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Advent and Gethsemane: Mark's Call to Watch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Ian Stockton
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What have Advent Sunday and Holy Week in common? Which theological motif is present in Gospel readings both for Advent and Passiontide? In both Mark’s eschatological discourse and in his story of Gethsemane there is a repeated call to watch. The present imperative ‘gregoreite’ (keep awake, be watchful) occurs twice within a comparatively short section of the Gospel in 13.35,37 and 14.34,38, and the same verb is used also at 13.34 and 14.37. This repeated charge to watch seems to be a deliberate part of the evangelist’s theological design. Mark’s repetition here is often not noticed because of our usual practice of reading such short sections of text. Yet the evangelist’s narrative sequence may become for us a rich spiritual resource, not only on Advent Sunday and in Holy Week, but throughout the year, if we are attentive to his textual repetition in these chapters.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 84 , Issue 994 , December 2003 , pp. 571 - 576
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 New Revised Standard Version (Oxford University Press 1994).

2 New Revised Standard Version.

3 Robert, M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand (Fortress Press 1991), pp. 70-1Google Scholar. Also John, Fenton, ‘Mark’s Gospel - the Oldest and the Best’, Theology Vol. CIV No. 818 (2001), pp. 83-95Google Scholar.

4 Moma, D. Hooker, The Gospel According to St. Mark (A & C Black 1991), p. 8Google Scholar.

5 Hooker, The Gospel According to St. Mark p. 25; Elizabeth, Struthers Malbon, Hearing Mark, A Listener’s Guide (Trinity Press International 2002), p. 100Google Scholar; Fowler, Let the Reader Understand p. 250.

6 Dietrich, Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papersfrom Prison (SCM Press Ltd. 1971), p. 370Google Scholar. This letter was the first to be written after the failure of the July plot against Hitler’s life, when Bonhoeffer’s own agony of waiting entered a different phase.

7 Lightfoot, R H, The Gospel Message of Mark (Oxford 1950), p.53Google Scholar, which is referred to by Hooker, The Gospel According to St. Mark p. 324.

8 Hooker, The Gospel According to St. Mark p.324.

9 Raymond, E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, From Gethsemane to the Grave, A Commentary on the Four Gospels, Volume One, (Geoffrey Chapman 1994), p. 195Google Scholar.

10 Brown, The Death of the Messiah p. 196.

11 Romans 8. 18-25.

12 Ched, Myers, Binding the Strong Man, A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, (Orbis Books 1988) pp. 346-348Google Scholar. Myers recognises Mark’s deconstruction of the apocalyptic discourse, and sees the call to vigilance as being primarily addressed to the reader, with the discipleship community being exhorted to embrace the world as Gethsemane.

13 Bonhoeffer, letters and Papers from Prison p. 370.