ACCORDING to verse 37, Jesus is an apostle; for God has sent him, just as he himself would send the Twelve. That example of how Jesus “works” is characteristic. As mediator between God and humankind (1 Timothy 2.5), he embodies what he teaches.

There is no simple divide between Jesus’s “being” and his “doing”. Jeremy Taylor called him “the great exemplar”: we show forgiveness because he shows forgiveness; so, we try to follow his example. But his identity is also an ontological reality. The Prayer Book collect for the Second Sunday after Easter encapsulates this when it refers to him as “both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life”. His being (or “nature”, or “essence”) and his doing (or “actions” or “behaviour”) are perfect in themselves, and integrated in a seamless harmony.

When studying the texts of scripture which I write about week by week, I often refer to different translations, because they help me to see the Gospel in the fullness of all its possible meanings. In this case, most of the modern Bible versions I refer to regularly make the same crucial improvement on the AV, which, in verse 31, has “he taught his disciples, and said”. They change the tense to bring it into line with the Greek, from the “perfect” (or “completed”) to the “imperfect” (or “uncompleted”) tense. In this context, the imperfect verbs tell us that — whatever Jesus was doing — he was doing it repeatedly, or continually.

I would like to translate verse 31 even more precisely than the NRSV: “He was teaching his disciples, and kept saying to them”. On its own, verse 30 could simply be an example of Mark’s “messianic secret” (the unwillingness of Jesus to be open about his identity as Messiah). Taken with verse 31, it becomes apparent that Jesus does not want anyone to know that he is in Galilee — but not because he is secretive by nature, or because the gospel is gnostic (a mystery for the initiated few). He wants to keep his presence hidden because (the word “for” at the start of verse 31 confirms this) of the difficult teaching that he is now to reinforce among those most likely to understand it.

In last week’s Gospel, he had broached this teaching, and Peter’s reaction (perhaps standing for that of all the disciples) had been negative. But between that passage and this comes the transfiguration (9.2-8), followed by the healing of the epileptic boy. That vivid contrast between light and dark opens the way for Jesus to reintroduce the teaching that his disciples had found so difficult. He had made one attempt to teach all who followed him about the cross (Mark 8.34), but the Evangelist made no comment there, and recorded no response from this wider audience.

It is only an inference, not a conclusion, but perhaps Jesus realised that he would do better to start small with his difficult message about “the emblem of suffering and shame” (as the hymn “The Old Rugged Cross” refers to it). He tries to connect the cross with the resurrection that is to follow. Yet, his closest disciples still do not understand, and now they are afraid to ask him.

Jesus’s reaction to Peter’s challenge may have made them reluctant to question him. None of us relishes being reproached by someone we love or admire. And they were still struggling with what seemed a bizarre prophecy. There was nothing in their history and scriptures about bringing the dead back to life. Elijah, carried off to heaven by a chariot and horses, did not die at all. Daniel had spoken of a general, not individual, resurrection (12.2).

Hebrews 11.17 shows that the resurrection was a truth that some Christians were anxious to explain by retrojecting it into the past, finding it in the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible. The author locates a foreshadowing of the idea of resurrection via his interpretation of the Akedah, or Binding of Isaac. He suggests that Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son, Isaac, because he “calculated that God is able to raise people up from the dead” (my translation). This explanation is not in Genesis (22.1-14).

In verse 33, the disciples were arguing. If only it had been about Jesus’s teaching. But no: they were still stuck in the slough of self-consequence. Jesus told them to be “childlike”. Did that teaching “land” with them, better than the cross? Time would tell.