Mark 1:24

“What do you want with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!”


belovedness freely enters a wilderness
inviting every crossed boundary
return from self-exile
receive fuller life

this is an alluring cast
into an unseen waterhole
bringing insatiable mouths
to a surprising banquet

habituated to everything that falls
they leap from bottom-feeding
without a clue they are still
at home and welcome

with knee-jerk regularity
their aggression turns to whine
how dare you enter us
in such a way that we enter you

complete destruction is the only outcome
for that is what we have come to do
speak now or forever hold another choice
until it loses motive and opportunity

you will take our meaning from us
we will force you to destroy us
and in so doing you destroy yourself
belovedness dies in killing     we will win


Where would you put “screamed”? Does it go with the accuser (end of verse 23 or with the accusation here in verse 24?

However you versify this, there is no getting away from our plural natures wherein we are in cahoots with powers and principalities fracturing community and also able to trust calls and visions that would bind us together. At first blush these would seem to be opposites requiring the destruction of the one by the other.

At the least this reveals a siege-feeling that leads us to defensive postures.

Where it is possible to put an exclamation point at the end of this verse, turning the closing phrase to an accusation, “You who think you are so holy!”, Mark probably means it as an extension of how an announcement of glad tidings comes into being.

Read here “one belonging to G*D”. Such be-longing (be-yearning) is related to be-loved (be-loving) and is practiced as partnership. This turns the exclamation point around—toward what it means to follow, embody, and further a beginning message about what a more compassionate, a less wilderness, today could be like.

One thought on “Mark 1:24”

  1. Been thinking about this:
    you will take our meaning from us
    we will force you to destroy us
    and in so doing you destroy yourself
    belovedness dies in killing we will win

    More to say, but it seems to be getting processed in my current writing…timely stanza for this reader.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.