Category: Gospel (Page 6 of 7)

Radical Islamic ISIS and Christianity are both proselytizing faiths.  ISIS reportedly proselytizes by giving non-Muslims three choices:  convert, pay a fine or die.

In today’s section of Mark’s Gospel (6:7-13), Mark reports how Jesus sent his disciples on a short-term mission.  His means and message were radically different.

Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two
and gave them authority over evil spirits.
These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff
— no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.
Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 
And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you,
shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” 
They went out and preached that people should repent. 
They drove out many demons
and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

Jesus sent them out  two by two.  The Jewish historian Josephus counts 204 towns and villages in Galilee in the first half of the first century A.D.  It might have taken six pairs of disciples six months to go to each town.   We don’t know if they did.

Jesus likely sent them in pairs because in Old Testament Israel a testimony was corroborated by two or three witnesses.  Jesus sent them (Greek apostellayn) to represent and bear witness of him–his words and his deeds.

Dr. Derek Thomas (the Robert Strong Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta and Minister of Preaching and Teaching at First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, South Carolina) observes that the 5,000 whom Jesus fed (6:30-44)—ten or twelve thousand counting women and children—may very well have followed after Jesus because these teams of disciples had visited their villages.

ISIS sends out an army.  Jesus sent out six groups of two men each—not outwardly impressive, but by his grace ultimately effective.

Jesus gave them authority over evil spirits.  Jesus had authority over evil spirits.  He ordered an evil spirit from a man in the Capernaum synagogue (1:21-28).  He cast out many demons in the same town that evening (1:29-34).  He commanded a legion of demons to leave a Gerasene madman and enter a herd of pigs (5:1-20).  And he himself resisted Satan’s temptations for forty days in the wilderness (1:12,13).  Jesus’ coming to bring God’s kingdom stirred up a hornets’ nest of demons, because the coming of God’s reign marked the beginning of the end of the devil’s—a hornets’ nest over which he had authority and power.

ISIS’ authority is the power of the gun, sword and knife inspired by demons.  The disciples’ authority comes from Jesus’ word empowering them to free people from demons.

Jesus told them to travel lightly and stay wherever welcomed and shake the dust off their feet to those who wouldn’t welcome them.  “Take nothing for the journey except a staff— no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.  Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.  And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” 

Why travel lightly?  So they would learn to trust God for their needs—a lesson they needed to learn for their long-term mission to come.

Why stay wherever welcomed?  So as not to compromise their mission and message by finding “better” homes in which to stay, but to validate their mission by humbly accepting whatever was offered.  (What does this reveal about “faith teachers”, who represent the crucified Christ while flying their million-dollar jets and sleeping in luxurious hotels?)

Why shake the dust off their feet at those who wouldn’t welcome them?  When Jews returned home after visiting a Gentile country, law required them to shake the dust off their feet so as not to pollute the Holy Land.  Disciples were to dust-shake as a testimony that those folks were no better than Gentile unbelievers because they had rejected the Gospel of the Kingdom.

ISIS travels with heavy weapons, violently forces their way into towns and murders those who refuse to adopt their belief.  Jesus’ disciples travel lightly, humbly stay only where welcomed, and gently warn of judgment to come by their Lord.

The disciples preached repentance and worked miracles.  They went out and preached that people should repent.  They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

“Repent” is probably Mark’s typical sound-bite version.  We can assume Mark emphasized repentance (turn around to follow Jesus in faith)  while not recording the whole message Jesus preached:  “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.  Repent and believe in the gospel” (1:15).  They also worked Jesus-like miracles that confirmed their message.

 ISIS preaches repentance (convert to follow Islam) or die.  ISIS has no miracles; only weapons to destroy.  Jesus’ disciples preach repentance (convert to follow Jesus) and live.  Jesus’ disciples have miracles—“weapons” of divine power that heal from sickness and liberate from devils.

 Jesus sends us.  We’re not apostles.  We may go in pairs or singly.   We have authority to represent Jesus against evil forces in this fallen world.  We usually don’t have to worry much about traveling or lodging and we probably won’t be shaking much dust off our feet.  But we should preach repentance as a key response to the Gospel and believe that our Lord will miraculously change lives through us.

We are a force to be reckoned with,
because Jesus sends us
and goes with us.

Amazed at what?  The people’s unbelief.  Given today’s world, is Jesus still amazed?  Or given how I sometimes react to disability, is Jesus amazed at my unbelief?  That unbelief especially strikes us in this next portion of Mark’s Gospel (6:1-6 below),  when contrasted with the faith of Jairus and of the bleeding woman in the preceding portion (5:21-43).

 1 Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples.
2 When the Sabbath came,
he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were amazed.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked.
“What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles!
3 Isn’t this the carpenter?
Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?
Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
4 Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown,
among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”
5 He could not do any miracles there,
except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.
6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.
Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.

Nazareth.  According to archaeologists, Nazareth was an inconsequential village of maybe 500 people.  It had been Jesus’ hometown since the family’s escape to Egypt after the slaughter at Bethlehem (Matthew 2:19-23).  No one expected anything good to come from  nondescript Nazareth (John 1:48a).

Synagogue.  On Sabbath Jesus  went to synagogue.  The hometown boy back for a visit was invited to read Scripture.  According to Luke 4:18,19 it was Isaiah 61:1,2.  Mark, in his usual bare-bones style, omits the Scripture content in order to focus on the congregation’s reaction.  They were “amazed”.  In this context, the Greek (ekplayso) is probably best translated “shocked”— shocked at his wisdom and shocked at his miracles.  But not good shocked!  This was Jesus of Nazareth.  The carpenter.  Mary’s boy.  James’, Joseph’s and Simon’s brother.  There were his sisters right there.

Scandal.“And they took offense at him.”  The Greek word is skandalizo.  They were scandalized.  It was shameful, unseemly, outrageous to claim what he did about himself!  (See Luke 4:18-21 for those claims.)  Who does he think he is?

Nobody’s scandalized by Jesus these days.   When Franklin Graham is interviewed on TV and (as he always does) squeezes in a word about Jesus dying for our sins, no one says, “How shameful, how outrageous that Graham should claim that about Jesus!”  Only by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit does an unbeliever even give it a thought.   Like the trodden-down path in Jesus’ parable, we’ve become so hardened that the seed of the Word doesn’t sink in at all.  So Satan steals it without breaking a sweat (Mark 4:14,15).

Rebuke.  The synagogue congregation certainly verbalized (probably shouted) their skandalizo.   But Jesus didn’t turn the other cheek.  Instead he turned the heat higher by answering his critics with a familiar proverb:  “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household” (6:4).  Just as Israel historically had rejected God’s prophets, so now the people of Nazareth were rejecting him whom God had sent.

Results.  That service didn’t end well.  Mark observes:  “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.  And he marveled because of their unbelief.”  And he went about among the villages teaching (6:5-7).

What should we make of “And he could do no mighty work there . . . “?  Obviously “their unbelief” was why.  But are Jesus’ mighty works limited by our unbelief?  We’re afraid to say “yes”, because we don’t want to imply that we contribute to Jesus’ miracles.  We hesitate to give so-called “faith-teachers” more ammunition:  “Let me teach you how to have the kind of faith that Jesus must answer!”  But, to be true to the text,  we have to say “yes”, their unbelief stopped Jesus in his tracks.  But “yes” with this amendment:  This is how the sovereign God “set things up.”  ” . . . without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Hebrews 11:6).  Sure, Jesus drove the demons from the Gerasene graveyard-dweller without any faith from him—although the demons believed (5:1-8).  But normally Jesus responds to faith, even faith as simple as, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (4:38).

Mark’s funny, isn’t he!  “And [Jesus] could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them.”  I’d count a meeting where a few sick people were healed one of my crowning ministry moments.  For Jesus, healing just a few was the exception. 

But overall, Jesus was “amazed because of their unbelief” (6:6).  The tense of “amazed” (or, “marveled”) implies a sudden, overwhelming emotion:  Jesus was “slapped in the face by amazement because of their unbelief.”  We’re apt to say, “Jesus knows everything.  How could he be stunned by their unbelief?”  But Jesus was the God-Man.  Where deity stops and humanity starts, who can say?  But clearly here, the man Jesus was “blown away” by their unbelief.

Sad! How sad that he could do only a few healings there!  How sad that he then left to go to other villages, leaving the people of Nazareth stuck in the hardened cement of their faith-lessness!

When we reject Jesus
—when we don’t even trust him enough to go to him and say, “Don’t you care?”—
we close the door to the One with whom all things are possible!

Miracles seem common at this point.  Half the pages of Mark’s Gospel  we’ve read so far contain them. (Remember those few pages do cover a year or more.)  In today’s section (5:21-43) Mark reports two more miracles.  Let’s see a summary of the narrative. (It’s too long to quote here, but why not take a few minutes to read it?)Then we’ll note a few unusual twists.

Jesus has boated with his disciples from the country of the Gerasenes (5:1-20).  Landing near Capernaum in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee, he’s mobbed by another crowd.  One man, Jairus, leader of the Capernaum synagogue, frantically pushes through, falls at Jesus’ feet and begs him to come heal his 12-year-old dying daughter.  Jesus goes.

But not alone.  The jostling mass follows.  A woman is swept along, but not unwillingly.  For 12 years she’s hemorrhaged.  Although she’s spent everything on doctors, she’s grown worse.  But, she tells herself, if I can even just touch Jesus’ clothes, I’ll be made well.  Determined to reach him, she bumps between the pack and finally gets close.  She thrusts her hand through and touches his tunic.  Immediately the bleeding stops and she feels healed.

Jesus feels something too—“that power had gone out from him” (5:30).  He stops.  The crowd jostles to a halt.  As Jesus’ eyes search the faces, the woman knows she’s been found out.  She comes trembling to him and tells her story.  “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease” (5:34).

At that moment, a messenger arrives from Jairus’ home.  His daughter has died; no need to trouble the Teacher now. Jesus assures him, “Do not fear; only believe” (5:36).  With that, Jesus allows only Peter, James and John to go with him.

Jairus’ house is filled with wailing mourners—until Jesus puts them all out.  Then he takes the girls’ parents and his three disciples to where the dead girl lay.  Like a father lightly lifting his daughter’s hand, he says in Aramaic, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”  And immediately the girl got up and began walking around” (5:41,42).

Now for a few unusual twists.  (As if those miracles aren’t unusual enough!)

Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet.  The Gospel doesn’t tell us what this synagogue ruler thought of Jesus.  But even if he thought Jesus to be a charlatan, the crisis of his daughter dying drove this ruler to publicly prostrate himself before Jesus and beg for him to heal her.  How many today, I wonder, who never believed in Jesus, humbly beg him when in dire need?  Note that Jesus doesn’t condemn or interrogate Jairus–he graciously goes with him right away.

Some in the crowd were just curious.  I’m just guessing.  I base my guess on a Billy Graham meeting in Tampa maybe 20 years ago.  The football stadium was packed.  Graham gave the invitation.  I was among dozens of counselors on the field.  More than once I approached someone for prayer and was told, “I’m just here to get close to Billy.”  How sad that curiosity-seekers get so close, yet remain so far from Jesus!

Jesus was interrupted.  I believe God is sovereign.  Nevertheless, this interruption looks like sloppy scheduling.  Can you imagine how Jairus felt?  I doubt he cared about the woman.  If it weren’t so serious, the scene would have been comedic:  the anxious father wondering if he should tap Jesus on the shoulder and say, “Uh, Jesus, remember me?”  How he must have grieved when the messenger arrived with the death- news!  It’s a reminder that God’s time and ours aren’t always (often?) synchronized.

Jesus treated the woman with dignity.  Society was patriarch.  Shameful for a woman to touch a man in public like that.  If women weren’t second class, they were at least of secondary importance.  But Jesus cared about that unknown woman as much as he did the male synagogue ruler.  Jesus dignified women as God’s image-bearers.  No need to make God female or the Bible’s pronouns genderless to elevate women!

Power went out from Jesus.  This doesn’t lead to fear relic-worship!  If Jesus’ clothes had just been preserved . . . No, power went out from him.  That means power to heal was in him. 

Jesus raised the dead.  By “sleeping” (5:39) Jesus probably meant her death was temporary.  He didn’t come to wake her up, but to raise her up!  Death, of course,  marks the end of hope.  Jairus needed Jesus before his daughter died.  But Jesus’ power ruled over death.  And still does today.

Jesus told them to feed the raised-up girl (5:43b).  Was this a funny line for Jesus’ to make a suave exit?  He probably said it with a smile, but only because he cared about this girl’s hunger (and her parents were stunned still).

Jesus encouraged and defined faith.  That is, by his presence, his previous miracles, and his word, Jesus caused people to believe in him.  Certainly that was true of the woman.  And to Jairus, Jesus spoke faith-encouraging words.  “Do not fear; only believe” (5:36).   How did Jesus define faith?  At least here, he implicitly defined it as trusting him.  So called “faith-preachers” complicate faith, make it a code only they–and their true adherents–can know.  But faith was no secret code for the woman.  She simply trusted that touching Jesus would make her well.  And when Jesus urged Jairus, ” . . . only believe”, he simply meant “trust me.”

* * * * *

Perhaps that’s what Jesus encourages us all to do through this portion of the Gospel.  Trust him.  He has power over all diseases and even death itself.  When his timing seems “off”, he’s still got the power.  And he cares about the world’s “little” people (the woman) and about a little girl’s simple hunger whose name we’re not even told.

Are demons real?  Before answering, watch the 2 1/2  minute video below.  Should we attribute the atrocities mentioned to zealous men, immoral men, mentally ill men, or demonized men?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9JuMZ8spFQ

I don’t look for demons around every corner (!), but I do contend they didn’t disappear with the apostles’.  Think of modern history’s most brutal leaders–Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mussolini, Ida Amin,  Saddam Hussein, and now a terrifying variety of Middle East terror groups.  It’s impossible to prove any were (or are) truly demonized, but it’s hard to argue they weren’t (or aren’t).  And there will be more.  Evil and violence in these “last days” will increase before Jesus comes again.  So both present and future are reasons to pay attention to a familiar, but strange event Mark records in 5:1-20.

THE LANDING.  After a terror-filled night on the Sea of Galilee (4:35-41), the disciples with Jesus “ . . . came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.  And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit” (5:1,2).

This country lay in the northeast corner of the Sea of Galilee.  It was outside Palestine–Gentile territory under the military rule of Roman legions.  The disciples beached the boat near a graveyard.  As soon as Jesus climbed out a mad man ran toward him, fell at his feet and fearfully cried, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  I adjure you by God, do not torment me” (5:6,7).  He pleaded, because already Jesus was saying, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit” (5:8).

TWO IMPORTANT POINTS.  One, Jesus diagnoses the problem as an “unclean spirit”  (another term for “demon” or “evil spirit”).  Two, the “unclean spirit” recognizes who Jesus is (“Son of the Most High God”), even though his disciples haven’t (“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”—4:41b).

THE NAME.  Perhaps in exercising power over this spirit, Jesus asks his name.  “He replied, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many” (5:9).  6,000 soldiers constituted a Roman legion.  This man was demonized by an army!  But,”legion” implies more than evil’s multitude; it implies evil’s victimization.  Here was a man who  ” . . . lived among the tombs.  And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces.  No one had the strength to subdue him.  Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones” (5:3-5).

Millions were massacred by history’s brutal rulers, who may have been driven by demons.  Here is a man driven by demons to brutalize himself.  He possesses super-human power, but can’t save himself.  But now the victimizers are about to become the victims.

THE RESCUE.  They feverishly beg Jesus not to send them out of the country (5:10).  Was Gerasene-land the lap of luxury for evil spirits?  I don’t know why they begged to stay.  But let’s not miss the point:  a legion of demons, who have destroyed this man’s life,  are pathetically cringing at Jesus’ feet!

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) officially abhors what happens next.  Frankly, I’m not sure why Jesus picked on poor pigs (although I’m sure commentators have devised all sorts of mysterious meanings).  The demons beg Jesus, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them” (5:12).  Jesus gives them per- mission (note that he doesn’t command them or rebuke them, merely allows them!).  “And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs and the herd, numbering about 2000 (in those days pigs were about the size of a small to medium dog), rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea (5:13).

Obviously upset, the pig herders hurry into town, round up a posse and return begging Jesus to “get out of Dodge”.  The rescued-from-demons man begs to go with Jesus.  But Jesus tells him instead to tell his story in the ten towns nearby—which he did and “everyone marveled” (5:17-20).

THE HARD-TO-BELIEVE.  In his book, Why I Am Not a Christian, the 20th century British philosopher Bertrand Russel wrote,  “It is unbelievable…this story of Jesus finding this crazy man in a graveyard supposedly possessed by a countless number of demons who . . . are bidden to be released from this man and enter into these two thousand pigs. And the pigs go running down the mountainside and into the sea and they drown. And there’s this sight of dead pigs everywhere.”

Well, let’s admit (as they used to say when I was teenager), “That’s far-out man!”  Yeah, it is.  And it leaves unanswered questions:  why the pigs?  did the demons drown too?  could Jesus have really held a conversation with evil spirits?  and, if this really happened, so what?

THE SO WHAT.  Love or laugh at the idea of demons, but evil is ravaging this world.  Gun-violence.  Rapes.  Kidnappings.  Vicious murders.  The spread of nuclear weapons.  The Middle East (!) “on fire”.  I’m no demonologist, but I can read what the apostle John wrote:  ” . . . the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19b).  Who’s going to save us from all this?  Washington?  A Republican president and congress?  Believe that and I’ve got a good deal on a bridge to buy!

Only Jesus.  He’s the One whose feet a whole army of demons cringe before!

TV evangelist Pat Robertson claimed his prayers helped steer Hurricane Gloria in 1985 and Hurricane Felix in 1995 away from the Virginia headquarters of his Christian Broadcasting Network (The Virginia-Pilot, Norfolk, VA, June 10, 1998).

Unbelievers, skeptics and even some believers had a field day laughing.   Granted,  Robertson has made strange claims over the years.  Maybe these hurricane-prayers are one, maybe not . . .

* * *

35 That day (of Jesus’ parables—Mark 4:1-34) when evening came, he said to his disciples,
“Let us go over to the other side.”
36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat.
There were also other boats with him.
37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat,
so that it was nearly swamped.
38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.
The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,
“Quiet! Be still!”
Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other,
“Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41).

Even the wind and the waves obey him!  Earlier Mark reported how Jesus demonstrated authority over an unclean spirit (1:21-28), over many sick in Capernaum (1:29-34), over leprosy (1:40-45), over paralysis and sin (2:1-12) and over a withered hand (3:1-6).  Because he broke the Pharisees’ legalistic interpretation of the Sabbath law (3:1-6), and probably because he was famous with the masses (1:28,45; 2:1,2,12), “the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him” (3:6).  These miracles were signs of God’s kingdom at hand (1:15).  The Pharisees, however, were blind to them.  They should have known better from their Bible.

“For [the LORD] commanded and raised the stormy wind,
which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
their courage melted away in their evil plight;
they reeled and staggered like drunken men,
and were at their wits end (Psalm 107:25-27).
Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He made the storm be still, and the waves were hushed” (Psalm 107:25-29). 

Almost makes you seasick!  But stomach-churning mustn’t  make us  miss the message:  the Lord can send a storm and the Lord can stop a storm. “The LORD’s kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:15);  therefore every storm exists within his sovereign will.  The Unseen Hand doesn’t show up on meteorologists’ radar!

The Pharisees missed the message of Jesus’ miracle because of religious pride.  We can miss it because of false piety.  We can snicker with skeptics at Robertson’s claim.  And maybe his prayer didn’t have anything to do with those hurricanes’ course-changes.  But let’s learn from Jesus and the psalmist.  Rather than regarding storms as the result of weather patterns, wiser to say with the disciples in fearful awe . . .

“Who then is this,
that even the wind and the sea obey him?” (4:41).

Why are you so afraid?  The disciples aren’t the brightest bulbs in the bunch.  But how can we blame them for being afraid?  If we were caught in a boat with mini-hurricane waves breaking into it and filling it, would we crawl to the stern and lay down to nap next to Jesus?

At Jesus’ rebuke “the wind ceased, and there was a great calm” (4:39).  At Jesus’ questions it’s clear he considered the disciples’ fright the opposite of faith.  “Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?” (4:40).  All the miracles they’ve seen and they still had more fear of the storm than they had faith in Jesus.  (I hate to admit I would have had too.)

Maybe we can kick off the unbelieving disciples’ soaking sandals and fuel our faith by realizing . . .

One, faith comes from seeing and hearing.  Jesus expected the disciples’ faith to come from his miracles they’d seen and his teachings they’d heard.  His question—“Do you still have no faith?”—implies that.  For us faith comes from “seeing” and “hearing” Jesus in Scripture.  That’s why daily prayerful Bible reading is vital for our faith’s health.  That’s why regularly hearing it preached and taught is “faith-giving”.

Two, believing is trusting he cares.  Faith-teaching “specialists” complicate faith.  In this case, faith is “simply” trusting Jesus cares.  The cowardly disciples shook Jesus awake: “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”  Yes,
” . . . he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  The cross is the most powerful symbol of Jesus’ love.  And the most assuring promise of his love is Romans 8:37-39.

Three, silence doesn’t mean absence but presence.  What good is a caring, powerful miracle-worker asleep in dreamland?   But maybe Jesus sleeping meant he was in comfortable control!  We naturally assume silence means Jesus is absent from our “sinking boat”.   But, from the One who said “I will be with you always” (Matthew 28:20) and whose Spirit indwells us (Romans 8:9,10), silence doesn’t signal absence but presence.

With those “faith-fuelers” in mind, one question . . .

“Still no faith?”

Jesus isn’t content to head the church or sit on my heart’s throne.   “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” (Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper)

That’s the reign to which Jesus referred when he came into Galilee,  proclaiming God’s gospel  . . .

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15a)

The Old Testament prophet Daniel described this kingdom  most succinctly  . . .

I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7:13,14).

It almost takes your breath away.  Jesus (“one like a son of man”) was given an invincible kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him forever.  So it was that the risen Christ claimed to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).

But I wonder:  two thousand years later, where is that kingdom?

I don’t see Jesus reigning, do you?  What I do see is the political class, mostly ineptly, reigning in Washington, D.C.  I see 15 or 20 Republicans and a handful of Democrats battling to sit in the Oval Office inner sanctum of power.  I see Islamic State slaughtering innocents to build its kingdom-caliphate in the Middle East.  I see Vladimir Putin taking over Ukraine for Russia.  I see political/military coalitions that seem to mostly talk while aggressors arrogantly advance.  I see a “Heinz 57” smorgasbord of churches, divided over what are often minor doctrines, each claiming to preach the only true gospel, losing members as each competes for a shrinking potential-members’ pool and either seduced by material prosperity or embattled by violent persecution.

But I don’t see God’s kingdom which Jesus announced “at hand” 2000 years ago.  Where is it?

In the next section of Mark’s Gospel (4:26-32),  after “The Sower and Soils” parable, Jesus told two more parables from a boat to a very large crowd gathered on the shore.  These parables answer my question.

The Growing Seed (4:26-29). 

And he said,
“The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.
He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows;
he knows not how.
The earth produces by itself,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle,
because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26-29).

How do small seeds scattered on dirt sprout and grow into a harvest?  We can describe the process.  We can explain the inner workings of the seed.  We can demonstrate its reaction to soil and water and sun.  We can even slow-motion-video the progression.  But from where comes the “life” in the seed?  And why does this “life” grow?  It’s a mystery 21st century biologists can’t solve.  “Life” is just “there”.

And that’s the “punch” of “The Parable of the Growing Seed”.   We can describe the process of preaching-hearing-believing-following.  We can point to the “fruit” of an individual’s new life.  We can explain the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a believing man or woman.  But precisely how does that seed of the Word grow into a “new creation”?  And precisely how does that advance the kingdom of God toward the “harvest” of the final judgment?  Even the apostle Paul’s best answer left a mystery:   “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). 

Jesus calls us to walk by faith.  This parable calls us to believe that what we can’t see and don’t fully understand is in fact happening in the soil of human hearts in the dirt of this world.  Somehow, like scattered seed growing into a harvest, God’s kingdom in his Son is growing toward the harvest day.  We know not how.

The Mustard Seed Parable (4:30-32).

 And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God,
or what parable shall we use for it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed,
which, when sown in the ground, is the smallest of all seeds on earth,
yet when it is sown it grows up
and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches,
so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade” (Mark 4:30-32).

Seven hundred mustard seeds equal one gram.  Just one of those so-small seeds can grow into a 10-foot-tall bush .  Birds make nests on large branches that once were smaller than a grain of sand.  It’s another of those surprising displays God seems to delight in.  Like the Hebrew nation from a 90-year-old woman and a hundred year old man.  Like eternal life from a crucified Messiah.  Like a  2000-year-old church from foolish, weak, and lowly people.

So here’s the Mustard Seed Parable’s punch:  God’s kingdom on earth starts small—insignificantly, unimpressively—but it will have a really big finish.  Things are not always as they appear.  We shouldn’t measure God’s kingdom with an ordinary ruler.  Just as Jesus went from the ignominy of the cross to the exaltation of the ascension, so his kingdom goes from the insignificance of one Jewish “criminal” to the glory of an eternal, invincible reign over all peoples, nations and languages.

These parables answer, “Where is the kingdom?”  And these parables call us to walk by faith.  Sight isn’t always right.  Size can fool us.  What starts miniscule can end up mammoth.  Such, Jesus claims, is the kingdom of God, that is, even now, mysteriously growing on earth.

No kidding.

 

One of the most hard-to-take statements Jesus ever made—that’s what this is.

Before we get to it, recall Jesus just told “The Parable of the Sower and the Soils” (Mark 4:1-9—See “Got Ears?  LISTEN!”, https://theoldpreacher.com/got-ears-listen/).   After that, Mark reports . . .

(10) And when he was alone,
those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.
(11) And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God,
but for those outside everything is in parables,
(12) so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven'” (Mark 4:10-12).

TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE  in that parable-hearing crowd– “those around him with the twelve” and “those outside.”  Those with the twelve have “been given the secret of the kingdom of God”  (4:11).  Those “outside” “see but [do] not perceive” and “hear but [do] not understand” (4:12).  Jesus wants the first group to know the secret of the kingdom, but he doesn’t want the other group to understand “lest they should turn and be forgiven.”  Hear that?  Jesus does not want “those outside” to turn and be forgiven!

Epistrephosin (translated “turn”) literally means “to turn physically” and figuratively means “to change one’s ways or repent”.  Jesus uses it in Luke 17:4 where he teaches his disciples “if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”  Here, then, in Mark 4:12, “turn” implies repentance and repentance requires the granting of forgiveness.

BUT SOME JESUS DOESN’T WANT TO FORGIVE.  This flat-out contradicts everything we generally believe about Jesus.  Jesus is “Mr. Mercy”.  “Sir Soft-Heart”.  Lavish with love.  Frenetic to forgive.  But not here.  Here  he doesn’t want some people to understand his parables, because, then, they might repent and he’d be obligated to forgive them.

How could that be?  Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:9,10 where the Lord commissioned Isaiah for a strange prophetic ministry . . .

(9) Go, and say to this people:
“Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.”
(10)  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.

WHY WOULD THE LORD SAY THAT?   In his commentary, The Book of Isaiah, E.J. Young writes, “[The Lord’s] nation had so sinned and hardened its heart that it contained within it the seeds of its own destruction” (Volume 1, p. 258).  Young is referring to the repeated calls to repentance prophets made to Israel—calls they repeatedly refused.  Young quotes John Calvin, “Such blinding and hardening influence . . . must be ascribed to the depravity of man . . . The whole blame lies on themselves in altogether refusing [the prophets’ words]; and we need not wonder if that which ought to have led them to salvation becomes the cause of their destruction” (ibid., p. 260).  In other words, our refusal to pay attention to the Gospel has a limit.  Reach it (only God knows when) and we’ve hardened our hearts permanently.  Repentance and forgiveness are no longer possible.

Glue that hardens in 60 seconds makes me nervous.  My hands shake squeezing out the glue and fitting the broken pieces together.  More than once I didn’t beat the clock–as warned the glue hardened.  That can happen to hearts too.

 PURITAN PASTOR-THEOLOGIAN JONATHAN EDWARDS EXPLAINS:  “We have here . . .  a tension-laden account of human unbelief: both the consequence of man’s refusal to heed the revelation of God and God’s judgment of the unwilling, confirming the hardhearted in their unbelief. Parables veil the truth to outsiders just as they reveal it to insiders. God both opens the eyes of the blind and blinds the eyes of those who have proved themselves uninterested and unwilling.”

LISTEN!

The sower sows the word.
And these are the ones along the path,
where the word is sown:
when they hear, Satan immediately comes
and takes away the word that is sown in them.
And these are the ones sown on rocky ground:
the ones who, when they heard the word, immediately receive it with joy.
And they have no root in themselves, but endure for a while;
then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word,
immediately they fall away.
And others are the ones sown among thorns.
They are those who hear the word,
but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches
and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word,
and it proves unfruitful.
But those that were sown on the good soil are the one who hear the word
and accept it and bear fruit,
thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundred fold (Mark 4:14-20).

This is “the word”—“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God  is at hand; repent and believe in this gospel” (Mark 1:15).  Let’s not let our heart become rocky ground, so Satan can snatch the word away! Let’s not let  our heart be rootless, so trouble drives us from Jesus!  Let’s not let our heart be cluttered with this-life cares or wealth’s lies or endless wants, so the word of the kingdom gets choked to death!  Let’s make our heart good soil that embraces the word and bears fruit!

In other words, “Pay attention to what you hear” (Mark 4:24)! 

(A little prayer for a soft heart wouldn’t hurt either!)

That’s what it’s come to.  Already.  After just a year.  How can we kill Jesus? Actually, the Greek word is stronger.  Apollumi means something like “destroy once and for all”.  “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him once and for all” (Mark 3:6).

Who are these would-be killers?  Pharisees.  An influential sect within Judaism.  The name means “separatists.”  Beginning 4 B.C., when Greek idolatry threatened the Jews, God used the Pharisees’ devotion to his Law to save Judaism.  But now they’ve morphed into legalism—righteousness by avoiding “unclean” people and following “the traditions of the fathers”.

Herodians.  A Jewish political party aligned with the family of the Herods, who ruled part of Israel under the Roman Caesar’s thumb.  Typically the Pharisees avoided the Herodians, but popular Jesus became their common foe.

Scribes.  Interpreters and teachers of biblical Law.  Theologically, many were Pharisees.  Though not mentioned in this text, they too opposed Jesus (see Mark 7:1-13).

Interesting that today in the U.S. nobody wants to kill Jesus.  People take him or leave him, but few, if any, want to crucify him.  Maybe because the popular Jesus today is a nice guy, loving, good.  Not a provocative bone in his body.  Different elsewhere though.  Who do you think ISIS is trying to kill when they behead Christians?

This section of Mark’s Gospel divides into four parts which I’ll mark off with the words of Jesus’ enemies.  The text is too long to quote in its entirety, best to read with Bible in hand . . .

Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2:13-17)?  Jesus called tax collector Levi (Matthew) to follow him.  Many tax collectors (Jews who assessed taxes for the Roman empire) and “sinners” (Jews Pharisees avoided because they didn’t keep “the religious rules”) joined Jesus and his disciples at Levi’s dinner party.  “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”  Table-togetherness signifies social acceptance.

Jesus doesn’t avoid these sinners or eat with them in a hidden cave.  In Levi’s open courtyard Jesus unashamedly shares a meal.  Nor does he try to rationalize it.  (“We didn’t know these people would show up!”) Rather, he provokes the Pharisees: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).  In other words, “I’m eating with them  intentionally. These are the people I’ve come to call.  Not you.”

Why don’t your disciples fast like John’s and the Pharisees (Mark 2:18-22)?   ” . . . John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting.”  Though Jewish Law required fasting only once a year on the Day of Atonement, different groups fasted more often (like the Pharisees who were fastidious fasters).

Jesus answers provocatively.  “As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast”—provocative because Isaiah 62:5 told of the day when God would rejoice over his restored people “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride.”  Jesus implies that he is the heavenly bridegroom.

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment.  If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.  If he does the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed and so are the skins.  But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”  A not-so-subtle hint that these guys are the old, dried-up wineskins, and the new kingdom Jesus is bringing requires a new order.

Why are your disciples doing what isn’t lawful on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28)?  As Jesus’ disciples walk through grainfields, they pick grain and pop it in their mouths . “And the Pharisees were saying to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?'”  The LORD had commanded no work on the holy Sabbath (Exodus 20:8-10a) and warned that those who profaned that day should be put to death (Exodus 31:14).

Jesus doesn’t answer, “I’m sorry; I forgot what day it is.”  He knew the legalistic Pharisees had made Sabbath-keeping a burden, so he reminded them of the LORD’s original intention: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”  By restoring the the LORD’s intent, he identifies himself as “the Son of man [who is] lord even of the Sabbath.”  A not-so-subtle jab at the Pharisees’ Bible-interpretation skills—and an audacious claim about himself!

How can we kill him (Mark 3:1-6)?    Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.  And they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.  And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.”  And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”  But they were silent.  And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.  The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Jesus knows they’re watching him there in the synagogue.  He knows what holy day it is.  A suspicious spectator might think this was a sting operation by the Pharisees.  Who knows?  Maybe it was.  And Jesus, it seems, played right into their hand.  He openly called the withered-hand man up front.  He asked a compelling question about the Sabbath law.  You could hear a pin drop.  You could feel the wrath rising in Jesus as he surveyed the congregation.  You could see the rage slowly shift to sorrow over how hardhearted the people were to this hurting man and to Yahweh himself.  Openly to the man:  “Stretch out your hand.”  And there before them all, like a computer-engineered movie scene, his withered hand turned whole.  That’s when the Pharisees had more provocation than they could take.  They stormed from the synagogue and plotted with the Herodians how to destroy Jesus.

Jesus the Provocateur.  Jesus wasn’t out to pick a fight.  But when the real bullies assaulted him, he didn’t shut his mouth and slink away.  By his responses in every instance, he provoked the Pharisees.  His replies fueled their anger until their blood boiled for death.  If Jesus wasn’t trying to pick a fight, what then was he doing?  Rebuking sinful leaders who twisted his Father’s words to suit their own ends.  Correcting their heresy by speaking Truth.

We all see God through our own eyes.  We  all read his words from our own point of view.  We are all marred by our own sin and by the world’s.  So through his written word, Jesus comes and provokes us.  Like:  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15).  “Repent”.  None of us has all the right answers to all the questions, yet sometimes we act as if we do.  Everybody’s theological system has its flaw, but we refuse to admit that.  Who of us loves God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength?  Who of us loves her neighbor as herself?  Which one of us really loves his enemy and does him good?

Jesus comes not to pick a fight, but to provoke us to repent, to change our way of thinking and seeing and doing.  To better learn the truth and walk in it.  A lot we learn easily.  But some things we need poking and prodding to get.  If we’ve read Jesus’ words and found none provoking us, better read them again more carefully and humbly.  Because Jesus will keep at it ’til we get what he says, don’t like it, but finally submit to it.   That’s what a  loving, good and gracious provocateur does.