Our Church Family

Dear church,

I am easily distracted. Perhaps you are, too. I will begin to work on a project, only to having something catch my eye, and then I am off pursuing some other project.

Already in my office this morning, I’ve thought about how I need to rearrange it – the layout is really cramped, and I need to move the desk to another location. And I’ve thought about a good friend whom I haven’t seen in a while. And I thought about the class that I’m taking right now, and all the work that it is going to require. And I thought about our kids and the movie we watched together last night.

Distraction. Some of this is just a wandering mind. But some of it really can pull a person off course. I actually thought momentarily about stopping my entire day – in the middle of trying to consider what God is saying in Mark 10 – and rearranging my office!

Jesus already has spoken on this issue. Back in Mark 4, when he offered that first parable beside the sea of Galilee: “Behold, a sower went out to sow …” Some seed was consumed by the birds. Some seed fell on rocky ground and never put down deep roots. And some seed fell among the thorns.

“And the thorns grew up and choked it.”

Jesus explained to his disciples the seed among the thorns are those who hear the Word of God, but then the cares of 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.”

I call this distraction. A desire for “other things” can pull us away from the gospel as it is presented to us. But our job is to attend to the gospel, to abide in the word of Christ. “If you abide in me and my words abide in you …” (John 15:7).

Already in Mark, we’ve seen a man whose desire for “other things” tore him away from the gospel. King Herod actually enjoyed listening to the teaching of John the Baptist. The king was perplexed by what John had to say, but he “heard him gladly.” He kept John around so he could listen to him more.

But other things – a dancing young woman and a brash and prideful promise – lured him away. These are “other things.”

And now in Mark 10, we see another man who seemed to give room in his life for the gospel. The rich young man sought out Jesus. He ran to him. He knelt before him. He asked him clarifying questions. The rich young man seemed truly to want to know how to enter into a life with God. And this seems to have been a driving desire for much of the young man’s life. He claimed to have kept God’s Law to that point in his life.

And the man received the love of Jesus – and the call of Jesus. Bear in mind that Jesus called this man to follow him, just as Jesus called Peter and Andrew and James and John and Matthew: “Follow me.” Jesus didn’t call everyone in this way. In fact, he asked some not to follow him (Mark 5:18-19).

But Jesus did ask the rich young man to follow him. And here, unlike the case with Jesus’ disciples, the man who was called refused to come. Too many other things came first in his life. He saw more value in wealth – in “other things” – than he saw in the good news of Jesus Christ.

The man was a picture of thorny soil – as Herod was earlier in Mark, and as Judas will prove to be later in Mark. Obviously, the desire for wealth isn’t the only thing that can distract us from our walk with Jesus Christ, but Jesus took the rich man’s reluctance to illustrate a point: The love of money is dangerous.

But Jesus also reminded his disciples that once we forsake our love for wealth, we become abundantly more “wealthy.” When we leave “other things” behind, we discover we come into possession of an abundance of very good things.

When we enter the kingdom of God, we enter a family – where we have an unlimited supply of new brothers and sisters who will care for our needs, who will turn over their possessions as we have need and for whom we will turn over our possessions when they have need. In a sense, we receive all things when we leave our “other things” to follow Jesus.

A question for your day: What are you reluctant to leave behind in order to follow Jesus?

Chris

Dear church,

Many monuments are being ripped to the ground these days in our country. Those monuments were erected to honor certain people for their contribution to the history of our nation or to the history of local places within it. However, the lives and viewpoints of these significant historical figures have been re-evaluated by some and found wanting. There are some who believe they no longer warrant such high acclaim. So down come the monuments.

In Mark 9, Peter wanted to commemorate the moment. I think that’s why he suggested to Jesus the disciples’ build three shelters – one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. This was a significant event in history, and it should be remembered.

I always have a hard time imagining this moment of transfiguration. I wonder what it would have been like to be there. Was everything else blacked out from view except these figures of the giants of the faith? Mark used every tool to describe the intensity of Jesus’ appearance – “his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.”

What the disciples saw – which was no less than the kingdom of God in its power (Mark 9:1) – must have been stunning. And so it’s no surprise that Peter would have wanted to mark the moment in some way.

We have “religious experiences” sometimes. We have “spiritual moments” occasionally. And these can be quite powerful. They can have lasting effects in our lives. We can make decisions in those moments that serve, in a way, as monuments to the vision of God in our lives. These are singularly significant experiences for each of us. And they ought not to be discounted.

But they aren’t the most important thing.

Jesus brushed off Peter’s suggestion. In fact, he didn’t even seem to respond to it. It’s almost like he ignored it altogether. There would be no tents set up on that mountain. There would be no monument.

Peter’s voice seems to have been drowned out by another voice. “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” Well, that is interesting. After seeing this glorious scene – after seeing the kingdom of God – now the disciples were told to listen to Jesus.

Jesus wasn’t saying anything in that moment, but he had been speaking to his disciples quite often. In fact the last message he gave to his disciples was about his death and resurrection. Jesus had said that anyone who comes after him would have to take up his or her cross and follow. Discipleship is not about saving one’s life. It’s about losing it for the sake of Jesus.

And the voice from heaven – the voice of the Father – said, “Listen to him.” The most important thing was not the vision of the scene, although that was important. The most important thing was that the disciples lived out their lives in obedience to the words of Jesus Christ.

The disciples, of course, would have preferred to live out lives of power and prestige. They would argue with each other about which one was greater. They were struggling to listen to Jesus. He would tell them that the last would be first and the first would be last. In fact, the servant of all was the one who would be the very greatest. And to be a servant means sacrifice. But this was not a message the disciples were willing to hear. They were pursuing a different kind of vision.

This can be true in our lives, too. It is one thing to have our spiritual moments. It is quite another to settle into a life of steadfast obedience to Jesus Christ. God would tell us that the latter is more important than the former.

Jesus never told his followers to erect a monument to himself – although that hasn’t stopped many Christians from doing that very thing. Instead of a monument, Jesus wanted his disciples to live in his honor through their obedience. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24).

We don’t build a monument. We, as a church, become a kind of monument to Christ through our consistent obedience to his words.

“Listen to him.”

Some questions for your day: When the thought of being “obedient” to the words of Jesus Christ comes to your mind, what do you think about? Is there some area of your life where you know you aren’t being obedient to Jesus? What can you do today to change course?

Chris

Dear church,

Here is a puzzling healing. The man in Bethsaida was blind. And then he could see partially – thanks to Jesus. And then Jesus touched him once more, and his sight was restored fully.

We must wonder why Jesus’ first attempt to heal the man didn’t seem to take. Was this just a really bad case of blindness? Could God himself – the creator of eyes – struggle with this one? That doesn’t seem plausible.

So Jesus must have been making a point. Blindness, partial vision, full vision. Maybe they are three steps on a path. This happens to us sometimes, after all.

I like to joke with Mary, reminding her of how she didn’t want anything to do with me when we first met in college. She thought I was a nerd. She was mostly right. I tell her she was blind! And then she got to know me a little bit and decided she could tolerate me. Of course, things progressed, and she “saw everything clearly.” She said “yes” when I eventually proposed.

The disciples were a tough bunch of men who simply didn’t seem to understand. They couldn’t see clearly. They got in a boat headed for Bethsaida. They’d been on a boat headed for Bethsaida before, but they didn’t make it (Mark 6:45). During that first attempt, the wind was against them, and Jesus walked out on the water and met them. Then he took them on a divine detour – teaching them along the way.

Finally, they were again on a boat bound for Bethsaida, with only one loaf of bread, puzzling over Jesus’ teaching and the strange “leaven of the Pharisees.” And Jesus reminded them about how he fed the 5,000 and how he fed the 4,000 – and exactly how many basketfuls of food were left over each time – 12 and seven, respectively. Those are significant numbers, probably made more so by the fact the first feeding took place in Jewish territory while the second feeding took place in Gentile territory.

Much of this seemed to go over the disciples’ heads. Much of this still goes over our heads! And Jesus looked at them and said, “Do you not yet understand?”

Well, no.

Do we even yet understand?

Jesus laid his hands on that blind man in Bethsaida, after the divine detour, and permitted the man to see partially. The man could make out the vague outline of people, but they looked more like trees. This healing wasn’t complete – until it was.

Jesus later asked the disciples who people said that Jesus was. Peter stood tall. “You are the Christ.” That is, Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior of Israel. Peter did well. He could see. Or, rather, he was beginning to see.

Peter later rebuked Jesus about his predictions of death and resurrection. That didn’t go well. The fact was Peter could see in a blurry kind of way. He could sort of make out who Jesus was and what he had come to do. But his vision wasn’t yet full. He could not see everything clearly.

But he would.

That’s the purpose of the two-step healing in Bethsaida. Jesus was giving us a picture of Peter – and a picture of ourselves. We are coming to see, even as we stand in salvation, professing Jesus as our Lord and Savior – as the Christ. But there’s so much more to know as we walk with him. We ought not to forget to continue the journey.

The apostle Paul said of all Holy Spirit-filled Christians, “for now we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). I hope you can relate to that. I pray your humility is such that you understand – even with all your understanding and past Bible studies and longtime exposure to things of the faith – that we’re still coming to know the fullness of God. We’re living into Christ, and he’s showing us more about himself as we follow him.

“Do you not yet understand?” We’ve been given enough understanding to grasp the salvation of God – a salvation that’s given to us through the free gift of grace, through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. We understand that much. And we understand we still have more to learn. We still have wisdom to gain.

Chris

Dear church,

It seems the sigh of Jesus and the release of these words, “Be opened,” might be the theme of this chapter.

There is much here for Jesus to sigh about. He must have been tired. The crowds were always crowding him, pushing in with their desire for healing. Jesus’ efforts to stay hidden were unsuccessful. The people simply kept coming. The Syrophoenician woman found him in the house. The crowd located him in the Decapolis. Earlier, they simply were trying to touch the fringe of his garment. Jesus must have been tired.

And he must have been tired of the concerns of his critics – the endless bickering about food and eating. Originally (in Chapter 2), they were stressed about Jesus’ eating with tax collectors and sinners. And they were stressed about Jesus’ disciples lack of fasting (not eating). And they were stressed about his disciples picking heads of grain on the Sabbath. And now in Chapter 7, the concern was about hand-washing before meals. So much to criticize about such trivial issues!

At the end of this, Jesus was brought a man who could neither hear nor speak properly.  The crowd was there again. The crowd always seemed to be there. The man’s friends begged Jesus to heal him. Well, what could Jesus do? And Jesus first pulled the man out of the crowd. Then he laid his hands on the man as requested – on his ears and on his tongue – and Jesus looked to heaven and sighed.

To live in a world with so much brokenness sometimes leaves us with nothing more than a sigh. We look to heaven, and we let the air out. We’re tired with all the effort. We’re frustrated with all the roadblocks. We wonder whether things ever will straighten up. This is a time in America where we look to heaven, and we sigh. We live in a world of turbulence. If the national news doesn’t bother us – with all the heated rhetoric and insults and dire language – the local face mask ordinance will.

And we sigh. Jesus sighed. And Jesus said to the man – or to the man’s ears and mouth – “Be opened.” A weary Jesus was releasing clogged up ears to hear and a stopped up mouth to speak. They were to “be opened.”

Perhaps this was the solution after all – a divine opening of closed off things.

Jesus made an important move in this chapter, and it had everything to do with closed things becoming open. He declared all foods clean. It’s not what you put in your belly that matters, he said. It’s what comes out of your heart. Jesus marked the end of the works of the law.

Good standing with God is not about making sure you eat with the right people. It’s not about making sure you fast two days a week. It’s not about how zealous you are about keeping the Sabbath. It’s not about washing your hands before you eat. Good standing with God is not about what you put into your body. It’s about what comes out of it.

Jesus was breaking open a table where all could come and eat.

“Be opened,” Jesus said. I wonder whether he was thinking about these things as he healed that man who was deaf and mute. And I wonder whether his sigh was a look forward – knowing his church would take a long time to learn the lesson.

Years later, the apostle Paul would have a harsh confrontation with the disciple Peter over this very issue. Peter gave in to the idea that not all foods are clean – that not all people can be clean – and he stayed away from meals with non-Jews in certain instances. Paul said it plainly: It was “hypocrisy.”

Paul wrote in Galatians 2:15-16: “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” Paul was paraphrasing Jesus: “Do you not see that what goes into a person from outside cannot defile him … What comes out of a person is what defiles him.”

Works of the law don’t put us in good standing with God. Only “faith in Jesus Christ” does that. And we see how Mark transitions smoothly from a long conversation about all foods being clean to a statement by Jesus about all people being clean as well.

Jesus went to a private home in Tyre and Sidon – Gentile country – and a Syrophoenician woman begged for her daughter’s healing. Jesus rebuffed her harshly at first, essentially calling her a dog. I think he was testing her. The bread is for the children of God – the Jews. It’s not for the Gentiles. But the dog barked back: “Since everyone seems concerned about eating – even you Jesus! – please know the children won’t be hurt if a few crumbs fall to the floor!”

Active faith. “Be opened.” The gospel is available to all who would come. The works of the law do not justify. Only faith in Christ does that. And anyone can have faith.

The deaf and mute man was in Gentile territory as well. Jesus was making a habit of healing non-Jews. And Jesus sighed. The world is broken. His people were slow learners. But the message remains. “Be opened.” The good news is for you and for me.

We easily can let the sighs get the best of us, especially today. But the fact of the matter is that we’ve been given a gift. We don’t have to earn our salvation. Jesus Christ has extended it to us in an act of supreme, self-giving grace. All we do is trust.

I still don’t think these are days, general speaking, for fasting. “New wine is for fresh wineskins” (Mark 2:22). In days like these, we should double down on the rejoicing. And we should pray even for more hearts to “be opened.”

Chris

Dear church,

In the protest marches across the country, people frequently hold up signs with similar messages. One common message is this: “Silence is violence.” That is, it is not OK to be silent on particular issues. People must speak up. Otherwise, they are complicit in certain violence that exists in the world.

Of course, simply not being silent is not enough. A person also must speak the correct message. Just any words will not count. The message has to be an acceptable one to the popular movement of the land.

But silence amounts to violence itself.

It is a lesson about acceptable forms of speech in a culture. Some things ought not to be said while other things must be. A person can get into trouble with his or her words – or lack of them. A mother warns a child, “Think before you speak.” That admonition weighs heavily in some times and places, including our own.

Mark 6 gives us some eternal truth about the dangers of speaking. I think it teaches that for the child of God, speaking always comes with the risk of violence. The powers-that-be in culture may not (and likely will not) appreciate the message of a disciple.

John the Baptist met a violent end. He was not a silent man. He preached repentance (Mark 1:4). And he preached it even in the face of the most powerful man (and woman) in the land. John preached. John was rejected. By Mark 6, John was dead.

It’s a graphic episode about lust and pride and noisy violence. For John the Baptist, speaking was violence – violence the world brought to him.

Jesus also was a preacher of repentance (Mark 1:15). And Jesus also faced rejection. In Mark 6, his own people took offense at him. His hometown became an unfriendly place. Jesus preached and was rejected, and we know what would happen to him by the end of Mark’s Gospel.

For Jesus, speaking was violence – violence the world brought to him.

Woven into the stories in Mark 6 about the rejection of Jesus and the rejection and death of John is perhaps an ominous lesson for disciples of Jesus Christ. The Twelve were beginning to preach. Like John the Baptist and Jesus before them, they also were preaching a message of repentance (Mark 6:12).

The disciples had good success at first. People were impressed. The word got around. The word got around to King Herod. At that point, the disciples’ story was interrupted in by the flashback about John the Baptist’s death. Even in the disciples’ initial success, we get a moment of foreboding.

Like John the Baptist and Jesus, the disciples preached. John the Baptist and Jesus were rejected for their preaching. And John the Baptist was dead. Jesus soon enough would be dead. This is an ominous sign for the Twelve.

If silence is violence in our culture, what might be the message of repentance? Is that a peaceful message?

The legacy of our faith has little to do with silence. It has everything to do with proclamation of the good news. It is a message of repentance – of turning from our worldly ways to Jesus Christ.

Disciples of Jesus Christ aren’t silent people. But when they open their mouths, they face the very real risk of violence – against themselves.

And so the temptation is to be silent, or to speak something less than repentance. It is dangerous to stick your neck out.

But disciples today can speak about justice, which seems so highly valued in our culture. People strive for justice because they have the fading mark of the glory of God in their souls. Our God is a lover of justice. Many people don’t even fully realize why they are hungry for justice. But they are – because they are made in the image of God.

Disciples today also can speak about why justice seems so hard to achieve in our world. Sin has marred God’s creation and robbed it of justice. It is not sin by only a few people. It is sin by all of them. This world is not as it should be. We’ve marred the image of God within us, and injustice has swept into the world. And humans, still with the lingering mark of God’s glory, are straining toward an elusive picture of justice.

Disciples today also can speak about the impossibility of achieving perfect justice, despite our efforts. We can’t do it on our own. The anger and unrest will find no solution outside of Jesus Christ. The message disciples might speak today is that people should repent and turn to Jesus. We must enter a new kingdom – the kingdom of God. We must await our Savior’s return.

The ultimate injustice, of course, took place on a cross outside Jerusalem. An innocent man died. And all of us are guilty. When disciples speak of justice, they speak about it with clear heads. Justice means bad things for us. And so disciples speak of justice AND grace.

But not everyone in the world will like this message. Mark 6 shows us the world’s response to John the Baptist. And it shows us the world’s response to Jesus. The rest of the New Testament (and church tradition) shows us the world’s response to the Twelve. Disciples speak. They can’t be silent. The news, after all, is good. But their speaking tends to bring violence. A disciple must be ready.

A question for your day: What does it mean to speak a word of repentance in our culture? How might that word be received? How important is it to speak it?

Chris

Dear church,

We sometimes resist the work of Jesus in our lives. His mission is to make us like him – to make us into pure humans. This purity is marked by selflessness and a devotion to the family of God. And sometimes we resist this.

We feel the convicting work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, telling us to relinquish something that is dear to us, or something that we’ve spent many months and years acquiring for ourselves, and we resist. We might say all the right things and try to think all the right things, but the internal resistance is very real. The grip of sin is firm, even though it sometimes tries to stay concealed.

Perhaps this is what was happening in the country of the Gerasenes. This was Gentile land. We know this because a large herd of pigs was being kept nearby. God’s chosen people didn’t keep pigs.

And Jesus was met by a crazed man from out of the tombs. He wasn’t in his right mind. He had an unclean spirit. He was loud and violent and self-inflicting. Jesus cast out the unclean spirit and sent it into the pigs. They promptly rushed down a hill and into the sea where they drowned.

The man was purged of evil. But the larger picture Jesus paints is that of a land that was being purged of evil. And in the midst of this purge, there was resistance. The local people were afraid, and they begged Jesus to leave. Ah, sometimes we resist the work of Jesus in our lives.

Before leaving, Jesus instructed the formerly demon-possessed man to tell his friends how much “the Lord” had done for him. The man promptly went away and told his friends – and everyone else – how much Jesus had done for him. Mark subtly reminds us who Jesus is.

The fundamental issue here is purity and authority. The entrance of Jesus into that region moved it toward purity – toward a purge of evil. And he was able to do this because he had authority over unclean spirits.

When Jesus enters our lives, things inevitably start to happen. He is the one with authority – even authority over the moral motions of our minds. We tend to begin to think differently when Christ is at the center of our hearts. He points us toward purity. Certain things get driven “into the sea and drowned.”

But at the same time, we might experience some internal resistance. Our wills are fundamentally corrupted, after all. And so the work Jesus does isn’t necessarily work we may be comfortable with.

A question for your day: Is there an area of your life in which you are resisting the work of Christ? Take the first thing that comes to your mind and pray over it. See what the Holy Spirit has to tell you about this.

Chris

Dear church,

I wonder what it would have been like to get this parable straight from the rabbi on the boat. No explanation. Just the word picture. Read it now as if you’ve never heard it before, as if you aren’t a Christians and as if you only just now are getting to know this Jesus guy:

“Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and immediately it sprang up, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. … He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

That’s it. Again, imagine no explanation of this word story is offered to you. Instead, the rabbi on the boat simply turned to another parable like it – maybe about a lamp under a basket or a mustard seed growing. What are you supposed to do with this?

Is Jesus crazy? Is he simply an eccentric teacher – a lover of riddles? “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

This is a call to think.

The answer isn’t laid out on a silver platter. Granted, Jesus gave his disciples some private explanations, but the “regulars” in the crowd had to work to figure out the meaning of what Jesus had to say.

Are we a people who like to think? Are we well-practiced in the art of thought? To a certain degree, we are. Humans are problem-solvers. That’s how God wired us.

I just built a woodshed. I was using a bunch of old lumber from my old deck. That old redwood was in all sorts of sizes. I had to think through it. How would I build my woodshed so that it would be strong? How big should it be so I would make the best use of the material I had? What were ways I could use some of the broken pieces of wood – and some of the very small pieces of wood?

I would lay in bed at night thinking about that woodshed, pondering it and piecing it together in my mind. I actually enjoyed the challenge of it. Truly, it brought me joy! That woodshed is now finished (mostly). It’s not a work of art, and it won’t win any wood-working awards. But I’m happy with it. It cost me little-to-nothing financially, but it did require a lot of thought.

We are designed to think. And the harder we work to arrive at a conclusion to a thought problem, the more we will value that conclusion. We will grasp it a little tighter if it was hard-earned. We’ll defend it against enemy assaults, should they arrive – assaults that try to make us doubt. We won’t doubt because we’ve thought it through.

I suppose this is why Jesus gave us parables. Even for those word pictures that he explained, there is still much to ponder. For instance, in the parable of the sower, what type of person might be the soil “along the path,” who had the word of God snatched away by Satan. Who might that person be in Mark’s Gospel? The Pharisees? The scribes? Are there people like that today?

Who might the “good soil” be? The twelve disciples? I’m not so sure. After all, they disappeared from the story before it was over. (We must keep reading!) Maybe others in the story represent “good soil.”

We have to think about these things.

Christianity requires involvement from every aspect of our lives – from our bodies and our minds. Unlike some other religions that encourage “empty mind” exercises, Christianity demands that we think. We don’t empty our minds. We fill them.

God told Joshua that he should meditate on God’s Word day and night (Joshua 1:8). That’s more than just reading it. That’s mulling it over in a deep way. Instead of a woodshed, Joshua was to lay awake at night thinking of the story of Adam and Eve and the travels of Abraham and the Ten Commandments.

Psalm 63 is attributed to King David. In it, the king wrote that he remembered God while laying in bed and that he meditated on God in the watches of the night (Psalm 63:6). That means he thought about God when he happened to wake up at night. I suppose that meant he puzzled over God and sought to know him more. I suppose that means there were times David simply could not sleep because his mind was so active with the things of God.

Hard-won truths are ones we prize most highly. To wrestle the truth about God out of what we see in creation or what we read in Scripture is a precious practice.

Jesus in his parables gave us more opportunity to think about him.

A question for your day: Are there ways to bring more God-thoughts into your day – so that you can think deeply about who he is – or so that you can wrestle over some question you have about God and his ways?

Chris

Dear church,

It didn’t take long at all. Questions turned into plotting. The Pharisees were among the question-askers of Chapter 2. Now they were looking for ways to destroy Jesus.

This chapter bounces around. We get the first formal glimpse of Jesus’ opposition. We see the crowds coming in around him. We see him picking his disciples. Then the crowds are back. And Jesus’ biological family is present, too. Then we see more opposition to Jesus. And then his biological family is back. And then Jesus makes a stunning statement about true family in the kingdom of God.

Themes and characters emerge and then fade to the background, only to re-emerge again. Jesus is the center of the action. Notice how people respond to him. Some were filled with hope. Some were filled with scheming and accusations. Some (Jesus’ biological family) weren’t happy with their wayward relative. And the disciples, well, they were present and accounted for.

For me, the strongest images were given by Jesus to the scribes who were accusing him of being a Satanist – or something like that. That could not be so, Jesus said. After all, “How can Satan cast out Satan?”

A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Neither can a house that’s divided against itself. Jesus came to build a kingdom and a house. “The kingdom of God is at hand,” he said (Mark 1:15). And when Jesus went to his own home, he was followed by crowds and observed by his family – his biological “house” – and they were divided against him. We might be tempted to think Jesus’ own house was about to fall. However, he was building a new house at that very moment – a new family among those who did the will of God. It was a house and a kingdom that never would fall.

(A quick question: Does the church family take priority over one’s biological family? Could that be an implication of Jesus’ teaching here?)

And so I wonder about this stern warning about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit – the unforgivable sin. I’ve pondered this one quite a bit over the years, as you may have as well. I know all the stock explanations, and some of them are good. The timing here is pretty clear. This came very early in the extended opposition Jesus received from the Jewish leaders. Jesus gave them an abrupt and up-front warning about what they were doing. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit – showing contempt for the Spirit, for God – was unforgivable. So be careful what you say!

Be careful what you teach.

The Holy Spirit’s mission on earth is to point to the truth of Jesus Christ (1 John 5:6). Jesus was (is) building a kingdom and a house on earth. The scribes began claiming Jesus was in league with Satan. Notice they weren’t making that claim directly to Jesus. Rather, they showed up on the scene and began telling this to others – to Jesus’ followers and his would-be followers. They were trying to tear apart the house Jesus was building.

This was not a house to be plundered. And Jesus warned them.

We have a God who has a fierce love for his children. “To save a life or to kill?” Jesus asked. No answer is needed. We know the answer. We have a God who desires to save.

And his love for us is fierce and uncompromising. And he warned away those who seek to mislead his loved ones.

A question for your day: What does it mean to you to be a brother or sister of Jesus Christ? What kind of allegiance should siblings have for one another?

Chris

Dear church,

What is a question worth? Some people like to question everything. What seems obvious to us isn’t so obvious to them. I heard a church elder one time question the church board’s use of Robert’s Rules of Order during its meetings. He thought it wasn’t appropriate to use them in a church setting.

The other board members just looked at each other. What a strange question! What possibly could be the problem with Robert’s Rules of Order? They provide a way to have well-organized and productive meetings, and they prevented our meetings from dissolving into shouting matches during controversial issues. Plus, every other church was using them. Obviously, we want to use Robert’s Rules of Order!

But some of us listened to the questions of my elder friend. They were good ones about the difference between the church and other organizations that feel the need to use Robert’s Rules of Order. My elder friend with all the questions had some great points. As a result, I’ve decided Robert’s Rules of Order are a bad idea for churches – for the most part. My questioning friend brought me out of any hard-and-fast kind of dogmatism I might have been tempted to have. And he brought me out of the status quo.

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus immediately found himself being questioned by the scribes and the Pharisees and others. It only took until Chapter 2 for the questions to start popping up. How can Jesus profess to be able to forgive sins? Why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners? Why aren’t Jesus’ disciples fasting? Why are Jesus’ disciples picking grain on the Sabbath?

These are good questions. I don’t think we probably should give a hard time to the scribes and Pharisees and other question-askers. It’s not clear by this point in Mark’s Gospel that they had any ill-intent toward Jesus – at least not yet. They were just needing some clarity. Jesus and his followers were doing some things that deserved questions. They were breaking from tradition and doing things that appeared to violate the clear teaching of God’s Law.

In those cases, questions are good things. It’s not a good thing to blindly go along with the crowd – to follow the popular trend of the moment. There’s something for us to learn from these question-askers.

Questions are good, but it also is good to see who Jesus was claiming to be. He was claiming to be God. He claimed the power to forgive sins. And he claimed his presence was a reason for the traditional Jewish fasting to come to an end. And he claimed to be lord of the Sabbath.

And perhaps most importantly, he called himself the “Son of Man.” Recall our study of Daniel 7. (Please read it again if you have time.) The Pharisees and scribes would have heard something very specific when they heard Jesus call himself the Son of Man. It would have meant something to them.

And so the questions were asked, and they were answered.

Mark 2 should give us reason to wonder – What will those question-askers do next? Were they satisfied with Jesus’ responses? Were they moving closer toward a position of faith in Jesus as the Son of Man, or were they moving further away from it?

It is good to ask questions about God and about Jesus Christ. At some point, however, we have to make a decision. Questions must come to an end, and we must decide. Do we follow or not? Subsequent chapters in Mark’s Gospel will show how some of the question-askers in Jesus’ day decided to respond.

A question for your day: What’s the big question you have right now about your life or about the world in which we live? Based on what you know about Jesus from Scripture, what answer do you envision him giving you?

Chris

Dear church,

Mark’s Gospel gets off to a fast start. There’s a prophecy. John the Baptist shows up. Jesus gets baptized. He’s tempted in the wilderness. He begins preaching. He calls his first disciples. He frees a man from an unclean spirit in a synagogue. He heals Peter’s mother-in-law – and the rest of the town. He prays privately, and then moves on. And he heals a leper.

All in one chapter.

Mark is frequently considered the gospel of action. Mark doesn’t seem to stop and dwell on theological issues. He’s not too concerned, at least initially, with long speeches or teachings by Jesus. The actions just keeps moving. Jesus keeps doing things.

You probably noticed the word “immediately” shows up quite a bit in Chapter 1. It must have been a favorite word of Mark’s. Or, maybe there was no other way to describe what Jesus was doing. The Son of God showed up on the scene, and things happened fast.

There’s an urgency to this gospel. Mark doesn’t have to tell us that Jesus was busy. He simply related the facts. Jesus was a man on a mission.

Jesus’ first sermon was short and to the point: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” There’s immediacy here. It’s urgent. “The time is NOW!” “The kingdom of God is RIGHT HERE!”

Do something!

Maybe that’s the message for us, wherever we are. Jesus immediately moves and does, he surrenders and heals, he calls and prays. Maybe the urgency was supposed to generate an urgency in those who interacted with him. He wasn’t going to be around long. He was on the move. Maybe it’s the same with us – those of us who interact with Jesus. Maybe he wants us to feel his urgency – to respond properly.

Immediately, he acted. Immediately, we ought to respond.

One of the great tricks of the world is to make us believe we have all the time in the world. But we don’t. Time ticks by, and things are lost.

Our daughter is getting ready for her senior year in high school. It seems like all we did was blink. But we didn’t. Seventeen long years have gone by. Seventeen years to do something – to love, to share, to teach, to disciple. And our time is about up. We know that. The press of the present is on us, and we want to savor every moment. We know we don’t have all the time in the world.

Jesus was on the move. There wasn’t much time. The people must have known that. They crushed in on Jesus, knowing there might be just one opportunity to talk to him or to touch him or to seek out a healing.

And Mark presents us with this picture – an urgent picture of the Son of God calling people to respond to him. We can shrug our shoulders and move on with our days. Or we can respond in faith. Our eternity rests on our response.

Remember Daniel. “Many shall purify themselves and make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly. And none of the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand” (Daniel 12:10).

Disciples of Jesus Christ are wise. We begin to understand as we respond to his call. But we need to move with Jesus. We can’t sit still. We get up and follow – immediately.

A question for your day: What is your immediate response to the good news of Jesus Christ in Mark 1? What do you feel him calling you to do right now, at this moment?

Chris