Mark seems to be telling us that there is not a point that can be extracted from the stories. The point, or the power of Jesus’s message is only experienced from within the stories. Maybe because, as Flannery O’Connor put it, “A story really isn’t any good unless it successfully resists paraphrase.” The gospel, according to Mark, can’t be paraphrased. It must be entered. Trusted. Experienced. That’s how all true stories work.
What would it mean for us to be icons – at work, at home, and around this city with everyone we encounter? What would it mean to look at each situation we face, even our biggest problem or our deepest hurt, as an opportunity to be raised up to the eternal presence of God, and to invite others to be raised up alongside us? What would it mean to write your whole life as a prayer?
Our names for God, our concepts of God, our doctrines of God are not God. They are tools. Tools whose sole purpose is to bring us near to God.
The space between the logs. I think that is where we find the Holy Spirit. It is in the deep breaths between actions. It is in the silences between words and music. It is in the rocks turned into snowflakes.
But if Judas was actually a good guy who was just misunderstood, the story of our redemption loses something else. It no longer includes the kind of betrayal that really happens in this world. And in some ways, such a betrayal really can be a culmination of all sorts of forces that break our lives and our world apart. There are questions of power and money and violence and loyalty and so much more wrapped up in the character of Judas. And he wasn’t just one of the hundred sheep in Jesus’s fold. He was one of the twelve closest people to Jesus. One who, according to Matthew, felt remorse, tried to give the blood money back, and, when he failed, took his own life.