Mark 6

Mark 6 opens with the rejection at Nazareth (6:1-6), which is the sharpest summary of the gospel's paradox: the one before whom demons flee and seas grow calm cannot do mighty works where he is known. The phrase he marvelled at their unbelief mirrors his amazement at the faith of the centurion in Matthew's version; in Mark, the two astonishments are separated — he marvels here at unbelief, and the centurion will confess at the cross. The mission of the Twelve (6:7-13) is the first extension of Jesus' authority beyond himself; they preach repentance, cast out demons, and anoint the sick with oil. The Herodian interlude (6:14-29) inserts the Baptist's death as the explanation of Herod's anxiety about who Jesus is — some say Elijah, some a prophet, Herod says it is John whom he beheaded, raised. The birthday scene is the longest sustained narrative in the first half of the gospel and is told as a tragic irony: Herod knows John is just and holy, fears and protects him, hears him gladly, and kills him because of a public oath made to a dancing girl.

The feeding of the five thousand (6:30-44) is preceded by the return of the Twelve and an attempt to rest in a desolate place; the crowd runs ahead on foot and arrives before them; Jesus has compassion on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd. The feeding is precise in its detail: he takes the five loaves and two fish, looks up to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples to distribute, and the twelve baskets of fragments establish the abundance. The walking on water (6:45-52) closes the chapter, with a note that has no parallel in Matthew or Luke: he meant to pass by them. The allusion is to the theophany tradition in Exodus and Job, where the divine presence passes by the human figure. The disciples' terror, his words be not afraid, it is I — ego eimi — and the note that their hearts were hardened because they did not understand about the loaves: the chapter's final statement is the gospel's diagnosis of the disciples.