"Targum"

Tonight I read my first written "targum," inspired from the lectionary gospel reading from Mark. It's fairly long, and has a bit of a spoken word attitude at times (that's my disclaimer). If you've got the time, give it a read and throw me a comment. I'll enjoy reading your responses next Sunday...


Mark 1:9-15 Targum

And it came to pass.
Mark’s whiplash, slide-show storytelling hurls us straight into an immediate recognition –
This tale he begins to tell is itself a piece of rising action
Smack dab in the middle of a much larger Epic.

The epic that begins with “in the beginning.”
The epic that depicts a God speaking Creation into being and saying “it is good.”
Even “it is VERY good” when He gets to the penultimate of His designs, man and womankind.

The story, hardly yet in motion, encounters the essential conflict right away –
These self-same creatures that were originally “very good” did something very bad.
In pride and pseudo-ignorance, they rejected the Creator’s best intentions
And imposed their own selfish desires, eased along by the serpent’s fruit-lubricants.

Anthropos, being cast out of God’s intimate paradise,
Goes from bad to worse in record time.
A tower, a flood, a rainbow.
A series of covenants between a swarthy and unlikely cast of characters
And the aforementioned Creator God, now speaking new possibilities directly to a few fear-stricken chosen.

To Abram – “I will make you the father of many nations and a blessing to all.”
To Moses – “I will deliver you.”
To Israel – “I will be your God and you will be My People.”

But just as before, the story goes on, the people repeatedly reject their part of the deal and test the patience and faithfulness of the Lord.
Too disgusted to speak directly any longer, God ordains certain prophets to speak on His behalf.
Harsh words. Mute response. Increasingly stern consequences.
Promised Land plundered. Israel and Judah in exile.

Efforts to rebuild Zion repetitiously end in vanity.
God is utterly silent.
Generation after generation after generation after generation after generation
After generation after generation after generation after generation after generation.
400 years of silence.

But wait! Suddenly a messenger appears.
A prophet like the days of old.
A fullback in camel’s hair to prepare the hole for the star tailback to cut through.

AND IT CAME TO PASS
In those days that Jesus came.
Mark, the stereotypical blue-collared man who’s “not one for overstatement”
Tells us all we need to know in two words – “Jesus came.”

Herein lies the meaning of the appearance of angels ;
The immaculate conception; the donkey-ride to Bethlehem;
Ceasar Augustus’ census; no room in the inn; the manger;
Shepherds; a heavenly host; wise men;
Even Yeshua’s entire boyhood in Egypt and Nazareth;
And everything he saw and said from age 0-30.

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan.
The body of water that the ancestor Joshua was to cross over
Is now the liquid that this Joshua must be immersed within.

The Son of God has come out of the closet, as it were.
It’s public now.
Jesus’ first act, according to Mark,
Is not a miracle or a sermon or a calling of disciples.
It’s a baptism. The christening of His identity.

Kai euthus! Mark’s favorite phrase, meaning “and immediately.”
He uses it like a home-movie without a fader.
Here’s the kids playing on the beach kai euthus!
Here’s Nancy at the prom kai euthus!
Here’s Billy graduating from college.
No warning. Just a narrative judo chop.
Mark uses it 9 times in chapter one alone.
Quantum physics isn’t as new as you might think.

And immediately, coming up out of the water,
He saw, being opened, the heavens, and the spirit as a dove
Descending towards him.
And there was a voice out of the heavens
‘You are the son of Me, the beloved,
with you I am well pleased.”
Translation: it is very good. Again. Finally.

Kai euthus! And immediately the spirit drives him out
Into the wilderness.
Ten verses from now He will be driving out demons,
But first it is He that is driven into wilderness –
That place that Joshua the Elder finally managed to lead the people out of after endless years of wandering,
Is now the landscape of Christ’s first and potentially most lethal battle.

And he had been in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan
And he was among wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to him.
Again, brevity is Mark’s style.
What happened in the woods, stays in the woods.
If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask those other gospel-chroniclers.

And after John was imprisoned, Jesus came to Galilee
Proclaiming the good news of God
And saying “the time has been fulfilled
And the Kingdom of God has approached.
Repent and believe in the good news.”

So one day Jesus, a 30-year old eligible and curious bachelor,
Leaves town and gets his head pushed under the river-water
By a locust-breath-ed hermit,
Hears his Dad utter a phrase he hasn’t used in aeons,
Gets catapulted into the forest where he stairs down his arch-enemy
And then simply shows up again in his hometown.

But everything you can imagine has changed in the meantime.
Joseph and Mary’s kid drowned in the Jordan
And God’s Begotten One rose up in his stead.
A carpenter left town around six weeks ago and
The human embodiment of the Kingdom of God returned.

The time has been fulfilled for what exactly?
The conflict from Act One of the Epic is being resolved
And harmony is being restored to the cosmos.
God is speaking in the clearest possible voice.
What Adam and Eve had done
Is now being undone
In a dramatic gesture of such profound and swelling beauty
That you just might not believe it.
What is the good news?
Just told you.
How can I believe it?
Better clean the wax out of your ears
And drop some visine in your eyeballs.
If you’re willing to be real with yourself and come clean
About all the bullshit you’ve been rolling around in,
Then belief will be the first natural act you’ve ever made in your life.

Mark it down.