The Sunday Note email took up the question “what does Mark mean by ‘teaching’ in Sunday’s Gospel reading” when he repeats no actual teaching that Jesus did. Today, re-read the passage from Deuteronomy and consider this: other than being a worker of miracles, just how is Jesus “a prophet like Moses?”
Moses spoke to all the people, saying:
“A prophet like me will the LORD, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen.
This is exactly what you requested of the LORD, your God, at Horeb
on the day of the assembly, when you said,
‘Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God,
nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘This was well said.
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin,
and will put my words into his mouth;
he shall tell them all that I command him.
Deuteronomy 18:15-18 from Sunday’s first reading
What would make a prophet “a prophet like Moses”? Our first thought might be—Moses gave the Israelites the Law (or “the Instruction”) that formed them as a people, and Jesus would match that with the Sermon on the Mount and his parables that instruct us as Christians. This is true, but our readings draw us in another direction today.
Israel had a long tradition of prophets—Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and a dozen or more others—who also point toward Jesus in various ways in their teachings, but in one crucial way they were not like Moses. They performed no miracles. Moses is involved in a whole series of miracles, from the plagues in Egypt, to the parting of the waters, to the miraculous feeding with manna in the desert, just to name a few. Only two of the prophets, Elijah and Elisha, were revered for miracles. But they were not renowned for teaching the Law—so in one crucial respect they, too, were not like Moses.
When we look at today’s Gospel we do find “teaching” mentioned:
Then they came to Capernaum,
and on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.
In their synagogue was a man with an unclean spirit;
he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
Jesus rebuked him and said,
“Quiet! Come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed him and with a loud cry came out of him.
All were amazed and asked one another,
“What is this?
A new teaching with authority.
He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.”
His fame spread everywhere throughout the whole region of Galilee.
Sunday’s Gospel, Mark 1:21-28
But where is the teaching? Only later will Mark give us samples of what we normally consider Jesus’ teaching. However, a miracle may be “instructive” and teach us something in that way. That is what Mark wants to underscore here: on the Sabbath, in the midst of a worshipping community, evil announces itself and challenges Jesus—and Jesus immediately and unequivocally defeats it.
Now let us consider a number of ways Jesus is a prophet like Moses:
So, a first way: Moses works miracles, Jesus works miracles.
A second way: Moses is the foundational teacher of the Law, whose ethical teachings Jesus refines and extends to all peoples.
A third way: as Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt to freedom in their own land, so Jesus leads anyone living in slavery to sin into a new life of freedom with God forever.
A fourth way–as Moses established an Israelite priesthood to help connect the people with the Lord, so Jesus establishes a world-wide priesthood to help connect people with Him in the Eucharist.
A fifth way would consider specific miracles involving Moses’s to Jesus’ works for us. For example: Moses–water from the rock in the desert//Jesus (who was that very rock, according to Paul! See 1 Corinthians 10:4) providing baptismal water that saves by uniting us with God; Moses–feeding people with manna from heaven//Jesus becoming the very Bread of Life for us in the Eucharist.
A sixth way–Moses provides direction for building a place where priests and people come in contact with and worship God, a copy (insofar as that is possible) of God’s dwelling in heaven. Jesus himself becomes the very presence of God on earth, a “place” for worship “not made by human hands” (as the Israelites called the Temple in Heaven).
A seventh way–Moses wants the Spirit of God to fall upon and animate all the people of Israel (Numbers 11:29-30). At Pentecost, by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Jesus provides the answer to Moses’s prayer, extending it to all his followers among all peoples.
No doubt this list is not exhaustive. Certainly not every element of Moses’s life matches up with Jesus’ life. Jesus was not slow of speech, did not marry, was not buried in an unknown place in the desert after death. But there may be some other, more minor, things worth mulling over. For example, both began as babies under threat of death from evil political powers, babies who found refuge in Egypt… .