GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
MARK 1:24
The Importance of an Introduction
In 1977, I taught a fall and a spring class at Menard Correctional Center, a maximum-security penitentiary in Chester, Illinois. After being fingerprinted, photographed, and issued an identification card, the warden took me through the prison facility to the classroom on the second floor of a building in the center of the facility. The classrooms were separated by glass divider walls sitting on three-feet-tall concrete block walls, so it was possible to see through the classrooms from one end of the building to the next. It was never necessary to take attendance, because a guard with a clipboard walked back and forth in the hall separating the classrooms. The classes consisted of men, mostly in their late teens or early twenties, similar to my classes at the university, without women. On the first day of the fall class, the warden introduced me to the class as “Dr. Claude Black,” when in fact, I was a doctoral candidate. I’m not sure if there was some mix-up in paperwork or the introduction was intentional. I never corrected the information, which was three years premature; after all, it came from the warden.
St. Mark described a different kind of introduction: “And then, a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue, and he cried out, saying, ‘What to us and to you, Jesus Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know you, who you are, the Holy One of God.’” (1:23-24) As Jesus taught the Sabbath lesson in a synagogue in Capernaum, Mark said a man with an unclean spirit interrupted him. The phrase “what to us and to you” is an idiomatic rebuke, which could be rendered, “this is none of your business,” or “go away and leave us alone,” or “stop meddling.” The man addressed him as, “Jesus Nazarene.” Many translators render this as “Jesus of Nazareth”; however, this phrase is in the vocative case and there’s no preposition in the text. So it might be considered an insult, like “Jesus from the insignificant, nowhere village of Nazareth.” One can see the rest of the phrase as a challenge: “Who do you think you are? Have you come to destroy us, you think? I know you, the Holy One of God,” said with a sneer.
What would my introduction include? To a stranger? To another believer? To the Father?
Yours?
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