Preface
- kingship for the sake of justice,
- priesthood for the sake of reconciliation,
- prophecy for the sake of examination and repentance.
Yet the Gospel of Mark presses an older, sharper question: What if the anointed one is recognized not by triumph but by cruciform fidelity - by a reign that arrives as service, and a glory that appears as surrender? Mark’s narrative does not merely report that Jesus was crucified; it builds an argument that the cross is not an interruption to messiahship but its unveiling.
In this brief discussion of Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ disciples and the Gospel’s larger literary-and-theological aims, we see how Mark frames Jesus as Messiah precisely because of his rejection by the Jerusalem leadership and crucifixion on a Roman cross by the state of Rome. Mark’s portrait of a “crucified Messiah” would likely have sounded difficult - if not scandalous - to many first-century hearers, since it redefines "messiahship" as a path in which God’s king is revealed as suffering savior before being vindicated and enthroned at the right hand of the Father.
Introduction: A Messiah No One Expected
Mark 1.1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,2 just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“Behold, I am sending My messenger before You,Who will prepare Your way;3 The voice of one calling out in the wilderness,‘Prepare the way of the Lord,Make His paths straight!’”
Mark begins with a claim that is intentionally disproportionate to the story’s opening “normalcy”: “Jesus the Messiah” (Jesus the Christ), “the Son of God.” Initially an innocuous statement to the modern reader, but startling to the reader of Mark's era when connecting God's anointed (kingly) servant who, if to be raised to divine Royalty (sic, "Sonship") must first die an ignominious, tortuous death, in order to be crowned.
Mark then spends the entirety of his gospel asking the reader two questions:
- If Christ is God's earthly King, then why must he die to inherit his reign?
- And secondly, why, does almost nobody in the story understand this staggering truth?
In the ancient world in which Mark narrates, the Messiah was expected to be a figure of reversal-by-power: a liberator-king, a public victor, a restorer of national dignity. Mark insists, however, that Jesus embodies a different messianic logic - one that echoes the biblical “servant” pattern of the Old Testament (suffering, sacrificing, serving, bearing, restoring) rather than the common “conqueror” pattern of the world (dominating, seizing, outperforming).
In a phrase, the Markan Messiah reigns by giving; he wins by losing; he is revealed not by taking life but by giving his life.
This is where the title “Servant Messiah” becomes not devotional poetry but a close reading by Mark’s thematic design.
I. Mark’s Strategy: The Disciples as a Mirror of Misunderstanding
At Jesus’ baptism, a voice from heaven (God) declared: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17, NKJV). Other translations record this as "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22, NIV), affirming his identity as the Messiah.
A striking feature in the gospel of Mark is the way the disciples function as narrative pedagogy. Readers expect the inner circle of Jesus' fellowship to be competent interpreters of Jesus mission and ministry. And yet, the disciples repeatedly frustrate our expectations.
It is not that the disciples are portrayed as cartoonishly stupid. Rather, they represent what happens when good-faith loyalty is still captivated by a cultural script of royalty. They follow Jesus, eat with Jesus, walk with Jesus, converse with Jesus, minister with Jesus, but they keep translating him back into familiar categories of expectation: prestige, victory, rank, control. In Mark, it becomes apparent that "discipleship" was not merely proximity to Jesus; it is conversion of the prophetic imagination - a shift in what “messiah,” “kingdom,” and “glory” must mean in light of Jesus' ultimate end and meaning.
Mark uses their unimaginative, studied literalism, as a mirror for later believers to examine themselves in:
"If the first followers of Jesus struggled to grasp a that a divinely anointed Messiah was to become a "crucified" Messiah, then later Christians must be forgiven for not readily grasping this same fact that Christ's Messiahship would prove to be God's winnowing fields for redemptive transformation."
II. The Three Passion Predictions: A Template for Servant Messiahship
Mark 8:31 - And he (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise from the dead.Mark 9:31 - For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.”Mark 10:33-34 - (Jesus to his disciples) saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him; and three days later He will rise from the dead.
In Mark's gospel there is a threefold numeric pattern which has been taught as a literary mnemonic of Christ's steady progression towards Jerusalem: Three passion predictions ---> appearing in three successive chapters ---> with each prediction showing the disciples' obtuse misunderstanding to Jesus' teaching.
How the Disciples Misread Jesus
1) DENIAL - "You are the Messiah! But you cannot die!" (Mark 8)32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and *said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s purposes, but on man’s.”34 And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what could a person give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Mark 9.32 - But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.
33 They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them: “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. 35 And sitting down, He called the twelve and *said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And He took a child and placed him among them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”
Immediately after Jesus teaches the cost of the cross, the disciples argue about status. Mark is not merely reporting irony; he is exposing a spiritual reflex: when confronted with the path of service, the typical response is to reach for prestige to stabilize oneself.
3) OPACITY - “Let us sit at your right and left.” (Mark 10)35 James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying to Him, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” 36 And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” 37 They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 39 They said to Him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. 40 But to sit on My right or on My left is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
Lastly, Mark points out how the disciples, James and John, requested thrones seated next to King Jesus. But Jesus replies that they do not know what they are asking: the “right and left” of Jesus’ enthronement in Mark is not a pair of cushioned seats - they are two crosses raised on either side of him. Hence, Mark redefines humanity's understanding of divine glory: the Messiah’s kingly Coronation is Cruciformity, not worship. Death, not Immortality. Sacrifice, not adulation.
Together, these three scenes function like a catechism of reversal.
They repeatedly teach:
- Messiah = suffering servant
- discipleship = costly participation
- greatness = self-giving sacrifice
III. The “Messianic Secret” as a Moral and Theological Device
Mark’s consistent thematic secret is then, a “Messianic secret,” which fits perfectly with his observations of Christ's closest disciples. He repeatedly shows Jesus silencing premature, distorted, and false messianic conclusions. Why? Because a public messiah-title without a cruciform definition becomes misinformation about God's true divinity. A divinity which no other gods, goddesses, kings, or ruling powers ever envisioned. In Jewish terms, a God who served, sacrificed, and died was truly unusual.
And consequently, in Mark’s logic, you cannot safely announce “Messiah” until you have watched what kind of Messiah Jesus is. Otherwise the word “Messiah” will be filled with the wrong content (as a warrior-king, nationalist liberator, status-granter).
Mark’s thematic "secrecy" is not simply a plot suspense; it is semantic discipline - a way of saying:
“Do not speak the title until the cross has taught you its meaning.”
IV. Who Recognizes the Servant Messiah - and When?
The bitter irony in Mark's estimation is that "those who “should have” understood Jesus' divine anointing often did not... but those who “should not” have understood it, did.
1) The unnamed woman who anoints JesusMark’s narrative presents an unnamed woman's act as anointing “for burial.” Whether she fully understands or not, Mark places her action as a truth-bearing sign: Jesus is anointed not toward pomp but toward death. This is messiahship reframed as offering.
2) The tearing of the temple veilIn the transcript, the torn curtain signifies a shift: access to God is no longer mediated through the old sacrificial separation. Mark’s theological claim is not merely “something dramatic happened.” It is: Jesus’ death itself constitutes a new openness - God’s nearness arriving through the servant’s suffering - and making a hidden, feared, God available to all.
3) The centurion’s confession (the climactic human recognition)Mark’s most startling recognition comes from a Roman executioner: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Whatever one makes historically of that detail, literarily it functions as Mark’s culminating reversal: the servant Messiah is recognized at the moment of death, and by the least expected witness. Mark is teaching that crucifixion is not the disproof of messiahship but the disclosure of its deepest form.
This is central to “Servant Messiah”: Jesus is most himself - most revealed - as he gives himself away epitomized in his last dinner with his disciples of broken bread and poured out drink offering (cf. Leviticus Passover mean 23, 26).
V. Servant Messiah: Two Readings Held Together
Mark’s Servant Messiah lends itself to a dual frame without collapsing into relativism.
A. The confessional (Christian) readingIn Christian terms, Mark offers a theology of redemption in narrative form: the Messiah’s suffering is not accidental, not merely political tragedy, but the chosen path of divine solidarity and deliverance. The servant Messiah “ransom” language (Mark 10:45) becomes a claim about reality: love saves not by domination, but by self-gift that transforms the world’s moral physics.
B. The historical-philosophical (non-confessional) readingEven without affirming resurrection or divinity, Mark can be read as a profound critique of status, violence, and power. The “servant Messiah” becomes a counter-myth to imperial ideology: true greatness is not the ability to crush enemies but the capacity to bear cost for others.
Regarding this form of teaching, Mark is offering an ethic and an anthropology:
Humans default to greatness-as-rank; Jesus embodies greatness-as-service; communities are judged by which definition they enthrone.
Either way, Mark’s gospel attacks the same illusion: that "the highest good is secured by supremacy rather than by sacrificial fidelity."
Conclusion: The Messiah Rewritten as Servant, and the Servant Revealed as King
Mark’s portrait of Jesus is not simply “a Messiah who suffers.” It is more radical: that suffering is the ULTIMATE messianic signature.
The disciples’ incomprehension is not a side plot; it is the dramatic representation of how hard it is to accept a kingdom that arrives through service.
The “secret” is not mere concealment; it is protection against misnaming.
And the final recognition at the cross is Mark’s thesis stated in narrative form: the servant Messiah is revealed where the world expects only defeat.
If Mark is right, then discipleship is not admiration plus morality. It is participation in a new definition of reality’s power: the power to heal by giving, to lead by serving, and to become truly great by carrying another’s burden.
for right-hand light,
and left-hand honor,
for seats that did not bleed.
with water poured like service,
with a towel’s quiet revolution -
and a road that narrowed into wood.
the crown is not seized -
it is endured,
are not cushions in a palace,
but witnesses to self-giving,
where love refuses to retaliate
and does not abandon or turn away.
teach our austere hearts
the grammar of your glory:
that greatness is not what rises,
but what carries;
and that the door to God
opens -
not by the sword,
but by the torn veil
of a life poured out.
January 24, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
Primary texts
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The Gospel According to Mark (esp. 8:27–10:45; 14–16)
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Isaiah 52:13–53:12; Psalm 22 (as later Christian interpretive touchpoints, with attention to historical context)
D. Edmond Hiebert, Mark. A Portrait of the Servant.
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Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia)
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Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8 and Mark 8–16 (Anchor Yale Bible)
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Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (Black’s NT Commentaries)
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Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus
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John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls
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N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (useful for a robust “messiahship” frame, even when debated)
