Mark Chapter 8

Chapter Eight starts with Jesus showing compassion to the great crowd that has gathered before him. He feeds them. Then he tells the Pharisees who want to argue with him, that they will not be given the sign they demand. Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida before Peter, when walking with Jesus around the villages of Caesarea Philippi, confesses Jesus as the Christ. The chapter concludes with Jesus foretelling his Death and Resurrection. Reading Mark in Advent is an 18-part podcast series that sees us upload a chapter of Mark’s Gospel each weekday of the season. With a global pandemic sweeping the world and lockdowns and restrictions placed on our everyday living – not to mention patterns of worship and prayer – this is very much “the Word in Lockdown”. But the Word of God is never locked down, isolated and contained. As Pope Francis says: “The word of God is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12); it does not die, nor does it age, but it remains for ever (cf. 1 Peter 1:25). It stays young in the presence of all that passes away (cf. Matthew 25:35) and preserves those who put it into practice from inner aging.”