GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 9-10
Father, Help My Understanding
I was undertaking a project for which I needed some math courses, so I took algebra, trigonometry, and precalculus classes taught by my office neighbor, Professor Malcolm Herndon, at Emmanuel College. Then I enrolled in a calculus class taught by Professor Delores Talmage. I was doing fine until Professor Talmage introduced the concept of “related rates.” I knew the term “related” and the term “rates,” but I don’t remember ever seeing the two terms joined. I could try to explain the concept, but I’m afraid I might embarrass Professor Talmage (and myself) with a tangled misinterpretation. It seemed that the formulas for dealing with this concept took more than half a page in the textbook—that might be (and probably is) an exaggeration from memory.
After the disciples’ trip up a mountain with Jesus to pray, awakening to see him talking with Elijah and Moses, being engulfed in a thick cloud, hearing a voice from the cloud, and being commanded by Jesus not to broadcast what they had experienced until after he had risen from the dead, St. Mark wrote, “And they kept the word to themselves, discussing what ‘rising from the dead’ is.” (Mark 9:10)
These disciples undoubtedly knew the stories of Elijah’s prayer that restored a widow’s son to life (1 Kings 17:17-24) and Elisha’s prayer that restored the Shunammite woman’s son (2 Kings 4:18-37), but “rising from the dead” was a new concept, and they discussed it among themselves. The disciples’ experience reminds me of Professor Talmage’s classroom when she wrote the name of the concept “related rates” on the board—it grew quiet as every student, myself included, tried to figure out the meaning of “related rates.”
The disciples had been schooled in the “rabbinic tradition,” which laid out events in chronological order of what Yahweh would do before the coming of the Messiah, including the coming of Elijah and his three-day worldwide proclamation. Therefore, what Jesus told them about being killed and rising again in three days didn’t fit with their received tradition; Jesus’ statement, to use a phrase from my calculus days, did not compute. They kept the word to themselves, but they continued trying to make sense of it.
It is interesting to note that the disciples did not stop following Jesus because they did not understand his word, but they continued to think about it, to consider it, and to intellectually wrestle with it. There is more about the Gospel that remains unclear than clear. So, Father, I don’t always understand what you are doing, but I will remain true and obedient.
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