Reader’s Expectation 3: Mark had anticipated the reader’s objection,

he does not tell the story of the gladiator Jesus in the fight with the diseases, but the one how a political leader wins a follower who will be active for him as a herald, who will proclaim his kerygma, his herald’s message.

When Mark tells the next healing, the cheeky objection comes again: we already know that, Jesus is looking for heralds for his message.

Mark has also anticipated this objection and again tells another story: the story of a religious-philosophical discourse about the question whether illness is a punishment of God and whether social changes may be brought about by humans.