Jesus - Rock Star: Mark 3:7-12

7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard about all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. 9 Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. 10 For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. 11 Whenever the impure spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him. (Mark 3:7-12 NIV)

 This passage reminds me of an experience I had at my first rock concert when I was in University.  My girlfriend at the time had got us tickets and made arrangements for us to go to see a major teen heart throb of the time in concert.  I believe it was Corey Hart, or someone similar in that genre (I obviously wasn't that into the artist himself).  But, what I do recall clearly was watching the young women crowd and press as close to the stage as they could to get close to their idol.  There was quite a crowd and the centre section before the stage was all standing area without seating.  In front of the stage was temporary crowd fencing to keep the audience from getting too close to the stage.  As I mentioned earlier, the crowd was pressing to get as close to the performer as possible, to the point that people were getting crushed against the fencing barrier.  Concert security was on the other side of the fence watching over the people being pressed against it from the other side.  If they saw that someone was in distress from being pushed against the fence by the crowd, they would lift the person over the fence beyond the press.  The person had usually swooned or fainted and a security person would sling the person over their shoulder to carry them off to a recovery area.  This was such a common part of this artist's performances that the security personnel charged with this task had a message about remaining calm printed upside down on the back of their 'T' shirts for the person slung over their back to read as they were carried to safety.


Now as I mentioned earlier, I was not a fan of this particular artist, and I doubt that any musicologist would characterize his music as anything special or significant.  However, his popularity and the fervor of his followers certainly lends legitimacy to his status as a musician.  This is where I see the parallel with this story of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.  As we have explored in earlier posts, the community of Mark would have had a legitimacy issue with more mainstream Jewish sects around the source of their authority in deciding not to practice many of the purity laws or making their practice dependent on their vision of justice and mercy.  The mainstream sects claimed the authority of traditional religious institution with a rigorous system of Rabbinical certification that ensured that each new Rabbi with "Semicha", authority to interpret the Law, was following "orthodoxy", teaching what had been handed down and only adding what was in line with those previously vetted and accepted teachings.

One of the ways the community of Mark establishes Jesus' legitimacy, beyond the favour God shows him in enabling him to perform healings, is the overwhelming popularity they portray him as having with the people.

At its root, populism is a belief in the power of regular people, and in their right to have control over their government rather than a small group of political insiders or a wealthy elite. The word populism comes from the Latin word for "people," populus. 

Definitions of populism.

We have heard the term populism used a lot recently by political commentators in regard to American campaign movements.  Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have been said to tie into a public sentiment against what is perceived as an economic and political elite who have furthered their own interests at the expense of the majority.

This is not a new political philosophy and has its roots both in the Athenian city state and later in the Roman Empire.  As such, it would have been well known to the community of the Gospel of Mark.

http://studymoose.com/ancient-greek-and-ancient-roman-democracy-essay

Given the circumstances of the time, it is understandable why this philosophy would be credible and appealing to the first century Jews of the Gospels.  Their religious/political elites had let them down.  Their homeland was conquered and occupied by a foreign power.  The policy of the Priesthood had been to collaborate with the Roman occupiers in order to get them to spare the Temple and its practice.  This led them to endorse the heavy taxation of the people by the Roman Empire on top of the expected tithes and Temple taxes.  In parallel to this, the Jewish elite's strategy for the Roman occupation was to win back God's favour through stricter holiness practices so that God would fulfill the Covenant and return their sovereignty.  This further marginalized the poor and others unable to comply.  By the time of the Gospel, these policies had failed spectacularly with the Roman destruction of the Temple.

As a result, the people were disenchanted with the elites and the traditional institutions of Judaism.  They were open to a more egalitarian interpretation of their faith that drew from the anti-establishment traditions of the Prophets that called upon justice and mercy for the marginalized.