Flannery O'Connor, "The Grotesque in Southern Fiction"

Can you see anything?

— Jesus, in Mark 8:23 (NRSV)

I decided to take up drawing. It was something I had thought about doing for years. A friend recommended that I use a book by Betty Edwards, entitled Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I was intrigued by the title. Among other things, Edwards shows us how, as we learn to draw, we let the right side of the brain take over, so to speak, and show us untold riches.

It was in beginning to learn to draw that I realized how little I actually see. Learning to draw has as much to do with seeing what is right in front of me as with skill. Betty Edwards gives wonderful exercises to improve necessary drawing skills, to be sure. But the most important feature of drawing involves seeing. To learn to draw well, we have to learn to see well. When I started reading Edwards' book and actually doing some of her exercises, I realized just how poorly I saw. I discovered how little attention I actually paid to what was right in front of my nose and eyes!

The awareness of how little I actually see didn't come as a surprise. There is a famous test that is called the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory. The purpose of this inventory is to give us insight into some of our preferred ways of functioning. One of the categories has to do with how we go about gathering information. The idea is that we tend to rely either on our senses or our intuition. Those who prefer to sense things like to acquire information through seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling. In other words, sensors prefer to sense things. It's just that simple.

Instead of the senses, others prefer their intuition. People who rely on intuition like to discern the unseen — what can be known, so to speak, through the mind's eye. This is where I fit in. The last time I took the Myers-Briggs test, all of my answers indicated a preference for intuition. I got no points for sensing.

This isn't helpful when it comes to learning to draw! I tend to be comfortable in the inner world of ideas. One of my problems is that it is so easy for me to withdraw into the world of intuition and ideas that I can get lost there. When I do so, I am absent from the real world. My children tell me that they can always recognize when I am off in the world of my own intuition. They say that I begin staring off into space — both literally and figuratively.

There's nothing wrong with this — to a point. The world of intuition and ideas is important, as is the world of things. But as I began to learn to draw, I also discovered a weakness. There is much that I never see. Rarely do I look intently at what is right before my eyes. Too often, I'm gone to the world. If I was to begin to learn to draw, I would have to begin to learn to see what was right in front of me.

This is one of the major themes of Mark's Gospel. Mark is all about learning to see clearly. One of Mark's goals was to teach his reader to see. Mark accomplished this by showing us what he saw. That's why he wrote his Gospel in the first place. Mark wanted to show us what he saw when he looked at Christ. He also wanted to show us what Christ saw when he looked at the world. Mark's ultimate goal was to open our eyes so that we could see the world that is right before our eyes, recognizing the Christ who is right in front of us. In a word, Mark's Gospel is all about insight. His Gospel is the embodiment of his own insight.

From childhood, I remember the words, "Now you see it. Now, you don't!" This was a standard phrase used by magicians. The technical word for this kind of "magic" is prestidigitation. Using slight of hand, the magician would make an object disappear — right before our eyes. For years, I found magic associated with slight-of-hand electrifying. I was enchanted with what Robertson Davies calls the World of Wonders.

Mark's Gospel is characterized not by the words, "Now you see it. Now, you don't," but by a beloved line from a hymn: "Was blind, but now I see." Mark wasn't interested in slight-of-hand, nor did he seek to make things disappear. He wasn't even interested in making Christ appear right before our eyes. He was interested in opening our eyes, teaching us to see. To this end, Mark took great care to show us what he himself saw.

To help us see what is right before our eyes, Mark spent considerable time on description. He took great care to portray the actions of Jesus. He wanted us to learn to see what Jesus was up to in his interactions with others. Some of these actions were startling. None were more so than his dealings with the blind man in the middle of chapter eight. I've heard more than one poet use the phrase, "God is in the details." In this story, the details are remarkable, and I find two of them to be strange, odd, and even puzzling. If we are reading with half a mind, we will at least pause and wonder: Why did Jesus do that? And if we will linger in our perplexity, it will lead to the even more important question: What is Mark showing us? What does he want us to see?

There is nothing remarkable about the way the story begins. Jesus and his disciples had just arrived at Bethsaida, and a group of people brought a blind man to Jesus, begging him to touch the man. Jesus's response was simple and direct. He took the man by the hand and led him from the village. This is something we might expect. In the first chapter of the Gospel, when Jesus called his first disciples, he said, "Follow me!" Discipleship involves learning to follow Christ. By portraying Jesus taking the blind man and leading him away from the village, Mark has shown us that learning to see goes hand-in-hand with following Jesus. Notice the subtlety with which Mark has accomplished this. He didn't portray Jesus lecturing the lad: "Now, Son, learning to see means following me, so I want you to take my hand and follow. We'll do this together, but I don't want you lagging behind. Any questions? Good. Ready? Let's go!" Instead, Mark's Gospel shows us Jesus responding to their request that he touch the man. Mark even shows the touch as it unfolds: Jesus took the hand of the blind man and led him away from the village.

I find this intriguing. Why did Jesus lead the man away from the village? Mark offered no explanation. But he did place the answer right before our eyes. The village is where the people gather. Does learning to see begin with being removed from the crowd? Does the crowd have a way of looking at things that is distorted, or skewed? How many times do we miss seeing what is really in front of us because we expect to see what we have been conditioned to see? Or how many times have we failed to see because we have depended on others to do our looking for us? It's hard for me to imagine that Jesus was removing the man from the village permanently, but getting away from crowds, clutter, and complicating confusions may be a necessary first step for Christ to open our eyes.

If I find Jesus's leading the man from the village to be intriguing, I find what Jesus does next to be astonishing. Jesus spits in the man's eyes. I am not surprised that the New Revised Standard Version softened what Mark wrote by making it less graphic and tasteless. This translation says that Jesus "put saliva on [the man's] eyes." But the Greek doesn't say that. There is nothing euphemistic in Mark's description. Jesus spat on his eyes. Mark was blunt, but he was blunt for a reason. Mark wrote with clear purpose. He had an end in his sights, and that end involves our ability to discriminate and understand the meaning of Jesus's actions in dealing with the blind man. In other words, he is interested in enlarging our capacity for insight — both as we look at Jesus's dealings with his circumstances and as we look at our own.

Before we look at the more difficult issue of why Jesus spat on the eyes of the blind man, I'd like to focus on an aspect of the story that is a bit less baffling. After spitting on the man's eyes, Jesus then laid his hands on the man and asked, "Can you see anything?" The man told Jesus, "I can see people, but they look like trees that are walking." His vision wasn't yet clear. Jesus then touched the man's eyes a second time. Finally, he could see. He looked intently. He saw clearly.

At the conclusion of this episode, Jesus admonished the man to stay away from the village. Jesus didn't want him to return immediately. This final admonition goes hand in hand with the unfolding of the man's eyesight. Learning to see takes time. In Mark's Gospel, time is essential. This is why the man's healing wasn't instantaneous. After Jesus first touched the man's eyes, some vision emerged, but he couldn't see clearly. His vision wasn't yet discriminating. He still lacked insight. Something more would have to happen for him to become fully and habitually perceptive and discerning. It was important for the man to remain apart from the ways in which his acquaintances customarily viewed the world if his own capacity for insight was to become second nature. He would have to learn to see what was right in front of his eyes as a matter of everyday intention.

What was right in front of his eyes at that moment was Jesus's spittle. This was what Jesus wanted him to see; and this, of course, brings us back to the puzzle: Why did Jesus spit in his eyes? I wish there were a nicer way to ask this question. I don't wish to give offense. The challenge is that there is nothing pleasant about this part of the story, and I can't find a more acceptable alternative. So we have to ask, what does Jesus's spitting on the eyes of the blind man — whom he is healing — have to do with gaining insight? To answer this most important question, we have only to ask, where else, in Mark's Gospel, do we see someone being spat upon? The answer, of course, is that Jesus himself was spat upon when he was on trial before the high priest in the temple.

This, in turn, leads to the question, why was Jesus put on trial? What was Jesus charged with? Of what was he convicted? He was charged with being the Messiah — the King of the Jews. When Pilate, the Roman governor, ordered Jesus to be crucified, the charge against him was posted: King of the Jews.

This is a curious charge. The people didn't deny that he was the Messiah. But some of the people spat on him. Why? One of their reasons was that Jesus didn't fit their idea of what a Messiah should be and do. They spat on him because they held this kind of Messiah in contempt. Some of the people had nothing but disdain for Jesus and the type of king he chose to be.

Jesus answered God's call to be the Messiah willingly. But after years of thoughtful deliberation, he wasn't willing to present himself as a military Messiah — a mighty warrior like the great King David, who would lead his followers in a great battle against the Roman occupiers of Jerusalem. Jesus had concluded that a military Messiah wasn't what the people needed and wouldn't serve the interests of the kingdom of God — the world of God's sovereignty. But if Jesus wouldn't lead his followers into battle, neither would he flee — withdrawing to the hills for a life of seclusion, isolation, and prayer. Instead, he would confront evil and confront it head-on, seeking somehow to take it all in — to absorb it into his own person. He would confront evil by embracing those who held him in contempt. He would confront evil by accepting those who rejected him. He would confront evil by offering hospitality to people who had been banished and left to the margins of society — women, lepers, sinners, tax collectors, and those possessed by evil. And, he would confront evil also by embracing those who had marginalized others — all of which would lead to his suffering. He would confront evil by means of his own suffering and death.

Jesus was spat upon by people who objected to a Messiah who embraced people whom they had banished from society and sent into exile. And this raises the important question, why would Jesus as Messiah willingly suffer rejection and a most cruel, excruciating death? I think it has to do with the ends for which Jesus was called, and for which he stood. The end for which Jesus stood was the peace of God. Domination isn't the means to peace. Consequently, Jesus carefully avoided dominating others. He sought peace. He didn't pound others into submission. He sought the life-giving peace of God's sovereignty and love.

To establish a world of firm peace and love takes time. The implementation of peace sometimes involves sacrifice. A Messiah who made sacrifice and even expected that his followers would do likewise was not the type of Messiah that many people wanted. Several in authority rejected Jesus. They rejected the kind of Messiah Jesus chose to be. These people held Jesus and the kingdom for which he stood in contempt. They expressed their contempt with the greatest of disdain. They spat on Jesus.

This is what Mark wanted us to see. He wanted us to observe Christ as he willingly embraced the people who held him in contempt. He wanted us to see Christ embracing the ones who rejected him. This is where we will find the sovereignty of God. This is what Mark wanted to help us recognize. Mark knew that if we were to see Christ embracing those whom he encounters, our own capacity for love and peace would grow larger. As we watch Christ embrace those who rejected him, Christ would also open our eyes to the people we might embrace in love.

Mark understood that this would not be easy. Christ's own disciples had great difficulty learning to see. At the very moment when Christ was embracing people who counted him as the enemy, his own disciples abandoned him and dissociated themselves from him. For Christ's disciples to recognize the significance of the way he embraced others would take time. I think that Mark understood that it will take time for those of us who read his Gospel to learn to see as well.

There is a lot to see in Mark's Gospel. Learning to see — especially in the initial phases — takes effort and time. Mark didn't deny the possibility that we will have flashes of insight. The challenge is that flashes can be difficult to sustain. Embracing and implementing insight takes time because it is a matter of learning. And for me, the most important learning involves the places where I am the weakest. The weak places are where I need the most learning and growth.

As I began learning to draw, one of the things that first struck me was that I would have to move my eyes slowly and then move the pencil slowly as well. As I began to slow down my efforts to draw, I also became aware of how rapidly I tended to move the pen when I wrote. I discovered this to be one of the reasons my penmanship was so poor (sloppy is the better characterization!). I then recognized that my penmanship was poor because my attention raced to the next topic of interest. I was too easily bored. This in turn led me to recognize how quickly I came to conclusions and how hastily I was wont to act. I also became aware that it was difficult for me to allow one enterprise to come to conclusion or completion because I was already looking forward to the next.

As I forced myself to slow down the pencil, I began to give impatience permission to relax its grip on my life. I began to give anxiety permission to let go. I also began to allow myself to take a more relaxed interest and sustained attention to what was right in front of me.

A favorite character from the world of literature is the creation of the remarkable imagination of the nineteenth century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. The character is Father Zossima, an Orthodox monk. In a rather lengthy section, Father Zossima tried to help the other monks to make a connection between the material world that we see with the spiritual world that we intuit. This is a matter of learning to pay attention to what is right before our eyes and to make the appropriate connections to our life in God.

I am still learning to do this with consistency. It is a discipline that is difficult to sustain. I find it easier to do so while on retreat. One of my favorite retreats is St. Deiniol's Library in Wales. St. Deiniol's is a writer's paradise. The library is the legacy of the nineteenth century British Prime Minister William Gladstone. He wanted to insure that scholars and clergy had a place to read, reflect, and write. The result was this amazing residential library in the town of Hawarden.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "A Whole New World: The Gospel of Mark"
by .
Copyright © 2007 John Blackwell.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Foreword by Kyra Phillips,
Right Before Our Eyes,
Jesus First Words,
Learning to See,
The Deep,
Demons,
The Crush of the Crowd,
Now You See It; Now You Don't,
Why Did Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?,
The Great Transformation,

Editorial Reviews

This book was ministry, a gift, and a soul-tugging read. I challenge you to read this book and become spiritually transformed. Study the metaphors, the poetry, the lessons of our Messiah's ministry through Dr. Blackwell's interpretation and text. You will, without a doubt, embark upon A Whole New World-yet and be peacefully enlightened. — Kyra Phillips "CNN Anchor"

From the Publisher