The Twelve’s’ Attitude in The Gospel of Mark

​Mark’s Gospel wastes no time in getting into Jesus’ ministry. By verse 15, with no mention of His genealogy and birth, John the Baptist or His temptations, it ventured immediately into an action-packed and brisk narrative, controversially expositing the Messiah’s definition of the Kingdom of God on earth. However, Mark’s pragmatic blend of viewing the disciples’ spiritual poverty and blindness, juxtaposed against our Lord’s inestimable patience and love was meant to highlight a perennial lesson of sovereignty in a clash of social values.
 
Jesus often uses the religious elite as comparative examples between those who are faithful to God and those who are hypocrites: the principal difference being the outworking of an active faith in redeemed hearts and minds. But time and again, His disciples either totally misunderstood Him or they simply were deaf to the kingdom’s claim on their lives. Having fed the 4,000, Jesus’ reference to ‘the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod’ was misconstrued by the disciples as their lack of making sufficient provisions for their journey across the Sea of Galilee. Their flippant debate among themselves must have revealed their unbelief in His earlier miracle, and the Lord chided them (Mark 8:15-21). A little later, Peter’s politically correct confession of Jesus’ personhood is immediately contradicted by his own challenge to the Lord’s prediction of His death, implying that the Almighty is spouting nonsense, which elicited another firm rebuke (Mark 8:27-33). Perhaps frustrated by His disciples’ faltering trust in Him, if not plain unbelief, the Lord turned to the crowds around Him, in His disciples’ presence, and addressed the critical issues of obediently forsaking all and shamelessly following Him (Mark 8:34-38). Preparing them for His demise was fundamental, but more so was the servant attitude that He was attempting to model for them when it came to fulfilling the will of His Father. Jesus repeated this lesson on two other successive occasions.
 
In each instant, Jesus foretold the manner of His death and His disciples immediately reacted without understanding, in challenging His position. Following the second encounter, He cautioned them to serve and respect everyone, even the children, who were the most disenfranchised at the time, and not be presumptuous over their privileged position as His disciples (Mark 9:30-50). Their retort to His final declaration was truly pathetic as soon as He informed them about His impending arrest - they began to quarrel among themselves, jockeying for leadership. Probably saddened, the Lord graciously directed their attention to the kingdom’s view of leadership style compared to this world’s (Mark 10:32-45). His departing shot most likely have stunned them into silence: “for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). That was not the end of the story. Mark continued to point out the disciples’ ingrained human self-centeredness that prevented them from believing their Lord through his whole Passion narrative (Mark 14: 12-15:50). After His betrayal, all His disciples deserted Him, with Peter denying Him, within Jesus’ earshot. The women followers were the only ones who were present at His crucifixion, burial and their discovery of the empty tomb.   
 
Mark portrays an awfully dim view of the disciples as these glaring disconnects are certainly not minor misconceptions on the disciples’ part, but a human problem hitting at the very root of Christ’s assertions about Himself as the divine Messiah from God and uncompromising nature of His kingdom. Much earlier on, the Lord might as well be speaking about His own disciples when He said, “so that while seeing, they may see and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear and not understand” (Mark 4:12). Trusting God goes beyond mere verbal acknowledgment. It requires a radical step to be listening to Him, in order to obey, and eventually staying faithful to the point of death: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me…” (Mark 8:34-38). The challenge of whether God is really their God remains as relevant then as it is now. This test will never cease!