Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (215 page)

This story cannot suit the Jesus People with their ideology, of the anti-capitalist Jesus, but it is the lesson read in church on the 27th Sunday after Trinity. Capitalists of all countries, praise the divine word! Multiply your talents!

One last puzzle from Matthew (28:16-17). Eleven disciples (twelve minus Judas) climb the mountain near Galilee where Jesus had bidden them go. They saw him and worshipped him. 'But some doubted.'

Since my Bible studies I can find no answer to the question what they could have doubted when faced with a human being who had been crucified and buried, but now stood before them as large as life. Did they not believe their eyes. did they think he was a ghost?

St. Mark tells some remarkable stories. He states plainly that Jesus has brothers (3:31-32) who appeared on the scene with his mother when Jesus was sitting at table with his disciples.

The presence of the wonder-worker had spread abroad and crowds were gaping curiously in the street.

'When his friends heard of it' (3:21), they went out to lay hold of him, saying: 'He is beside himself.'

Did they think that Jesus was temporarily sub-normal? (Today psychology could give a plausible reasons for this.) The master did not want to have anything to do with his mother and brethren who were asking for him outside. Dismissing them, he put the rhetorical question: 'Who is my mother, or my brethren?' (33) only to answer it in general terms:'... whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is pay brother, and my sister, and my mother!' (34). We cannot find any feeling here of gratitude to the mother who had brought him into the world in ticklish circumstances.

John baptized in the Jordan, where people flocked to him. To all of them he preached: '... the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins' (1:4). We know - it occurs; later in Mark - that Jesus followed this appeal and was baptized. Surely we should ask: the Son of God have sins to forgive?

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Contradictions due to the distance in time and the antiquity of the texts are excusable. But when they succeed each other in the same breath, it takes theological gymnastics to explain them. According to Mark, Jesus says to his disciples: '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' (4:11), which is as much as to say: You, my friends, understand my every word, but I have to explain things to the people in parables.

Already in verse 13, he is angry with his disciples because they do not understand a parable: 'Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?'

It is open to question whether the apostles ever understood exactly what Jesus meant. According to Matthew (13:11), Jesus said.'... it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.' He raises the disciples above the others who do not understand him, because 'blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear' (16). Hence we must assume that communication in the inner circle was so immediate that the code in which Jesus spoke every day was understood. Not a bit of it! Even the learned Peter had to ask: 'Declare unto us this parable' (15: 15). Jesus asks in astonishment: 'Are ye also yet without understanding?' (16). Did they understand

'God's word' or not? Presumably not, for even after the Resurrection, when they could not ask the master for further explanations, John says that the disciples did not understand.