NOTES for Mar 8:11-21

How new the Revelation given by God through the Lord Jesus Christ was can be seen in the disciples' confusion, which we read about in today's Gospel passage. The Lord speaks of invisible things and uses analogies from everyday life. But His disciples, even while discussing His words, still think within the framework of human religiosity. They suppose that the Lord is reproaching them because they did not bring bread and, where they are sailing, they will have to resort to food that has passed through the hands of the Pharisees. In the same way, under Soviet rule one could not come to the military training department in jeans, because they were "the pants of the presumed enemy."

The Lord, however, is not speaking about ritual separation from someone, but about the way of thinking and acting of the Pharisees and Herod's supporters. In chapter 12, the evangelist Luke conveys His words this way: "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." In essence, at this moment the disciples are demonstrating precisely what Christ is warning them against. The experience of the community of Christ's disciples tells us that this temptation of Pharisaism, characteristic of fallen human nature, is always near us. And when we read this account today, it is useful to think not about how slow-witted the disciples turned out to be, but about how much of this kind of confusion there is in our own life.

Jesus calls the demand for signs and miracles the "leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." This is often understood as a reproach for hypocrisy, for insincerity, and in some cases insincerity and hypocrisy really were present. Not always, however, was the issue conscious hypocrisy as we understand it today. Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees were, first of all, religious people. The Sadducees were somewhat more liberal; they recognized only the Pentateuch as sacred text, they had no developed teaching about resurrection and no clear messianic concept, but in everything else they were still orthodox Yahwists, including in matters of practical observance of the Torah.

The Pharisees, in addition to the Pentateuch, also recognized the prophetic books as sacred; for them Holy Scripture was "the Law and the Prophets." They had a clear messianic concept and a more or less developed teaching about the general resurrection. Yet despite all their disagreements with the Sadducees, the Pharisees still did not consider them heterodox, especially since the temple priestly leadership mostly held precisely Sadducean views. What united the Sadducees and the Pharisees was exactly that both groups were religious people: some more sincerely and firmly, others less so, and some purely formally, as always happens in a religious environment. This is precisely why the Pharisees demanded signs: they needed to test Jesus and everything He does for conformity to their messianic concepts. To fit Him into their religious system.

But He was not going to fit into any system, not, of course, in order to annoy religious people, but because He simply could not fit into it. The Kingdom does not fit into any messianic concepts. It is greater than any system a person could invent, greater than anything the human imagination could picture. And every revelation in general, even a less sweeping one, is always greater than any religious system a person could devise.

Greater even not in the sense of scale, though in this respect as well revelation usually surpasses the human mind, but in the sense of that spiritual dynamic, that life, in comparison with which even a brilliant scheme created by a human being will be no more than a static cross-section. To fit living spiritual life into this flat, two-dimensional cross-section is completely impossible; at best, one can only hint at it. But religious consciousness stubbornly tries to reduce life as such to it. This striving, this logic, is what Jesus calls the "leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees," warning His disciples against it.

Jesus' disciples were mostly simple people, and therefore they understood His words so literally. They hear about leaven and immediately decide that He is speaking about a shortage of food. It appears to them that the Lord is reproaching them, that He is displeased because they did not calculate the food for themselves and the people. But Christ's words were figurative, offering an image of the Pharisaism that could begin to grow in them. This is what He was warning them against.

The Savior's words are sharp enough. He really is reproaching them, but not because there is no bread. He reproaches them because they do not remember the miracle of multiplication that happened so recently. It turns out that they are so concentrated on themselves, on the things for which they blame themselves, that they do not pay attention to what is happening around them and forget the miracle in an instant.

The Son of Man addresses a series of bitter questions to the people gathered around Him. Indeed, they had witnessed Jesus' astonishing miracles and had themselves wanted to make Him king; they had heard His preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom and understood that "no one ever spoke like this Man." What has happened now? Have their eyes closed? Have their ears been shut? Has their memory failed? Has their reason fallen asleep? Has their heart turned to stone?

When we repeat these questions after Jesus, we can very easily fall into the sin of judgment. He asks these questions with pain in His heart because He loves these people, while we only exalt ourselves over them. To keep this from happening, it is useful to turn all these questions toward ourselves. After all, we too are witnesses of God's miracles in our lives; we too know about His mercy. So where is our answering love, where is our faith, where is a righteous life?

The Son of Man gives a number of "bitter" questions to people that surround Him. They indeed witnessed tremendous miracles of Jesus and wanted then themselves to throne Him, they heard His teachings about the Kingdom and realized that “none has spoken as Him ". What happens now - eyes don’t open? Ears became closed? Is it a sclerosis attack, an intellectual dumbness? Is the heart petrified?

We can fall very easily into sin of condemnation by repeating these Jesus’ questions. For, He asks them these questions with pain in His heart, because He loves these people; and we are only trying to extol ourselves in front of them by asking these questions. In order to avoid this extolment, it would be better to ask ourselves these questions. Since we are also witnesses of God's miracles in our own lives; and we also know His mercy. Where is then our love in reply, where is our faith, where is the just life?

The demand for a sign from Jesus was entirely understandable: many were ready to see the Messiah in Him, and most already considered Him a prophet, if not all. However, in order to recognize the Messiah as Messiah, He was expected to provide certain definite signs as proof of His messiahship. These signs were connected with traditional messianic expectations, partly popular and partly theological. Messianic theology was especially developed in the Pharisaic environment, which is no surprise, since they considered themselves messianists, the very remnant of which the ancient prophets had spoken. They could not afford to be mistaken about the Messiah; hence their attention to messianic theology and their attempts to develop unambiguous criteria for identifying messiahship.

But Jesus, though He was the Messiah, was not going to conform to anyone's criteria. He simply revealed the Kingdom to the world in its fullness, in love and power. And God's power usually acts quite convincingly, though only for those who want to see. It would seem enough to open one's eyes and look. What other signs are needed? What other criteria must the One meet who can not only heal any disease but also return the dead to life?

The problem, however, is that fallen humanity is astonishingly talented in everything related to creating illusions and illusory reality, inside which a person can dwell so completely that at times nothing outside has any effect on him at all. Behind concepts built on his own illusions and mirages, fallen man can hide for a very long time from every reality, even from the reality of the Kingdom entering the world, which a "theologian" intoxicated by his own "reality" may simply fail to notice. Here signs and proofs of every kind are truly useless. They will go unnoticed just like everything else that does not fit the concept and the "reality" on which that concept was built.

Still, the disciples in their own way are not much better than those demanding a sign. They too do not understand the Teacher. For them, leaven is connected with physical bread, and they are sure that Jesus is forbidding them to share bread with the Pharisees and Sadducees. But in reality He is speaking of something quite different, not of food prohibitions and not of rituals. The Kingdom He has brought into the world turns out to be too full and too free even for those who followed Him. This is understandable: in our world, the fall has affected everyone and each person, except Him. The time will come, and the slow, difficult overcoming of the consequences of that catastrophe, because of which the Kingdom was closed to humanity, will begin. But at that moment this time was still ahead.

Jesus performs healings a little differently each time. As in this case, when He touches the eyes of the man He heals twice. At first glance this may seem strange: after all, this is God's power, which can heal a person in a single instant, while here there is clearly a certain process, certain stages, and for some reason the healing does not happen all at once. It may seem that Jesus is, as it were, testing things out, trying His power before the full and final healing.

In part that is true - only the issue is not His power, but the person's readiness. Healing looks simple and instantaneous only on paper, while in reality behind it stands a complex and intense process in which the one being healed takes part. In such cases we usually speak of faith: whoever believes receives healing. But faith, even understood as trust rather than as certain convictions, is a process, not only a single momentary decision. In healing a person, Jesus draws him into relationship with Himself and into the life of the Kingdom He has brought into the world, drawing him in to the extent that the person is ready to follow Him.

Such involvement always begins with a person's readiness to follow Jesus; without it nothing will work. That readiness, however, must be constantly confirmed, both because its measure differs and because at each next stage of the path that measure changes. In a certain sense one could say that at each successive stage of the path God asks the person again whether he is ready to move farther, and each time the person is free to answer God yes or no. The same is true in relationship with the Savior: each next step on the Christian path means a greater measure of a person's involvement in relationship with Christ, and that greater measure presupposes the person's consent to the next step.

It would seem that this is merely a matter of healing, of bringing it to completion. Yet for the person himself, "merely" means a very great deal, a huge step forward on the path of relationship with God and with Christ. No wonder the person overcomes it not in one step, but in two. Jesus treats everyone with whom He comes into contact with the utmost care, neither hurrying him nor pushing him from behind; but if a person is ready, the next step will certainly follow.

For eight chapters in a row now we have been reading about the glorious passage of the Son of God over the earth. Have we recognized Him? Have we learned to trust Him? To believe His word? Or do we still need signs? Have we "understood" everything, or have we remained blind? What is there more of in us: the leaven of the Pharisees, or the faith of the hungry and the sick? Does the one who was hungry and was fed, who was sick and was healed, who was blind and received sight, still need signs?

The disciples witnessed the feeding of the people. They were at that feast and even distributed the bread. But in everyday life they remain in doubt and are not sure that they will be fed, although Jesus is with them and they see Him with their eyes. But with the heart? Do we feel God's presence in everyday life, on Monday, in the boat in which we are crossing the week? Or do we "still not understand"? For the second time Mark gives a passage about feeding a large crowd with a few loaves. It is important to understand that if bread is given from God's hands, then it is not just bread. People are fed by God's blessing, by God's love. And this is truly real nourishment.

It is hard to understand what is happening to others when everything is all right with you, when you have nothing to plead for tearfully. When there is no real need, there is no need for hope, and no need for the Healer. When we do not thirst for an encounter with truth and love, when we have not been worn down in this world by our weakness and infirmity while seeking truth, it is hard to be satisfied with what God gives us. Such are the Pharisees: Jesus does not even speak with them. "He left them."

The disciples remain beside Jesus, see Him with earthly eyes, share a meal with Him, and see many healings, but still remain outside the mystery of God. They have received sight for the first time, like that blind man from Bethsaida. After the first laying on of hands, the blind man began to see like everyone else. He saw people outwardly. A person was able to "see everything clearly" only in the presence of Jesus, when he "looked intently."

God gives spiritual sight to those who thirst for it. For this, the "hardened heart" must be "softened." Then it will become clear what the spirit of Pharisaism is; then the spiritual life of people and of God will be visible. Then signs will no longer be needed. What, then, have we managed to "understand" over these seven and a half chapters? What have we really understood, what have we "seen clearly," how have we changed?