Mark 1:14-15
Very quickly we find ourselves at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel. Mark didn’t take long to lay his groundwork and get into the core of the Message itself, and because there are few long teachings in Mark, this moment is crucial.
“Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee…” (vs. 14)
The word Mark uses for “arrested” here is not technically the word for arrest, but clearly carries that connotation. In fact, Mark and the rest of the New Testament uses this phrasing several times to refer to believers being “handed over” to authorities to be persecuted and put into prison. In Mark 13:9-12, Jesus forewarns his disciples that they will be handed over because of him. In Acts 8:3, the phrase describes the actions of the great early persecutor, and in Acts 12:4 the apostle James is martyred and Peter is handed over to be put into prison. In addition, Jesus uses this concept of himself and his journey to the cross. In Mark 9:31 he says he will be handed over to the rulers to be crucified, and in Mark 15:15, when his final betrayal is described, Mark says Jesus was “handed over.”
John the Baptist does not just prepare the way for Jesus, he foreshadows Jesus’ life and what will become of the disciples as well. In this way, John is the first to show us what it means to be a disciple. Mark’s readers are Christians who are suffering acute persecution, and many have seen their friend and relatives “handed over” to the Roman authorities to be persecuted and killed for their faith. We often wonder why God’s children suffer, and Mark’s readers are surely asking the same difficult and heart-wrenching questions.
Into this very specific moment of injustice, Christ came preaching the good news of the Gospel:
“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” (vs. 14-15)
The word “gospel” here literally translates as “good news.” John has been taken to prison, Mark’s readers suffer under acute persecution, and we often feel bits and pieces of their pain and anguish. And yet, at precisely that moment, Mark tells us Jesus is good news.
Jesus Christ transcends my circumstances. Jesus is good news when life is rich and full of joy, and Jesus is good news when peace is a million miles away. My relationship with Jesus is primary to my circumstances. It is not my current situation that gives meaning to my relationship with Jesus; it is the relationship that gives meaning and hope to my circumstances. The richness and depth in my relationship with Christ does not flow from my state of affairs; it is something that provides grounding and stability in all conditions.
Jesus told me to “seek first the kingdom of God,” and then everything will “be added” to me. Paul told me that the peace Jesus provides “passes all understanding.” And Paul showed me what it meant to say, “I have learned in whatever circumstance to be content.”
May Christ enter your life speaking the good news of God.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
John, Jesus, and the Wilderness: Mark 1
Mark 1:4-13
The wilderness breaks people. Over and over in the Old Testament, the wilderness is symbolic of those times when God’s people were at their lowest or where their relationship with God suffered its greatest blow. When Elijah reached the depths of his own depression and anxiety about his future, he put himself out to pasture – he goes to the wilderness to die. Over and over the prophets and psalmists warn God’s people against doing what their forefathers did when they rebelled in the wilderness. And the ultimate example of this theme: after their consistent rebellion during the exodus, God turned his people back into the wilderness until an entire generation was dead and gone. God’s people struggle in the wilderness, they rebel in the wilderness, they die in the wilderness.
But then there came a voice. This one came crying from the wilderness saying the Messiah was on his way. This voice – the voice of John the Baptist - set up his ministry in the middle of the wilderness. What this voice did was baptize people for the cleansing of their sins. And what is more, “All the country of Judah and Jerusalem” went out to the wilderness to be baptized (Mark 1:5).
John’s baptism was unique in its day. Instead of a baptism of initiation into a religion, it was a baptism of repentance for those who already belonged. John’s baptism is a baptism of discipleship. It is powerfully symbolic that John the Baptist drew God’s people out to the wilderness – the location of their greatest failure and rebellion – to be forgiven of their sins and have their hearts and minds turned back to God. The repentance is not just symbolic, it is obvious. John’s sermon was clear, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2).
During this brief story of Mark’s, the scene turns from the masses lined up east of the Jordan to a single man. Jesus traveled to the wilderness to be baptized by John. Why was Jesus baptized? Even John knew who needed to baptize whom, but Jesus persisted (Matt. 3:14-15). Jesus obviously did not need to repent and turn back to God like the masses did, but he was baptized just like they were.
I think the bottom line is that Jesus was baptized because I need to be. He was baptized not for his sin but mine, not for his impending judgment, but mine. Even when I turn my heart and mind back to God, I will, soon enough, fail and need to be “baptized” again. Jesus has no such weaknesses and was baptized once and for all for my sins.
At his baptism, the Spirit of God descends and rests “in” Jesus and God’s voice completes the circle of Trinitarian activity. Those witnessing this event know God is fully and completely present in this Jesus. And then an interesting move. Instead of sending Jesus into Judah with the masses in tow, the Spirit has a different task for the Messiah.
“The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” (vs. 12)
The same Spirit that was part of the beauty and glory of the baptism is the driving force behind his forty days in the wilderness.
Mark wants us to know something about what is happening now that Jesus is here. John the Baptist came in the wilderness baptizing people for the cleansing of their sins, but even John knew it was just a washing of the outside. Then the Messiah is himself baptized in the wilderness, and driven even further into the desert to be tempted by the enemy – and ultimately, to defeat him. Jesus exited the wilderness victorious.
That thing that overwhelms me 100% of the time, that nature that is constantly at my side separating me from my God, has been defeated by the Messiah. In Christ, the wilderness no longer needs to break me.
The wilderness breaks people. Over and over in the Old Testament, the wilderness is symbolic of those times when God’s people were at their lowest or where their relationship with God suffered its greatest blow. When Elijah reached the depths of his own depression and anxiety about his future, he put himself out to pasture – he goes to the wilderness to die. Over and over the prophets and psalmists warn God’s people against doing what their forefathers did when they rebelled in the wilderness. And the ultimate example of this theme: after their consistent rebellion during the exodus, God turned his people back into the wilderness until an entire generation was dead and gone. God’s people struggle in the wilderness, they rebel in the wilderness, they die in the wilderness.
But then there came a voice. This one came crying from the wilderness saying the Messiah was on his way. This voice – the voice of John the Baptist - set up his ministry in the middle of the wilderness. What this voice did was baptize people for the cleansing of their sins. And what is more, “All the country of Judah and Jerusalem” went out to the wilderness to be baptized (Mark 1:5).
John’s baptism was unique in its day. Instead of a baptism of initiation into a religion, it was a baptism of repentance for those who already belonged. John’s baptism is a baptism of discipleship. It is powerfully symbolic that John the Baptist drew God’s people out to the wilderness – the location of their greatest failure and rebellion – to be forgiven of their sins and have their hearts and minds turned back to God. The repentance is not just symbolic, it is obvious. John’s sermon was clear, “Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2).
During this brief story of Mark’s, the scene turns from the masses lined up east of the Jordan to a single man. Jesus traveled to the wilderness to be baptized by John. Why was Jesus baptized? Even John knew who needed to baptize whom, but Jesus persisted (Matt. 3:14-15). Jesus obviously did not need to repent and turn back to God like the masses did, but he was baptized just like they were.
I think the bottom line is that Jesus was baptized because I need to be. He was baptized not for his sin but mine, not for his impending judgment, but mine. Even when I turn my heart and mind back to God, I will, soon enough, fail and need to be “baptized” again. Jesus has no such weaknesses and was baptized once and for all for my sins.
At his baptism, the Spirit of God descends and rests “in” Jesus and God’s voice completes the circle of Trinitarian activity. Those witnessing this event know God is fully and completely present in this Jesus. And then an interesting move. Instead of sending Jesus into Judah with the masses in tow, the Spirit has a different task for the Messiah.
“The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” (vs. 12)
The same Spirit that was part of the beauty and glory of the baptism is the driving force behind his forty days in the wilderness.
Mark wants us to know something about what is happening now that Jesus is here. John the Baptist came in the wilderness baptizing people for the cleansing of their sins, but even John knew it was just a washing of the outside. Then the Messiah is himself baptized in the wilderness, and driven even further into the desert to be tempted by the enemy – and ultimately, to defeat him. Jesus exited the wilderness victorious.
That thing that overwhelms me 100% of the time, that nature that is constantly at my side separating me from my God, has been defeated by the Messiah. In Christ, the wilderness no longer needs to break me.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Mark: Jesus - Servant, Savior, Sovereign
Mark
The verse that is almost universally acknowledged to be a kind of thematic capsule of Mark’s Gospel is 10:45:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
If you read through the first nine chapters and came across this verse, you would not be surprised. Mark is a Gospel of action—the action of the Son of God among God’s people. Mark does not portray Christ through several long teachings, but through his action. There are parables in Mark, but they are all short. By the time the reader is settled into the first chapter, Mark is already into the life and deeds of Jesus. The word “immediately” shows up more than 40 times in this short Gospel. And though it is significantly shorter than every other Gospel, Mark records more miracles.
It is true - Mark wants us to know that God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came to serve.
Jesus Christ also came to give his life so that we might live. As The Message puts it, Jesus came, “to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.” A full half of the Gospel is dedicated to Jesus’ journey to the cross. In the middle of chapter 8, Jesus begins to make his way to Jerusalem in the last physical journey he will take with his disciples. Mark devotes a great deal of time and space revealing to us how Christ walked to the cross, and what it means to follow him there.
When we picture Roman persecution of Christians, the images we conjure up are typically dominated by mass arrests and innocent families in the Coliseum preparing to meet the wild beasts. Those images represent a small fraction of the actual persecutions of the early church, but Mark writes to the Christians who do represent that persecution. Nero burned Rome to the ground, and in an effort to curry favor with the angry masses, turned their hatred on a common enemy, the despised and misunderstood Christians. During this persecution the Christians who were not driven into the catacombs were arrested in droves and tortured to turn in their fellow believers. As the Roman historian Tacitus put it, “their deaths were made farcical.” They were dressed in animal skins and torn to pieces by wild beasts; they were crucified; they were turned into torches to light Nero’s garden by night.
Jesus not only came to serve, he came to be the Suffering Servant. Jesus willingly walked into Jerusalem toward the cross so that in this life and the next we might live.
There is one more element that is crucial to the purpose of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus is not only the Suffering Servant, he is sovereign. Jesus is never out of control of events and their consequences. The Son of Man has power over sickness, disease and death, and the cross does not take him by surprise.
The cross is not a moment of failure for Jesus, but the defining event of his sovereignty. Even that level of hatred and suffering does not diminish the power of a savior who came to serve and give his life so that I might live.
The verse that is almost universally acknowledged to be a kind of thematic capsule of Mark’s Gospel is 10:45:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
If you read through the first nine chapters and came across this verse, you would not be surprised. Mark is a Gospel of action—the action of the Son of God among God’s people. Mark does not portray Christ through several long teachings, but through his action. There are parables in Mark, but they are all short. By the time the reader is settled into the first chapter, Mark is already into the life and deeds of Jesus. The word “immediately” shows up more than 40 times in this short Gospel. And though it is significantly shorter than every other Gospel, Mark records more miracles.
It is true - Mark wants us to know that God himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, came to serve.
Jesus Christ also came to give his life so that we might live. As The Message puts it, Jesus came, “to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage.” A full half of the Gospel is dedicated to Jesus’ journey to the cross. In the middle of chapter 8, Jesus begins to make his way to Jerusalem in the last physical journey he will take with his disciples. Mark devotes a great deal of time and space revealing to us how Christ walked to the cross, and what it means to follow him there.
When we picture Roman persecution of Christians, the images we conjure up are typically dominated by mass arrests and innocent families in the Coliseum preparing to meet the wild beasts. Those images represent a small fraction of the actual persecutions of the early church, but Mark writes to the Christians who do represent that persecution. Nero burned Rome to the ground, and in an effort to curry favor with the angry masses, turned their hatred on a common enemy, the despised and misunderstood Christians. During this persecution the Christians who were not driven into the catacombs were arrested in droves and tortured to turn in their fellow believers. As the Roman historian Tacitus put it, “their deaths were made farcical.” They were dressed in animal skins and torn to pieces by wild beasts; they were crucified; they were turned into torches to light Nero’s garden by night.
Jesus not only came to serve, he came to be the Suffering Servant. Jesus willingly walked into Jerusalem toward the cross so that in this life and the next we might live.
There is one more element that is crucial to the purpose of Mark’s Gospel. Jesus is not only the Suffering Servant, he is sovereign. Jesus is never out of control of events and their consequences. The Son of Man has power over sickness, disease and death, and the cross does not take him by surprise.
The cross is not a moment of failure for Jesus, but the defining event of his sovereignty. Even that level of hatred and suffering does not diminish the power of a savior who came to serve and give his life so that I might live.
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