prefaces Jesus’ proclamation with the arrest of John. The point is that the forerunner has done his part, and Mark will explain later why he was arrested (see 6:17–18). The stronger one who baptizes with the Spirit (1:7–8) now proclaims. The locality of this proclamation is not in the wilderness but in Galilee, a cosmopolitan region belonging to Herod Antipas. The message concerns the gospel of God. For the alert listener, a connection between this and 1:1 is at once detected.
The statement of Jesus in v. 15 may be broken into two parts. First he announces what is happening, and Mark uses the Greek perfect tense here (peplērōtai and ēngiken) to signify that what Jesus proclaimed continues to have currency for his readers. Secondly, Jesus counsels a response, and Mark depicts this with the present tense, signifying that the actions of repentance and faith are to be ongoing. The key themes of Jesus’ ministry and Mark’s Gospel are therefore given in a nutshell: fulfillment, kingdom, repentance, faith, and gospel.
Fulfillment speaks of plot, with currents reaching back to the past. What is described as taking place is therefore to be construed as being once foretold. In this regard, there is meaning to history, and more precisely, it implies God has been faithful to his promises. It is this quality that gives his people hope.
The word kingdom (the Greek is basileia) should be understood primarily in the abstract sense of “reign,” rather than in the concrete sense of “realm,” as the Hebrew malkût or the Aramaic malkûta’ makes clear. But the two ideas are associated, as reign often entails realm. Israel believes her God is the only true ruler and creator, and so his reign cannot be abstractly divorced from history. Indeed, Israel was chosen to be God’s true subjects to demonstrate concretely to the world what his reign meant. But her disobedience sent her into exile. Consequently an eschatological expectation of God’s return to Zion shows in a climactic way that he is the sole king of the universe and that Israel is his special people (Ps 145:10–13; Isa 52:7). While the meaning of the kingdom may indeed be polyvalent, it should not therefore be conceived as referring to anything. Instead, it is to be anchored in the ongoing story of the one God and his people, and understood in relation to the yearning for eschatological closure.52
Is there an OT passage that may help us situate Jesus’ announcement? Isaiah 52:7 is a good candidate. This is supported by Mark’s having named Isaiah as the key inspiration behind his idea of the beginning of the gospel in 1:2–3. Furthermore, the notions of God’s reign and the proclamation of good news are explicitly joined together in Isa 52:7. In this passage, God returns to Zion to reign as king. Consequently, the herald announces to Zion and the cities around her the good news. This divine advent signifies for the Israelites the end of exile and the onset of eschatological blessings. Jesus’ message of the kingdom may be said to relate to such a hope.
The puzzling thing is that the kingdom is described as “having come near,” which contradicts on the surface the fact of fulfillment. Not surprisingly, scholars have debated the precise meaning of the original Greek, whether ēngiken means imminence53 or arrival.54 The consensus is that it means imminence, but this does not bring us any closer to a resolution of the apparent contradiction. That said, this phenomenon of the “now-and-not-yet” actually forms the substructure of much of Markan theology, indicating that Mark sees in it a potent theological theme. Indeed, as his narrative progresses, the reader will see that the resolution of this oxymoron lies in answering correctly the question of who Jesus is, and how the kingdom is intimately bound up with him. In this regard, “paradox” is a better word than “contradiction” (i.e., the kingdom is in a sense still future but in an important sense it may be claimed to have arrived).55 We will return to this topic in our treatment of chapter 4.
The response counselled by Jesus is repentance and faith. While such qualities have an important role in general piety, their special connection with the kingdom of God should not be missed. In the prophetic literature, repentance (often described with the Hebrew šûb) is often the precondition of forgiveness and restoration (Isa 44:22; Jer 3:10–14; Hos 14:1–9). All this is often couched in corporate terms.56 In this regard, the pattern of sin-exile-restoration, found frequently in the story of Israel and God, may plausibly be latent here.57 More significantly, there can be no repentance if we do not agree with God’s statement of our condition or his promise of forgiveness. Hence, repentance and faith are two sides of the same coin: we repent believingly, and we believe repentantly. Note the link back to John’s ministry, as his baptism is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (1:4).
Leading from the above point is the idea that this faith, while directed ultimately to God, must also take the form of believing the message of Jesus. As Mark will demonstrate later, faith is not so much about trusting generally in God’s faithfulness as confessing that through the ministry of Jesus God’s faithfulness is seen. In this regard, the promises that Israel longed for are now encapsulated in the ministry of Jesus.
The Gospel in Action and Typical Activities of Jesus’ Ministry (1:16–45)
In this section the typical activities of Jesus’ ministry are presented in cameo form. Mark narrates Jesus’ call of his first disciples (1:16–20), his teaching activity which is connected with the performance of miracles (1:21–39), and the foreshadowing of conflict through the story of the healing of the leper (1:40–45). Discipleship, teaching, miracles, and conflict will be motifs occupying much of Mark’s Gospel. Through all these cameo-like stories, Mark gives his listeners an idea of what it means for the gospel to be in action.
The Call of the First Disciples (1:16–20)
If according to the prophetic literature, God’s return to Zion takes place in tandem with the reconstituting of a covenantal community (Isa 59:20–21; 61:1–8; Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 37:21–28; Hos 2:18–23), and if, through the Spirit’s anointing, the task of this reconstitution has been devolved upon Jesus, then it is not surprising that together with the gospel proclamation, Jesus would call disciples as the first step in building this reconstituted community. This is precisely what is presented in vv. 16–20.
The Sea of Galilee provides the setting of the call story. Strabo (Geography 16:2) and Pliny the Elder (Natural History 5:15)—both naturalists of the first centuries that straddle the Common Era—and Josephus (War 3:506–508) testify to its being full of fish. Many settlements arose close to its shores and gave the whole region a rather cosmopolitan character.
When understood against the first century Jewish background, Jesus’ call of disciples becomes striking. As Martin Hengel has noted, the call of Jesus to follow after him goes beyond the practice of Jewish teachers or rabbis. There are no stories of a Jewish teacher calling disciples to follow him. On the contrary, people chose to follow famous teachers on their own accord (cf. b. ‘Erub. 30a; b. Ketub. 66b). Hengel therefore proposes that Jesus’ call resembles that of a charismatic or revolutionary leader, summoning people to a revolutionary war.58 However, this notion has to be read into the narrative, as there is no explicit mention of it. Indeed, what differentiates Jesus’ call from that issued by Jewish revolutionaries is that he included a promise of transformation (v. 17). With reference to the call story of Elisha (1 Kings 19:19–21), it may be argued that the persona adopted by Jesus is that of a prophet and not a teacher. But Mark will soon describe Jesus as a teacher (1:21)! What is more important is to observe that Mark portrays Jesus’ call as absolutely authoritative, as those summoned dropped their vocational tasks “immediately.” Hence, we may conclude that while parallel call-stories offer insights into the meaning of the present story, it should not be used to limit the possibilities.
What does being made fishers of men mean (v. 17)? Jesus is possibly using a memorable word-play. Surprisingly, all the uses of this image in the OT are ominous, for they speak of divine judgment (Jer 16:16; Ezek 29:4–6; Amos 4:2; Hab 1:14–17). This does not seem to fit with the general drift of Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ ministry, especially his announcing the good news of God. Could the gospel message also entail judgment? And would the disciples help in the realization of that? Whatever the
