Powerlessness as Power: A Key Emphasis in the Gospel of Mark

Abstract

In this paper the relationship between power and powerlessness in the Gospel of Mark is discussed — a theme which, though touched upon, has not been developed at any length nor traced throughout the Gospel. Yet to explore the dynamic that exists between power and powerlessness within the structure of the Gospel is essential for understanding Mark as a theologian and a story-teller. This is because in the first place, the notion of power is central to the image of ‘kingdom’ as it is generally understood — power, indeed, as a political conception, though this is often obscured by the tendency, even in modern exegesis, to interpret Mark in exclusively spiritual terms. Mark's Gospel is filled with the signs of this power and their impact on all aspects of human life cannot be underestimated. In the second place, the idea of powerlessness arises out of the recognition (now widely accepted) that at the centre of Mark's story lies a theologia cruets, a theology of Jesus' suffering and death which is not far from the Pauline kerygma of the crucified Christ (e.g. 1 Cor. 1.18ff.)