Jesus is saddened by the Pharisees’ heard-heartedness and their refusal to believe, despite the many and great healing miracles performed by Jesus, which all the world else is able to recognize and celebrate, filled with joy and wonder [ … ]

Today’s Bible verses are an extraordinary act of forgetting and of remembering. What do we mean by this? First off, we mean that Mark has not forgotten that he has already told us one story of Jesus feeding the multitude. To suggest otherwise than this would be absurd. We are intended to read this Gospel account of the feeding of a multitude in the light of our reading of the previous miracle of feeding. That’s part of the point [ … ]

In today’s Bible reading, we see clearly that many of those to whom Mark addresses his Gospel would not be familiar with Jewish customs. Mark, therefore, explains that the Jews wash as a ritual of purification prior to eating. This was initially a prescription for how priests should wash before offering sacrifice – see Exodus 30: 17ff – and was extended by tradition to all Jews before every meal. It may be helpful for us to remember that this was not a matter of hygiene; rather ritual purification was a symbol of the moral purity a person should have when approaching God. We may also consider our own practice of washing our hands and saying grace before meals, such that our participating in a meal becomes an act of thanksgiving to God, the meal a sacred space [ … ]

As Jesus’ popularity grows, so too do those opposing voices ranged against him. Jesus has worked saving miracles, and now the scribes come from Jerusalem declare that this has not been holy work but rather diabolical. This sounds to modern day listeners to be absurd, although we might wonder at Jesus’ manner as he exorcised demons, and bear in mind that his friends and family thought he had lost his wits and was beside himself. Certainly, the intention of the scribes is to find fault and seize on anything they can to try to vilify Jesus. They are looking to reject the good news and are happy to pervert the truth if they feel by doing so they may harm Jesus [ … ]

There are times elsewhere in the Gospels when Jesus’ enemies accuse him of being possessed by a devil. In today’s very short Gospel reading, we listen to how Jesus’ friends are worried for him, to the point where they wish to save him from himself, thinking that he has gone out of his mind – that he is mad [ … ]

John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way of Jesus, to call the people to repentance of their sins, such that their souls could be readied to receive the grace of our Lord. He was the precursor, the last of a long line of prophets awaiting Christ. As he baptized, he told the people that one greater than he was to come [ … ]

In Jerusalem, in the Temple, Jesus continues to teach his disciples, and to correct their understanding of what is truly of value in God’s eyes. The disciples continue to think in very worldly and material ways; they are still the same men who, on the occasion of the multiplication of loaves and fishes, asked the Lord: ‘Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?’ It seemed a lot of money to spend [ … ]

The blind man, Bartimaeus, hears the noise of Christ’s passing and has to ask to find out what is happening. The clamour of the crowds following Jesus must have been striking and intense. This is a great, jubilant procession. Christ is passing by and too he is leading the way for us [ … ]

Just a few days earlier, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders have looked for a way to destroy Jesus, but they have not been able to do so because of the many people who have heard Jesus’ teaching and marvelled at it. Now they come to Jesus to try to trap him again [ … ]

As Jesus walks ahead of his disciples on the road to Jerusalem, the people who follow Jesus are amazed and afraid. This is the response of the people, not merely to a great teacher or to a nice man, but to God among them. So often in the Bible, the response of a person to God or to one of God’s messengers, the angels, is just this: they are amazed and they are afraid. Mark’s Gospel is telling us here that, on his way to his Passion, his brutal death, Jesus is God become man [ … ]

Mark’s account of the cleansing of the Temple is framed by the episode of Jesus’ encounter with the barren fig tree. In Matthew 21, the two are also proximate. The juxtaposition helps us more fully to understand both the cleansing of the Temple and the cursing of the fig tree [ … ]

The Sadducees deny the resurrection, because they are rich and so proclaim the false belief that the Messianic Kingdom has already arrived, their riches being their reward for living according to the Law. In order to challenge Jesus, they present him with a fictional case of a widow passed from brother to brother, according to the Levirate Law, hoping to make the resurrection look ridiculous [ … ]

In today’s Bible verses, the confrontation continues between Jesus and the Jewish authorities, who now send Pharisees and Herodians, themselves mutually hostile, to seek to provoke and condemn Jesus [ … ]

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus continues to teach the people the true meaning of purity. In preceding verses, Jesus has told the scribes they are hypocrites, with a mistaken idea of what truly constitutes prayer, who lead people through their teachings to distorted and false understandings of how to love God and how to do well by other people within the community [ … ]

The purification rituals of the Jews were originally laid down, in Exodus, for the priests to perform before they offered sacrifices to God. These rules were then later extended to all Jews, to be performed before every meal. This was as there developed a greater and greater call for all Jews to be a priestly people, particularly in the light of national set-backs, which were ascribed to infidelities to God [ … ]