And the Skies Came Falling...

"As the curtain falls on act one, the leader reappears to take the place of his fallen predecessor. He boldly announces that the reign of God – with its dreams of justice and love, equality and abundance, wholeness and unity – is dawning. So begins act two, where, in a distant province, this leader begins gathering troops (oddly, common working folk, local residents), with whom he will mount his campaign, to overturn the rule of the powers. In this prologue, Mark wields the scythe of apocalyptic symbolics, clearing narrative pace from among the weeds so that the seeds of a radically new order – to borrow the authors own metaphor (4:7) – might be pressed into the weary soil of the world. This subversive story is what Mark entitles good news."