Both the carefully preserved list of the Twelve, with Simon Peter as the first, and the verb epoiēsen (= “he created” or “he installed,” from Greek poiein) show that this is a symbolic action that creates a new reality within Israel and also has institutional character, for there is no other comparable complete list of names in the early church, except for the Seven in Acts 6:5. In the Old Testament, “create” can be used for installation in office, for example, of judges or priests,9 and such a public-official action is likewise intended here. Both the list and the verb indicate that this is something special, deeply embedded in memory.
When Jesus called the Twelve out of a larger group of disciples and set them before the others as a precisely defined group, it was in the first place a vivid illustration, a demonstration of his will to gather all Israel. But here again we would underestimate the depth dimension of the symbolic action if we saw it only as that. It is also an initiation of the future, of something that is already proleptically realized in a prophetic sign. In the beginning of realization the future is already projected in advance.
Jesus’ symbolic actions open up a new reality, institute meaning, put in place a reality into which one can enter. To that extent they have a basic sacramental structure and are the preliminary stages of the church’s later sacraments. With the establishment of the Twelve and their preaching of the reign of God the existence of eschatological Israel has already begun.
“He created the Twelve”—anyone familiar with the Bible hears the fixed formula “God created” from the creation account in Genesis 1:1–2:4 in the background here. But there is also an echo of Deutero-Isaiah, who says again and again that God “has created” his people (e.g., Isa 43:1, 21) and “will create” new things for his people (Isa 43:19). With Jesus’ institution of the Twelve, the promises from the book of Isaiah begin to be fulfilled definitively. The new creation of Israel is beginning.
If Jesus did anything in the way of creating institutions, it was primarily in the creation of the Twelve. This symbolic action has a juridical dimension. However, it was not for the sake of a church about to be newly founded that would take Israel’s place in the history of salvation; it was for the sake of the eschatological Israel that was to be gathered. It was out of that eschatological Israel that Jesus instituted and founded that the church came into being after Easter.10
The Constitution of a New Reality
The first section of this chapter spoke of Jesus’ gestures and attitudes, the next three about a demonstrative healing (Mark 3:1-6), the institution of a new family (Mark 3:34-35), and the installation of the Twelve (Mark 3:13-19). The number of symbolic actions that accompanied Jesus’ appearance was certainly much, much greater. We must also say something about Jesus’ solemn entry into the city of Jerusalem (Mark 11:1-11), the subsequent action in the Temple (Mark 11:15-19), and Jesus’ gesture with the bread and wine at the Last Supper (Mark 14:22-25). But those three symbolic actions are closely related to one another: they begin Jesus’ passion. Therefore they need to be treated in this book at a later time, namely, in chapter 15 (“Decision in Jerusalem”).
But by now it should already be clear that Jesus did not only act through his words. He also acted in gestures and signs that often concentrated themselves into symbolic actions. In this way much of his life acquired a symbolic dimension: for example, his celibacy, which we will also need to discuss (chaps. 13 and 14). But none of it is symbolic in the pale, watered-down sense in which people today, surrounded as they are by traffic signs, pictograms, and computer symbols, think of signs and symbols. The symbols and signs in the life of Jesus create meaning. They constitute new reality. In everything he did—and above all in his symbolic actions—Jesus was creating the beginning of the eschatological Israel.
Chapter 9
Jesus’ Miracles
Human words have enormous power. They can tear down or build up. They can gather and scatter. Words can thrust the world into deep distress, and they can give rise to an unending sequence of events. Once the concept of human rights was put into words it could no longer be banished from history. Since the Sermon on the Mount was composed, it has not ceased to incite silent revolutions. Nevertheless, it would be a fundamental mistake to think that the world is governed only by words and that only words set history in motion.
For Jesus the word did indeed play a major role: he instructed and taught, he corrected and warned, he interpreted events prophetically, he preached the Gospel of the reign of God, and more than that: he proclaimed it publicly. And yet Jesus did not just talk. He not only announced the reign of God. His work was not merely a “word event.” His whole public activity from beginning to end was shot through with action the evangelists call “deeds of power” (dynameis) and “signs” (sēmeia).1 For centuries the church has called these “miracles.” Anyone who wants to say anything about Jesus cannot avoid engaging with his miracles. This chapter will have to show what that word can mean.
Testimonies
Even if the gospels had not contained a single miracle story we would have known that miracles were an integral part of Jesus’ activity. For example, the Jewish historian Josephus (first c. CE) includes in his Antiquities of the Jews a note about Jesus (Ant. 18.63-64) that speaks of his miracles. This note was previously suspected of being a Christian interpolation from start to finish, but today most scholars believe that Josephus really did speak about Jesus at this point, though his statement received some Christian editing. There is much to favor this redactional hypothesis. It is true that we can scarcely reconstruct the whole of the original wording, but the substance of the note probably included the words, “He was a doer of startling deeds [paradoxōn ergōn poiētēs].” Josephus was referring to Jesus’ miracles.2
Luke 13:31-33 also speaks of Jesus’ deeds. In this little composition Luke takes up some of the oldest pieces of tradition. We can see this in the fact that here Jesus—contrary to post-Easter Christology—is called a “prophet.” What is it about? Pharisees are warning Jesus about Herod Antipas, suggesting he leave the region because Herod wants to kill him. In his response Jesus describes Herod with sharp irony as a “fox.” In antiquity the fox was regarded as sly but also as a creature that constantly overestimated its own cunning.3 Besides that, it smelled bad. We have to read Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees against that background:
Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:31-33)
This saying shows how realistically Jesus viewed his own situation, but at the same time it illustrates his determination. He will go on doing as he has done. Someone like Herod will by no means turn him aside from his path. For our context, what is important is that the discourse names Jesus’ central activities as driving out demons and healing. Both were the reason why news about Jesus spread rapidly and people ran after him.
We have other sayings in which Jesus speaks of his miracles, for example, the “woe” on the Galilean towns: “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes” (Luke 10:13). In this connection we should also refer to the beatitude Jesus spoke over his disciples, cited earlier: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23-24). What do the disciples see? Obviously, the mighty deeds now being done for the sick and the possessed, the outcasts and the socially isolated. But it was not only the disciples who saw all that. Jesus’ opponents did too. They were in no position to deny Jesus’ healings and exorcisms of demons. They had no recourse except to reinterpret them, which they did, with perverse results: “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons’” (Mark 3:22).