Questions
If Jesus was failure, how come he knew he would die? If he knew this than wouldn’t it be that he couldn’t have failed?
This is an excellent question, and one that is difficult to navigate. I suppose the simple answer is that most scholars do not think Jesus’ predictions of his own death are historic. Rather, they are words put into his mouth by Mark to foreshadow Paul’s mission and highlight the absolute failure of the 12 in this version of the story. I am convinced by this argument, as these predictions don’t fit in with any of Jesus’ teachings about the coming Kingdom of God, or his expectation that he would be king. However, it is still possible that Jesus said these words, as he thought his death might be needed for the Kingdom of God to come. Perhaps he knew what his mission was (which we’ll talk about below) and because of that he knew he needed to die. Perhaps he thought that he would be resurrected and the Kingdom of God ushered in, as the Jews largely believed a resurrection would happen at that time. While possible, I am less convinced of this because of what will be covered below. In Mark’s version of the story it is very important that Jesus never want or expect any reward. He clearly viewed being the son of God and the messiah as a burden, but if resurrection was his fate, one could argue that he was doing what he did for a reward; and this would completely upend the purpose of Mark.
Who was Jesus to Mark?
Before we move on to other gospels I want to take some time to reflect on Mark because it can be a really difficult gospel to read from a modern Christian point of view as it is so different from what most modern Christians have grown up learning about Jesus. We are so used to thinking of Jesus as God, and his life as God on Earth that it can be really jarring when we come across the story Mark tells:
Jesus is made the son of God in the same sense as David, Moses, or a Roman Emperor.
He has to learn and grow into his role, and there are definite growing pains.
The 12 are completely useless, and really seem to get in the way more than anything. At no point in the story do they actually understand Jesus or what is going on, no matter how hard he tries.
Jesus gets angry several times.
Jesus tries desperately to keep his identity a secret, and doesn’t seem to like doing miracles.
Jesus dies and absolute and abject failure.
Nobody sees Jesus as a resurrected being.
Why the hell would Mark write a story like this and call it the “Good Announcement”? What on Earth is good about this? If you’ll humor me, I’m going to explain what I think Mark was trying to do—and it makes this version of Jesus my favorite of any I’ve ever come across. I have been dropping bread crumbs here and there for much of the study of Mark. In the future I won’t do this, I will just tell you from the start what the point of the gospel seems to be. But I think learning to read Mark as Mark, and see specifically what he is trying to say, is helpful in seeing the development of Christianity through the gospels. Having studied Mark this way, I think it will be easier to see the other gospels not as factual historical itinerary of Jesus’ life, but each for their own purpose and message.
The key to understanding Mark is to read Plato’s Republic. I think it is an invaluable piece of literature that everyone ought to read anyway, but I think Mark saw in Jesus an opportunity to make that story real, and he did it brilliantly.
Republic is all about the true meaning of justice, and what a truly just human would live like. Republic opens with Socrates discussing the concepts of justice and injustice with his friends. Essentially, justice is determined by them to be any action or behavior that is wholly and completely for the good of others, with no expectation of any reward, not even reputational. They suppose, then, that justice is the ideal, but then they look around at society and it seems to be just as unjust back then as ours is now. It is clear to them that the rewards for injustice are greater than the rewards for justice, and that the gods even favor the unjust! How can this be?! What’s even more sacrilegious, they discuss the injustice of the gods!
So, we start from a place where even the gods are unjust, and the unjust receive greater rewards than the just. How then, could it be possible that a just life might be better, as Socrates insists that it must be? Well, to unpack all of that you should read the whole of the Republic, but essentially, in order to diagnose and discuss this, Socrates crafts he ideal hypothetical society from scratch, seeking justice in society and then applying it to the individual.
We will not go quite that far, because we don’t need to in order to understand what I think Mark is attempting to say about Jesus. But, one thing the men realize early in their discussion is that the just person will be hated by society because they only do what is good for society. And who the hell likes being told they need to change what they’re doing to be better? That’s a bitter pill to swallow, but, basically, it’s the pill a just person always prescribes. By the end of his life Jesus has no status, no friends, no reputation, and no joy. On the other hand, the Jewish and Roman elites who killed him for being just have all the reputation, status, and friends they could ever hope for. Jesus was so hated for being just that, according to Mark, they let Barabbas—a man who actually committed the crimes Jesus was accused of—go free just so they could get Jesus out of their way.
But this is far from the only parallel between Mark’s Jesus and Plato’s perfectly just philosopher. To drive the point home I want to highlight a few more of these parallels; and then we revisit the purpose of Mark writing such a story, rather than simply stating this in a letter like Paul would have done; and finally we will revisit Mark’s ending to make sense of why such a tragedy should inspire faith and encourage hope. Fingers crossed that any of this makes sense!
Jesus the Perfectly Just Philosophizer
We will start where Socrates starts—by envisioning a society that centers around justice. A just society requires a good judge to administer justice. What follows is an excerpt from Republic, translated by G.M.A. Grube, and revised by C.D.C Reeve.
It is impossible for a soul to be nurtured among vicious souls from childhood, to associate with them, to indulge in every kind of injustice, and come through it able to judge other people's injustices from its own case, as it can judge diseases of the body. Rather, if it's to be fine and good, and a sound judge of just things, it must remain pure and have no experience of bad character while it's young. That's the reason, indeed, that decent people appear simple and easily deceived by unjust ones when they are young. It's because they have no models in themselves of the evil experiences of the vicious to guide their judgments.
That's certainly so.
Therefore, a good judge must not be a young person but an old one, who has learned late in life what injustice is like and who has become aware of it not as something at home in his own soul, but is something alien and present in others, someone who, after a long time, has recognized that injustice is bad by nature, not from his own experience of it, but through knowledge.
Such a judge would be the most noble one of all.
And he'd be good, too, which was what you asked, for someone who has a good soul is good. The clever and suspicious person, on the other hand, who has committed many injustices himself and thinks himself a wise villain, appears clever and the company of those like him, because he's on his guard and is guided by the models within himself. But when he meets with good older people, he's seen to be stupid, distrustful at the wrong time, and ignorant of what a sound character is, since he has no model of this within himself. But since he meets vicious people more often than good ones, he seems to be clever rather than unlearned, both to himself and to others.
That's completely true.
Then we mustn't look for the good judge among people like that but among the sort we described earlier. A vicious person would never know either himself or a virtuous one, whereas a naturally virtuous person, when educated, will in time acquire knowledge of both virtue and vice. And it is someone like that who becomes wise, in my view, and not the bad person.
We know nothing of Jesus’ childhood in Mark, nor his age. But, what we do know is that he was already fully grown when he went to be baptized. He was chosen by God, and became the son of God at that moment. He had to learn his role, and had to grow into it. He was compelled into the wilderness to contend with the opposition. He learned injustice, and he saw real hardship. Because of this, at every point, Jesus did what he could do to alleviate suffering—even if he was first angry about it.
Recall the discussion we had way back at the beginning of Mark. Despite being angry over a request for healing, Jesus demonstrates mastery of his soul by overcoming the spirited portion with the reason portion when he heals this man. This is a demonstration of true justice.
In Republic 411a we also read that a good judge or ruler is one who tempers their spirited nature with wisdom, and who tempers their soft nature with training. Jesus did both of these things after his baptism when he was compelled out into the wilderness after receiving the holy spirit. If Jesus was a student of John the Baptist, as Mark suggests, and John the Baptist was a Nazirite, then this would certainly be training that would temper any soft nature in Jesus. Overthrowing commerce in the Temple and taking over the grounds for a day would also show that Jesus is not simply a philosopher, but has also trained his body physically.
In this hypothetical republic Socrates creates to find true justice, there would be Guardians who must learn justice to govern society. The guardians are divided into classes; the auxiliaries—military and police—are meant to keep the peace and the laws. The best of these would become rulers, and the best of these would become philosophers, all ruled over by the philosopher-king, a perfectly just philosopher.
Now, isn't it obvious that the rulers must be older and the rule younger?
Yes, it is.
And mustn't the rulers also be the best of them?
That, too.
And aren't the best farmers the ones who are best at farming?
Yes.
Then, as the rulers must be the best of the guardians, mustn't they be the ones who are the best at guarding the city?
That’s right.
Now, one cares most for what one loves.
Necessarily.
And someone loves something most of all when he believes that the same things are advantageous to it as it himself and supposes that if it does well, he’ll do well, and that if it does badly, then he’ll do badly too.
That’s right.
Then we must choose from among our guardians those men who, upon examination, seem most of all to believe throughout their lives that they must eagerly pursue what is advantageous to the city and be wholly unwilling to do the opposite.
If nothing else, this has been the defining pattern of Jesus all throughout Mark. Jesus is never willing to do anything that is not advantageous or good for the people. No matter how badly he often wants to do something else—and in Mark that is more often than we think—Jesus will always do the right thing. He will always help people.
Now, tell me if this next paragraph (443d-443e) doesn’t sound exactly like the character of Jesus Mark has been trying to develop?
And in truth justice is, it seems, something of this sort. However it isn't concerned with someone's doing his own externally, but with what is inside him, with what is truly himself in his own. One who is just does not allow any part of himself to do the work of another part or allow the various classes within him to meddle with each other. He regulates well what is really his own and rules himself. He puts himself in order, is his own friend, and harmonizes the three parts of himself like three limiting notes in a musical scale—high, low, and middle. He binds together those parts and any other parts there may be in between, and from having been many things he becomes entirely one, moderate and harmonious. Only then does he act. And when he does anything, whether acquiring wealth, taking care of his body, engaging in politics, or in private contracts—in all of these, he believes that the action is just and fine and preserves this inner harmony and helps achieve it, and calls it so, and regards as wisdom the knowledge that oversees such actions. And he believes that the action that destroys this harmony is unjust, and calls it so, and regards the belief that oversees it as ignorance.
Another amazing parallel comes from Book 5 of Republic. I have already laid this out in Week 16 of this class. Mark makes quite the odd statement that Jesus teaches in parables to keep his meaning secret. Matthew doesn’t like this obviously confusing logic, and reverses it to make Jesus teach in parables to make things more clear. Why, then, would Mark want it this way? As we discovered in Week 16, it is because Mark wants to make a distinction between those who have opinion and those who have knowledge. Here is what I wrote at that time:
Plato plainly states a philosopher cannot lead a lover of opinion to knowledge. Jesus cannot teach the concept itself because ordinary people are not philosophers, so they would not understand it... Jesus is a just philosopher, and because most people reside in between ignorance and knowledge, Jesus cannot give them full knowledge. Thus, he teaches in parables to obscure the full knowledge, and to give ordinary folks something they can grasp—the opinable.
In Book 6, 488a-488e, Socrates addresses a common Greek trope—that philosophers are useless. They have a reputation for going around cities and stirring up trouble, and people don’t really understand all they teach. They criticize public establishments and institutions, and can corrupt the minds of youths (the exact charge Socrates was put to death for). Socrates defense here parallels almost perfectly with Jesus’ defense against people who think he is crazy, or against Pharisees who are not true holymen. Socrates creates a situation where common sailors, untrained in navigation, get control of a ship. They don’t know how to read the stars, the seasons, or the ship itself. When a legitimate captain, who actually does know these things, finally does come on board, Socrates asks, “Don’t you think that the true captain will be called a real stargazer, a babbler, and a good-for-nothing by those who sail in ships governed in that way, in which such things happen?” Think of the insults and the treatment Jesus faced because he was the son of God and knew the true way to navigate this experiment we call humanity. It is what hatched the plot early on in Mark to have Jesus killed. Because he knew the correct way, he was called crazy and antagonized.
Book 7 of Republic is also where we get the famous allegory of Plato’s cave. I feel like anyone who doesn’t see the parallel here has to be trying hard to keep their minds closed. How many times did Jesus go back down into the cave to try to help the 12 see the reality of the messianic mission? How many times did Jesus explain the meaning of life or the Law of Moses to inquisitive Jewish leaders? How many times did Jesus try to tell people the Kingdom of God was coming? It is as if he understood his whole purpose was to keep going back down into the cave over and over to try to show people the real world. Much like the true captain, they called him crazy for it.
Another possible parallel, that lines up perfectly with the allegory of the cave, we have already discussed comes from Book 10—Jesus as a tekton by occupation. In Week 17 we discussed how this may not be Jesus’ actual occupation, but an allusion by Mark to Plato’s form theory. Perhaps Mark was saying that Jesus was the one able to craft humans after their true form—to make them closest to their form, closest to being able to be reproduced as gods.
But, there is one more test of a just philosopher that Socrates wants to make sure we know. It comes from back in Book 3, but I wanted to save it for last. Pain and suffering cannot compel a just philosopher to change their mind. They will endure all manner of suffering and pain but will not change or deny their knowledge of the truth—only true knowledge can change their mind.
Now, all of this has been a discussion in the hypothetical society Socrates constructs to examine the truly just. But before all of this happens, before they manufacture their republic in their minds, they discuss what would happen to a truly just person if there ever really were one in the real world. And this is the bottom line, because this will help bring into realization all the other aspects of the Republic that help explain who Mark thinks Jesus was. From Book 2, 360e, where Socrates is discussing a just live vs and unjust life with Glaucon.
As for the choice between the lives we're discussing, we'll be able to make a correct judgment about that only if we separate the most just and the most unjust. Otherwise we won't be able to do it. Here's the separation I have in mind. We’ll subtract nothing from the injustice of an unjust person and nothing from the justice of a just one, but will take each to be complete in his own way of life. First, therefore, we must suppose that an unjust person will act as clever craftsman do: a first-rate captain or doctor, for example, knows the difference between what his craft can and can't do. He attempts the first but lets the second go by, and if he happens to slip, he can put things right in the same way, an unjust person successful attempts at injustice must remain undetected, if he is to be fully unjust. Anyone who is caught should be thought inept, for the extreme of injustice is to be believed to be just without being just. And our completely unjust person must be given complete injustice; nothing may be subtracted from it. We must allow that, while doing the greatest injustice he has nonetheless provided himself with the greatest reputation for justice. If he happens to make a slip, he must be able to put it right. If any of his unjust activities should be discovered, he must be able to speak persuasively or to use force. And if force is needed, he must have the help of courage and strength and of the substantial wealth of friends with which he is provided himself.
Having hypothesized such a person, let's now in our argument put beside him a just man, who is simple and noble and who, as Aeschylus says, doesn't want to be believed to be good but to actually be so. We must take away his reputation, for a reputation for justice would bring him honor and rewards, so that I wouldn't be clear whether he is just for the sake of justice itself or for the sake of those honors and rewards. We must strip him of everything except justice and make his situation the opposite of the unjust persons. Though he does no injustice, he must have the greatest reputation for it so that his justice may be tested full-strength and not deluded by wrong-doing and what comes from it. Let him stay like that unchanged until he dies—just, but all his life believed to be unjust. In this way, both will reach the extremes, the one of justice and the other of injustice and will be able to judge which of them is happier.
Whew! Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you've scoured each of the men for our competition, just as you would a pair of statues for an art competition.
I do the best I can, he replied since the two are as I've described, in any case, it shouldn't be difficult to complete the account of the kind of life that awaits each of them, it must be done. And if what I say sounds crude, Socrates, remember that it isn't I who speak but those who praise injustice at the expense of justice. They'll say that a just person in such circumstances will be whipped, stretched on the rack, chained, blinded with fire, and, at the end, when he has suffered every kind of evil, he'll be impaled, and will realize then that one shouldn't want to be just, but to be believed to be just. Indeed, Aeschylus’ words are far more correctly applied to unjust people than to just ones, for the supporters of injustice will say that a really unjust person, having a way of life based on the truth about things and not living in accordance with opinion, doesn't want simply to be believed to be unjust but actually to be so—
”harvesting a deep throat on his mind,
Where Wise council's propagate.”The unjust man rules his city because of his reputation for justice; he marries into any family he wishes; he gives his children in marriage to anyone he wishes; he has contracts and partnerships with anyone he wants; and besides benefiting himself in all these ways, he profits because he has no scruples about doing injustice. In any contest, public or private, he's the winner and out does his enemies. And by outdoing them, he becomes wealthy, benefiting his friends and harming his enemies. He makes adequate sacrifices to the gods and sets up a magnificent offering to them. He takes better care of the gods, therefore, (and, indeed, of the human beings he's fond of) then a just person does. Hence it's likely that the gods, in turn, will take better care of him than of a just person. That's what they say, Socrates, the gods and humans provide a better life for unjust people than for just ones.
Think about Jesus at the end of his life. Not only are the parallels of the brutal torture and murder obvious, but Plato makes clear that the perfectly just, in order to prove perfect justice, must be stripped of everything. In Mark, at the end of Jesus’ life, he has no reputation, no honor, and no rewards. At that point he doesn’t even have friends. For Mark, the suffering and death of Jesus had to be tragic. It was the only option. If it contained any praise, any hope, any glory—the way later gospels do—then Jesus would not have been proven to be perfectly just. Mark’s version of Jesus’ death is so much more dark, depressing, and destructive because it has to be. It was the only way all the puzzle pieces could fall into place.
But, there is a cherry on top. What does the Republic say about anyone who passes all these tests to be a perfectly just philosopher? 414a says they deserve the most prized tombs and memorials. There are some scholars who do not think Joseph of Arimathea was historical. They say that, like almost everyone who was crucified, Jesus’ body would have been left on the cross to decompose and be picked apart by wild dogs and vultures. I, personally, think there is good reason to believe Joseph of Arimathea was real. But what really matters is that it doesn’t actually matter if he was. Jesus was given a freshly cut tomb. He had passed the test. Jesus was, after everything he endured, a perfectly just philosopher. This, according to Mark (and, if we read between the lines, Paul) was the correct way to live life. This was the life that God needed in order to reproduce himself. Jesus became a God because he was the only truly just human to have ever lived. Mark’s message for us is clear. A perfect life requires perfect justice.
Why Did Mark Write This Story?
Why, then, did Mark write this particular version of Jesus’ story? To praise justice for justice sake. In Book 2, 366b-367a the group discusses how nobody has ever praised justice except to praise honor, reputation and rewards. If it were so clear that justice is better than injustice, we’d all be our own guardians against injustice so that we didn't get the bad consequence for injustice.
Mark wants justice praised. Mark wants us to be our own guardians. But the parallel is even more striking than that. When devising their perfect society the group has to come up with a way to ensure the guardians—as they will be the police and military—act justly and do not coerce, corrupt, or plunder from the public. They must be raised from infancy to know justice and to serve only the common good of society. This requires filling the minds of children only with stories of the good. What follows is from Book 2, 377a-380c, I will cut out some dialogue so that we just get right to the point.
You know, don't you, that the beginning of any process is the most important, especially for anything young and tender? It's at that time that it is most malleable and takes on any pattern one wishes to impress on it.
Exactly.
Then shall we carelessly allow the children to hear any old stories, told by just anyone, and to take beliefs into their souls that are for the most part opposite of the ones we think they should hold when they are grown up?
We certainly won't.
Then we must first of all, it seems, supervise the storytellers. Will select their stories whenever they are fine or beautiful and reject them when they aren't. And will persuade nurses and mothers to tell their children the ones we have selected, since they will shape their children's souls with stories much more than they shape their bodies by handling them. Many of the stories they tell now, however, must be thrown out.
Which ones do you mean?
…
Those that Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets tell us, for surely they composed false stories, told them to people, and are still telling them.Which stores do you mean? And what fault do you find in them?
…
When a story gives a bad image of what the gods and heroes are like, the way a painter does whose picture is not at all like the thing he's trying to paint.
…
Yes, such stories are hard to deal with.And they shouldn't be told in our city, Adeimantus. Nor should a young person hear it said that in committing the worst crimes he's doing nothing out of the ordinary, or that if he inflicts every kind of punishment on an unjust father, he's only doing the same as the first greatest of the gods.
No, by God, I don't think myself that these stories are fit to be told.
Indeed, if we want the guardians of our city to think that it's shameful to be easily provoked into hating one another, we mustn't allow any stories about gods warring, fighting, or plotting against one another, for they aren't true. The battles of gods and giants, and all the various stories of the gods hating their families or friends, should neither be told nor even woven into embroideries. If we're to persuade our people that no citizen has ever hated another and that it's impious to do so, then that's what should be told to children from the beginning by old men and women; and as these children grow older, poets should be compelled to tell them the same sort of thing. We won't admit stories into our city—whether allegorical or not—about Hera being chained by her son, not about Hephaestus being hurled from heaven by his father when he tried to help his mother, who was being beaten, nor about the battle of the gods in Homer. The young can't distinguish what is allegorical from what isn't, and the opinions they absorb at that age are hard to erase and apt to become unalterable. For these reasons, then, we should probably take the utmost care to ensure that the first stories they hear about virtue are the best ones for them to hear.
That's reasonable. But if someone asked us what stories these are, what should we say?
…
Something like this: whether an epic, lyric, or tragedy, a god must always be represented as he is.Indeed he must.
Now, a God is really good, isn't he, and must be described as such?
What else?
And surely nothing good is harmful, is it?
I suppose not.
And can what isn't harmful do harm?
Never.
Or can what does no harm do anything bad?
No.
And can what does nothing bad be the cause of anything bad?
How could it?
Moreover, is the good beneficial?
Yes.
It is the cause of doing well?
Yes.
The good isn't the cause of all things, then, but only of good ones; it isn't the cause of bad ones.
I agree entirely.
…
This, then, is one of the laws or patterns concerning the gods to which speakers and poets must conform, namely, that God is in the cause of all things but only of good ones.
A large part of what I cut out in that excerpt are discussion of the violent, selfish, immortal, and unjust things done by the gods in some of the great Greek epic poems. But Mark told his story—Mark told this story—because it is the story of perfect justice. As we discussed above, Mark had to tell the story in such a tragic way because it was the only way he could tell a story about true justice. Mark wanted a story about true justice so that parents could tell their children a story in which the god does everything right. In which, even when he doesn’t want to, he still does the just thing, the mastery of the soul thing, the good thing. This is a story about how Jesus put what was best for society ahead of everything else, and was killed for it. This is a story about how, after that death, Jesus was adopted by God and became the first human to be successfully reproduced by God. Mark didn’t just want to write a letter laying out theology, as Paul had done, because he wanted a story we could tell each other. A story about the perfectly just philosopher. A story we could raise our children on to teach them to be just.
Revisiting the Tragedy of Mark
Knowing what we know now, I want to revisit the ending of Mark. Nothing about it has changed—it is still tragic and hopeless. But at least now we know why. At least now we know it had to be. Jesus was made a God not in spite of his failure, but precisely because he failed, and he was willing to fail for justice. He thought the Kingdom of God would come peacefully. He thought he would be delivered from his fate and be the king. He thought the era of evil was coming to an end. Because of these beliefs he did everything he could do to make society better, never once thinking of himself. His beliefs were wrong, and he was a failure. But these beliefs ensured that Jesus remained perfectly just, even in his dying breath when he thought God had forsaken him. Had Jesus been right, had the Kingdom of God actually come, had he been successfully made king, we could never know that he was perfectly just. We could, as Socrates and his group pointed out, assume he was being just only for those rewards. But he wasn’t. Even when the rewards were obviously not coming, he stayed the course. That is the message of Mark. That is why Jesus became a God.
I want to talk for a minute about a dear friend of mine. A dear friend that I know is following along with our class. I won’t say their name because I know this person would probably scold me out of embarrassment for the praise. This person has suffered from severe depression for years. Longer, even, than I have known this person. But, even while my friend held a highly successful and influential job, they still took time out of their busy schedule to teach classes, and to personally mentor every single kid who deserved it—and even a lot who didn’t, like me. This person bent over, and continues to bend over backwards to make other people’s lives easier, happier, and better. Anything anyone needed that was in this person’s power to give, they did. I watched this happen over and over for years, and I know for a fact it still happens today. Even through the crippling depression, this person reaches out daily to those they have mentored to make sure they feel loved, to make sure they know they are valued, despite the depression constantly telling them the lie that they are not valued themselves. Mark was written for this friend. Mark was written so that you can know that despite your battles, despite what feels every single day like hopeless, tragic failure, you are the example of perfect justice. Perhaps at times you have thought it cruel that God rewarded you for your good deeds with severe depression. But, to the rest of us, all we see is you continuing your perfect justice despite receiving no reward. Mark was written for you, my friend. Thank you!
Mark was written for the single mom of six, who finally liberated herself after two abusive marriages, and now works herself to the bone to make sure her kids have every opportunity life can allow them. Your grief, your fatigue, your feeling that nobody sees you, your loneliness, and your tears all seem like cruel rewards for doing the right thing over and over and over. The story of Mark is that every time you feel like a failure, every time you feel like you have hit a dead end, God sees that you keep doing one right thing after another, and he won’t forget it.
Mark was written for the small town lawyer who all too often takes on clients that nobody else will—underprivileged, the odds stacked against them, never given a fair shot at life—and then goes home to assist their spouse who has had multiple major surgeries for health conditions, and still makes time to volunteer at church, and be a kind and accepting presence to all their grandchildren. Someone who serves the entire community, always willing to offer wisdom and a good joke, doesn’t care that nobody notices, and probably doesn’t want anyone to notice. If you ever look back on your life and wonder if you might have been better off had you had stuck it out in corporate law, a large practice, or in DC, know that your perfect justice makes all the difference to so many.
Mark was written for all of us. Life is difficult. Life is tragic. Life can all too often be something few of us deserve to endure. Mark was written so that we might have a story of what perfect justice looks like—and it isn’t always happy. But that isn’t the point. The point, if we believe Paul and are to become gods ourselves, is to continue to do what is best for society, to continue showing agape at every opportunity. Then, and only then, will we be able to build a perfect society. It takes all of us.