The oldest image. The shortest and, almost certainly the oldest of the four Gospels. Which includes, most likely, catechesis and preaching of St. Peter, or proclaiming the gospel as Peter. About Mary, the Gospel of Mark is an extreme frugality, comparable, in the absence of references, the great neo-testamentary Marian silence. Mark begins his gospel by presenting the figure of St. John the Baptist, and almost immediately to an adult Jesus and comes to be baptized in the Jordan. None of the infancy narratives, which, as we see in Matthew and Luke, are provided to tell us something about the Mother. Nothing comparable to two great Marian scenes from the Gospel of St. John, the wedding at Cana and Calvary.
1. Two texts: Mk 3, 31-35, 6, 1-3
What Mark says about Mary runs into two very short passages, both located in the first part of his gospel. And in these passages do not even notice the personal touch the narrator. This maintains a cool objectivity of writer and we reported what third parties say about Mary. And if we stop to consider the text, we find that these third parties are incredulous, enemies of Jesus, who of course do not deal with her mother sympathetic, but from his hostility and disbelief. For them it adds, as a counterpoint and rebuttal testimony of Jesus is the same about Mary.
Read the passages. The first Mk 3, 31-35
"came her mother and siblings and, standing outside, they sent him. He sat
people around and say,
"Look, your mother and your brothers out there looking for you.
He replied:
- Who is my mother and my brothers?
And looking around, who were sitting around him, said: "Here
my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does God's will is my brother, my sister and my mother. "
The second passage is the exclamation skeptical of those who were amazed, incredulous, his inexplicable power and wisdom, we read in Chapter 6, 1-3
"He left there and went to their land, and his disciples followed him. When the Sabbath came, he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying,
- Do Whence comes this? And what wisdom is this which has given you? And such miracles by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?
and shocked him. "
These are the only two passages from the Gospel of Mark which refers to Mary. They simply prove that Jesus was known in their midst as the carpenter, the son of Mary. That affiliation for many more amazing was that he was the messenger of God. It served as an excuse for the ill-disposed to assert itself in unbelief. For the same distances between samples of power and wisdom which, according to Mark's account, Jesus was given by all parties, was an argument that would not come from inheritance or human baggage, but as a gift from above. The same humility of his kindred Galilee-the proverbially most ignorant of things of the law within the Jewish people must have been convincing argument in favor of the divine origin of their works. If they were inexplicable by the flesh and kin, should not we try to explain the spirit of God?
2. The context of the gospel
But try to understand better the meaning of these episodes placing ourselves in the perspective of Mark's narrative. All the first part of his gospel, to the eighth chapter, verses 27-30 (the confession of Peter), Jesus shows us that works wonders and portents, which arouses the admiration of the people, who dazzles with his superhuman power. That is, it shows the growing progressive revelation of Jesus. At the same time shows the absolute and general understanding of the true character of his person and mission. Jesus is revealed, but nobody understands his revelation. Not understand the people, not understanding his disciples, the scribes do not understand, do not understand their families. They do not understand those who refuse to believe in him and the controversy it faces and speaking to them in parables.
This misunderstanding of unbelievers no wonder. But they neither understand nor understand his own disciples. In the privileged confession of faith of Peter, which completed the first part of the gospel, we foresee at the same time an abyss of ignorance and resistance to painful aspect of the identity of Jesus Christ. Just
Jesus' career started on a Saturday at Capernaum, with his teaching in the synagogue and many healings of sick and expulsion of demons, as have begun to follow his first disciples and has turned the popular fervor, and point to the opposition and criticism: Jesus heals on the Sabbath, eating with sinners, his disciples do not fast and pluck ears on Saturday. And from the beginning of the third chapter, the Pharisees with the Herodians conspire for its removal. But this is difficult, because a crowd follows Jesus. This she chooses from his many disciples. One of the first steps of the plot is seen in 3, 20-21. Jesus returns to earth. Crowd together again so the crowd could not even eat.
"They learned their relatives and came to dominate it, because (they) said, 'Is out of it '. "
3. Opposition to the Messiah
The first step of the conspiracy against Jesus is declared insane and interest to the relatives to dominate a blood relative who could implicate him in his madness and bring problems. That this method of intimidation of the relatives, which was used against Jesus and his disciples, was a usual method, we demonstrated the episode of the blind man in the Gospel according to John, whose parents called to testify before the court ( 9, 18-23).
Having heard that Jesus was beside himself, and perhaps moved by fear and veiled threats, the relatives of Jesus come to dominate. Dragged his mother to expect that Jesus whose bodies can not withstand. Meanwhile, Mark records the crescendo of accusations against Jesus. Jesus is more than a madman. Is a madman: "is possessed by an evil spirit" (3, 22).
Amid this storm of hostility on the one hand and popular enthusiasm for the other, is when Mark tells the reporter laconically:
"They get their mother and siblings and, standing outside, sent him to call" .
is to fix a family problem. The humble Galilean villagers do not want to discuss theology. In humility, modesty or prudence
peasant "because the lack of letters is not synonymous with stupidity," do not enter. (According to Luke, do not fall simply because it prevents them from approaching the crowd.)
"A crowd was sitting around,"
The doctor hated being surrounded by an enthusiastic audience to feel the heart burn to his word, "he taught them as one having authority and not as the type", has registered Mark ( 1, 22). Some malicious infiltrated the audience is pleased to announce loudly to Jesus
"Hey, your mother, your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you. "
is Jesus who says, but indirectly to his audience: "See what comes your family doctor." Mark records later, in chapter six that this evil weed has taken root: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and do not know all his relatives?". And they took offense at him.
Humility of Mary and Jesus' relatives is wielded to humiliate, to belittle in front of his audience: Which candidate to King Messiah! What doctoral candidate and savior! Here are the relatives of the prophet. It's the same argument also tells John:
"But the Jews murmured at him, because he said
'I am the bread that came down from heaven'.
They said
'Is not this Jesus, son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can you say now: I came down from Heaven? " (6, 42).
And John also recorded many of his disciples turned away from him with that occasion:
"This is a hard, who can hear?" (Jn. 6, 61).
"And not even his family believed in him" (John 7, 5).
"And the astonished Jews say: 'How understand letters having never learned?" (John 7.15). Marcos
us hear the talk of Mary, the mother of Jesus, from his deep hostility to the Son. There is in his words a human highlight the humble beginnings of Jesus, which is implicit denial of its divine origin and quality.
Just as there will be an Ecce homo! that mocks Jesus in his passion, there is here a preview of it, involving Mary in the same contempt insult Ecce Mulier, ecce mater eius-(Here the woman, see who is your mother ...).
4. The testimony of Jesus
this controversial spear hidden in the restraint of those who will announce the presence of their own out there, responds counterpoint also controversial Jesus
"Who is my mother and my brothers ?. "
"And looking around at those seated around him (Matthew precise parallel place that is the disciples) said: 'These are my mother and my brothers'." Jesus speaks often
in the Gospels of his disciples as his brothers, or "these brothers of mine," or simply "small." It is those who hear Jesus in faith but do not fully understand. These are not opposing it, but those who follow him and listen. This is the family of Jesus, because it is the Father's family. (Whose family ties is not blood, but the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus, or faith in him).
explicit As John: "Those who believe in His name gave power to become children of God" (Jn. 1, 12).
why Jesus ends with an explanation of why are those your real family:
"Whoever does the will of God, that's my brother, my sister and my mother."
Or Luke's version:
"He who hears the word of God and doeth it, that's my brother and my sister and my mother" (Luke 8, 21).
The mysterious (and perhaps many not so obvious) equation between "the will of God" or "hear the Word and fulfilled" and believe in Jesus Christ, we explicitly reveals John in his first letter:
"We keep His commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his command (and what you like): to believe in the name of your Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us " (1 st Jn 3, 22-23).
do the will of the Father is not wanting to yield to a dark, but take pleasure in doing what God likes, is to rejoice in the joy of God. And if we asked what delights and rejoices our God Almighty Be that as it may seem very hard to please, we know what to say because that Being inaccessible has revealed what she rejoices:
"This is my Son, I love and with whom I am well pleased: hear him ... " (Mt 17, 1-8, Mark 9, 7, Luke 9, 35).
Our God is revealed as the Father loves his Son Jesus Christ, and delights in it, and asks nothing of us but what we listen with faith and follow Him as disciples.
perhaps now understand why Luke translated "the will of God", that Matthew and Mark speak with an equivalent phrase: Hear His Word (which is to listen to His Son) and save (that is to follow as a disciple) .
and similar identification of God with the Word of Jesus offers us a passage from the Gospel of John:
"My doctrine is not mine but the one who sent me, and who wants to do his will see whether my teaching comes from God or I speak on my own "(Jn 7, 16-17).
Relatives of Jesus are, then, that by believing in him entering the current complacency link that unites the Father with the Son and the Son with the Father.
So his response to those who surround him and his mother in the same rejection and vilification is a serious warning. Equivalent to distance themselves and deny any possibility of entering into communion with God but through faith in him.
But this word of Jesus has two edges. The second edge is a blessing and a declaration of parentage Alliance (the only real and stronger than blood) between the believer and him. And to the extent that Mary deserved to be his mother for believing this is the most valuable testimony that Mark could give us about Mary. The testimony of Jesus about the last and only reason why Mary might become his mother, the faith in him.
5. Mary Mother of Jesus by faith
Mary was not attached to Jesus only or primarily by a bond of blood. For that bond of blood could ever take place, must have a link that Jesus previously estimated as much more important.
But this framework is not explicit. Neither the Lord certainly made explicit at the time. It is in other ways by which we come to understand what is implicit in the testimony of Jesus ensured that Mark tells us. Mary believed in Jesus before Jesus was Jesus. And that just because the verb found in her faith that could incarnate.
Thus Marcos Marian silence gives way to the Marian eloquence of Jesus himself. An eloquence which bears the signature of authenticity in his own enigmatic style, veiled, parabolic, like that of Jesus in all its controversy. A language is a revelation for the believer and concealment to the unbeliever.
I want to conclude, to confirm the above-illuminated the first portrait of Mary, according to Mark, with a light that borrow from the Gospel of Luke, but in the almost absolute certainty that not only due to his pen, but the same pre-Evangelist ancient tradition which supported Marcos. I am pleased to see it as an incident at the same time that Mark tells us, as suggested she belongs in a context similarísimo. Amid accusations that he is possessed, and when Jesus was engaged in defending,
"He raised his voice a local woman and said
'Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you. "
But he said: 'Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it'. " (Lk 11, 27-28).
I think Lucas wanted to explain directly, by inserting this episode in his gospel, which is not sufficiently explicit as you like in the story of Mark: Jesus' words in response to that announced the presence of their own, locked testimony about Mary.
Conclusion
The figure of Mary as Mark is, as we can show comparison with the parallel passages of Matthew and Luke, the figure earliest we can trace through the writings of the New Testament. It is the image of the pre-gospel tradition and goes back to Jesus himself.
figure is barely sketched, but clear in its essential features. Features, as we developed and made clear the other evangelists, limited only to show what was already implicit in the figure of Mary, mother of a Messiah ignored ignored. Mother which is reviled reviled. But for Jesus, rather risky for believing in him. Mother by faith rather than their blood.
And from the beginning, from the very testimony of Jesus: Mother of the Messiah, made explicit relationship, kinship with those who believe in Jesus as Mother of his disciples, that is, his Church.
Source: "The figure of Mary through evangelicals" Father Horacio Bojorge sj
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