While this is intended as an opportunity to get a sense of who Mark is, as well as what he wrote, I am going to begin my comments looking at something the ISBE notes in regard to the Gospels more generally. The point is in some ways obvious, but in other aspects proves more revealing. The primary focus for Jesus’ teaching is very clearly the subject of the Kingdom of God. That, as I said, is obvious. It’s obvious in the bits of His teaching that we see in Mark. It’s obvious from the more extensive accounts of His message in Matthew. It’s equally obvious in both Luke and John. What may not be so obvious is the implication of this.

I am reminded (as happens often enough) of that English teacher I had back in 11th grade, whose primary task was to get us thinking about poetry, and in particular, the poetry of Robert Frost. Repeatedly he stressed the point that Frost only had a very small number of themes upon which he wrote, that he was constantly exploring those few themes, setting them in different lights, observing different facets, but always the same themes. I confess to finding that whole idea rather offensive. Frost had so little intellect that he could only come up with four or five themes? Nothing else ever caught his attention? But, looking at this in conjunction with the way Jesus taught the Kingdom of God to the effective exclusion of all else, I must face the fact that there is wisdom, at least for the teacher, in teaching after this fashion. Whether the poet is to be seen as a teacher is a separate question, but not an unreasonable perspective to take.

As for Jesus, as the ISBE notes, HE taught ‘intensively rather than extensively’. He did not choose to paint His message in broad strokes so as to cover all the details of life and living. After all, such broad strokes were hardly necessary to the task. What is far more needful than detailed codification of rules for godly living is that which He stressed: A mindset. His focus, as noted, was firmly fixed on the Kingdom of God. Every message we have from Him explores what that kingdom is like, and how we citizens of that kingdom should live. While the Gospels do not present Jesus as repeating the same thing over and over again, it is not improbable in the least that He did reuse certain of His lessons, or simply repeat them over the course of the few years He was teaching. That would explain Peter’s willingness to repeat himself, because we are a forgetful people in need of constant reminder. Well, Peter had learned from the best, and had learned that he, himself, was most assuredly forgetful and needing constant reminding! Even with that, we have record of his fallible nature in this regard.

But, Jesus taught by repetition. As I said, not necessarily repeating things verbatim such as we would in rote learning: Memorize these multiplication tables, these rules of grammar, and so on. No! He is a far more masterful and creative Teacher. He seems to draw from the moment, from the scenery and events around Him and present these everyday moments as lessons about God, about the kingdom. But, the point, the focus, is constant. The image is of one thing. Like Frost, Jesus paints us a picture of that One thing that matters in many different lights, from many different angles, that we might see the whole more clearly. He teaches by repetition, yes, and this is a method that would have been perfectly familiar to His disciples. After all, most any rabbinical school would have used the same approach, and even amongst the Greeks and Romans, rote learning was quite normal.

The practice continues, as that text points out, or at least continued to the time of its writing. It certainly continues in Catholic circles, where the concept of catechism is still very much present. But, as our own pastor has been pointing out of late, catechism was hardly a foreign concept in Protestant circles until fairly recent times. The various confessions are designed for this purpose. That is in part why such materials as the Heidelberg Confession and the Westminster Confession are set forth in the form of question and answer. Even Calvin had his catechism by which to instruct, one presumes, not only fresh converts, but to remind those of long standing. I might also note Table Talk having spent last year going through the Heidelberg Confession as its daily devotional material.

So, yes, we learn well by repeated hearing, as Jesus understood and as His disciples learned to do in their ministries. Whether we ought to see this as the Jewish method of learning over against the Greek, as is often suggested today, I am not so certain. Yes, there is an effort to engage the mind more actively in the learning process to be seen in the Greek style. At least, there is an appearance of this being a more active engagement. But, then, I look at the style of Jesus’ teaching, and it is very clear that He taught in a fashion the absolutely required an engagement of the mind. He taught by repetition, yes, but not by spoon feeding. His lessons were hard enough that it took His closest disciples years to come to grips with even the basics, and a lifetime to even approach mastery. What we have, then, from the best Authority, is that catechism is a sound, even a preferred, method of instilling the articles of faith and sound doctrine.

With that settled, I turn briefly to our author, John Mark. Of the four evangelists, he is probably the least known and least knowable. There are, however, a few things about him which can be stated with certainty. We know, for instance, that he is a son of Jerusalem, born to a mother named Mary. Yes, yet another Mary. We know that at some point he became a believer, and that he was in Antioch at that point in time when Paul and Barnabus began their outreach journeys. We know he went on the first of these journeys, that he later became the cause for a breach between Paul and Barnabus. We know that while Paul rejected him for any further immediate service, he later found John Mark a most profitable companion in ministry. And, we know that he had strong connections to Peter.

After that, we start wandering into speculation, but it is, in many ways, informed speculation. It is reasonable to think that his family owned that house in which the Last Supper was observed, and in which the disciples gathered after Jesus’ death and resurrection. That his family had such a place as could accommodate 120+ guests would seem to indicate a degree of wealth. It is posited that his father was dead by the time of these events, but on what basis, I’m not entirely clear, other than that he goes unmentioned while Mary is named. But, he would have been, like his mentor Peter, a man who had lived with servants and now found himself a servant to the Master, Jesus the Christ.

If, indeed, his home was that gathering place frequented by the Apostles, it also indicates that he had ample opportunity to learn not only from Peter’s preaching, but from all of the Apostles. His being a son from a family of means is also to be found in his writing which, while in the common Greek of the day, demonstrates a certain familiarity with Latin as well. Perhaps his was a mixed family, giving him citizenship in Rome, like Paul had. Perhaps they had procured citizenship. But, whatever the case, he had three or four languages at his disposal in an age where skill in written forms of even one was not particularly common.

There is speculation that John Mark is also the young man mentioned only in his account, who fled the terrors of that night in Gethsemene wearing nothing but his linens. That is not an unreasonable speculation to make, but it is speculative. Others have suggested that the man thus described was actually the owner of the garden, having been disturbed from his slumbers by the noise of the arrest, but seeing the soldiers on edge, fled rather than press his rights. It would certainly make sense that, if this were the author being described, he would find it perfectly natural to add this bit of personally observed history into the narrative. It might seem to us unnatural to do so without slipping into the first person, as Luke does for that period when he was part of Paul’s story. But, it is a style that seems in keeping with the Apostles. None of them appears overly inclined to identify themselves quite so overtly in their accounts. They do not deny their participation, but they remain in the background of events, giving Jesus full focus.

Turning to his gospel, we have sufficient cause to believe that he wrote what he heard Peter preach. We also have evidence that this was done at the behest of his fellow church members and done with the full awareness and approval of Peter himself. The evidence for this is not merely the statement of such facts by the early fathers, but also by the way Mark’s Gospel matches the outline of Peter’s preaching as we see it in the book of Acts. Both Fausset’s and the ISBE point particularly to Acts 10:37-41 in this regard. Hardly surprising, given that this is Peter’s church we are considering, the Gospel shows clear signs of being geared for a Roman audience. Whether that audience was in Rome itself is a bigger question. Overall, the opinion appears to be that this is unlikely, that rather, he was writing either for those in Antioch or in Roman Caesarea, both scenes of Peter’s early work.

It is, then, a Gospel for Romans, written in a Roman style. This shows in the preference for ‘data over doctrine’, for ‘action over speech’. It shows in the simple, energetic style of the narrative. It shows, also, in the use of Latin terms in preference to Greek for certain details. Certainly, it is a “Gospel of deeds”, as the ISBE describes it. That is clear with even a cursory reading. Everything moves swiftly from event to event, and little time is spent on covering what Jesus actually taught. Far more in focus is the impact of that teaching, and the clear evidence that God was moving in this Man.

All that being said, there is something interesting about the characteristics of Mark’s Gospel. Fausset’s notes that he is “more inclined to cover miracles than teachings.” I would point out that this inclination continues in the debated material at the end of the book. Unlike Matthew, who focuses squarely on the content of that mission assigned to the Apostles and through them to us, Mark shifts focus to what accompanies the mission. Go and preach, yes, but whereas that is given one line, two are spent on the discussion of how their message shall be authenticated by signs. They will cast out demons, speak in new tongues, deal with serpents, drink poison safely, heal the sick… Signs and wonders!

Many grab hold of that as further argument for the continuation of charismatic gifts into our own day. If these were declared by Jesus Himself as the authenticators of His true spokesmen, by what reason do we suppose these things can no longer happen? Indeed, oughtn’t we to be just as insistent for such validations today? I do think, as much as the gifts may be abused or misused in our day, that they continue. I think they are horribly mismanaged, partly because they are denied by so much of the Church and therefore, solid teaching as to their proper place and practice is all but non-existent. But, there are legitimate gifts used legitimately. It would be rather hard for me to deny that fact given my own history. If God chooses to present to me such convicting evidence as He has on other topics, evidence so clear as to make my own error plain, then certainly, I shall change my views to match His instruction. But, thus far, no such evidence has been presented.

In fact, even this morning, the devotional from Table Talk is very firmly focused on the matter of Pentecostal understanding and why it’s wrong. And yet, the evidence for that statement is largely circumstantial or anecdotal. You don’t see Calvin speaking in tongues, ergo it clearly did not persist! For, if God was going to give anybody tongues, certainly it would have been Calvin or Martin Luther, somebody in that great reawakening. Hmm. I could note some of the happenings around that period we call the Great Awakening, and, while I don’t think we ever find Edwards describing such a phenomena directly, it does seem pretty clear that there were phenomena of some form going on.

As concerns Mark, though, I find myself firmly agreeing with the assessment of Fausset’s and the ISBE as to the place miracles held in the ministry of Jesus. This is particularly suited to Mark’s theme of Christ as Servant. See, the miracles are presented not as simply being the outgrowth of His compassion. Rather, the miracles themselves are intended to serve as instruction. This becomes clear in the aftermath of those two occasions when He has fed the multitudes. “Do you still not understand?” There was a point to it. It wasn’t just a show, and it wasn’t just to attract the crowds.

Here is the summary statement I take from Fausset’s article: “His works prepare for His words rather than His words for His works.” When I compare and contrast that with what seems standard practice in the Charismatic movement, the problem becomes clear. In so many ways, the typical service in such quarters operates in exactly the opposite direction. All is done in hopes of preparing for a miracle, in hopes of stirring up some supernatural display. The Word, to the degree that it is preached soundly, is preached with a focus that is superficially like that which Mark displays. Look what God has done and expect Him to do it right here, right now! If signs and wonders should accompany the preacher, then let us see signs and wonders, that they may know we have the Truth! But, this misses the whole thrust of what Jesus was doing and why.

Jesus was not come down to entertain and impress the locals. Indeed, we have numerous occasions from His own ministry when folks came looking for signs and wonders from Him, and He absolutely refused. You shall be given no signs, He says, and not only that, but your demands for them mark you out for the sinners you are! Should this not put a bit of a damper on our desire for signs and wonders? He also, as I shall doubtless revisit before this is over, makes clear that the workers of the Antichrist will be just as bedecked with signs and wonders, although theirs will be false. The signs and wonders are not, then, the proof. They will accompany the True, but also the False. Their value is limited as authentication goes. Their value is, as Zhodiates notes in defining the term for miracles, not in themselves, but in what they signify, what they point to.

It seems to me that we could sum up the place miracles have in Mark’s and Peter’s view of things in this quote from the ISBE. “The power of faith, within the will of God, is limitless.” That is a great truth, and it is one that often seems to be missing from the understanding of those most inclined towards the supernatural aspects of Christianity. It is like prayer in this regard, which is hardly surprising, for prayer, to be of any value, must come of faith. But, the power of prayer is not that of bending God to our will. It is powerful only in so much as it is ‘within the will of God’. Prayer that seeks that which is not within His will is vanity and wind. Exercises of ‘faith’, claims of prophecy or words of knowledge or other such exercises of spiritual gifts have value and validity solely where they lie within the will of God. There is a sad propensity, however, to presume that faith is necessarily in His will, that those who practice the charismata necessarily do so in full accord with His will.

To be sure, there are congregations where some degree of order is retained in the exercise of the gifts, but the problem is with the human nature of those wielding the gifts. As with any form of power set in the hands of fallen man, there is a propensity for abuse. There is a propensity for such a mindset as supposes that might makes right. I have the gift, therefore I must necessarily be right in my use of the gift. God would not give me that which I might use wrongly. Of course, such an understanding fails to grasp even the basics of the Fall, but we slip into that view nonetheless. I am as capable of doing so as the next.

We need, both in prayer and in any thought of exercising gifts of the Spirit, to remain much more mindful that we are to be directed of God, not seeking to direct Him. We daren’t fall into pagan habits, and treating God as just one more idol we can manipulate if we just have the proper words and rituals. And, don’t doubt but that we try to do just that! We are ever so careful to make certain our prayers end with that critical clause, “in Jesus’ name”, as if that seals the deal and forces God to comply with our demands. No, it is not always done with that mindset, but it slides into it. How I cringe to hear believers, clear believers, talking to God with words of demand. “You must!” “You have to do this, Lord!” Have we forgotten Who He Is? Who we are?

If this Gospel is written on the theme of Christ as Servant, it is also written in the clearest of understanding that we, as His disciples, are His servants. It is written by those who, as employers or owners of servants themselves, and in a culture where servitude and slavery were simple facts of life. They knew what a servant’s mindset was to be: Unquestioning obedience. A servant was not employed to pursue his own ends, but to serve the master, to anticipate the master. To be a servant is to be wholly submitted to the will of another. That’s the whole point! The Apostles got it. How often they introduce themselves not as lord and master over the Church that was left under their supervision, but as bondservants of Christ, slaves to the Master, having no say of their own, no authority of their own, but having great power of faith, within the will of God. So it continues to us. We, too, can have limitless power of faith, but only insofar as it is faith within the will of God, and not willful attempts at manipulating God to our own ends. The moment the servant seeks to be master, he has set aside all of that little authority he might have had.

I suppose we must ask whether the theme Mark takes up truly is that of Christ as Servant. Having just taught on Mark, my fellow teacher noted at the outset that other commentaries look at Mark as presenting Christ the King. Yet in the article I have been considering, the distinction is quite the opposite. There, it is posited that Matthew has taken up the task of showing us the Messiah King, whereas Mark gives us instead Messiah as Servant of God. Admittedly, they note, he does make clear that this Servant is the King, but still He is shown primarily as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah’s prophecies.

Looking back at my summary perspectives back at the outset of this study of the Gospels, I noted that Mark was far more focused on the Kingdom of God, paring Jesus’ teachings down to those addressing this topic. So, then, we might contemplate the distinction between Matthew and Mark as that of presenting the King and that of presenting His Kingdom. In reality, though, I don’t think we need find Matthew and Mark quite so distinct in what it is they are trying to present. It might well be that the more applicable distinction is that of who they sought to reach and when.

Along those lines, there is the suggestion that Matthew, writing for the earliest period of the nascent Church, was writing primarily for Jews, and his material is aimed therefore at a Jewish mindset. Thus, the focus on prophetic fulfillment, and of demonstrating the intentional continuity between the Old Covenant and the New. Mark, on the other hand, is clearly writing for a non-Jewish audience, and the hints are that said audience was Roman in composition, although local enough to know the lay of the land. So, then, probably writing sometime around 50 AD, and quite possibly for the people of Caesarea, which had become, as one article puts it, a ‘second center of gospel preaching’.

This is a reasonable theory. Does it preclude the two authors having their own particular themes, their own specific aspect of Messiah in mind? No. Indeed, one could go so far as to say it is all but inevitable that they would differ in such regards. I am not certain I find that focus on the Servant in Mark, but perhaps that is simply because I’m not really looking for it, as such. What is fairly clear is that for the apostles themselves, it was far easier to see Jesus the King. They had that image down pretty early on. His aspect as Suffering Servant? That did not really come clear to them until He had returned from the grave and explained it to them. Even though He had set out to teach them of this part of His mission all along, it seems their view of the King and their expectations of that King prevented them from seeing or accepting this more humble side of Christ. The King as Servant? It’s not fitting! Even at the Last Supper we see that response, although I would note we do not see that in Mark’s account.

As to that other commentary which saw Mark presenting the King to us, it is easy enough to perceive such a theme in his writing. We need but consider the opening and closing passages of this gospel. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1). There he begins his message, and here at the end we read, “He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” So, the Son upon the throne. Surely, then, He was Prince from birth, being Son of the Ruler over all creation. And surely, at the end, having taken His place upon the throne, the throne at God’s right hand, He is proclaimed King in His own right. Just as Matthew had his bookend statements of God with us, then, we have Mark with bookend statements about this King of kings.

This serves as a fine point at which to transition to some final observations on the gospel of Mark more generally. But, before proceeding, come back to that opening phrase: “The beginning of the gospel”. This is a striking choice for an introduction. What captured me in this final reading of the book was that this is not a toss-off, preface-like sentence. It’s actually rather interesting to observe the various openings by which the Evangelists start their accounts. Matthew launches straight into the genealogy of Jesus, and his first words would seem to apply strictly to that genealogy rather than the text as a whole, in spite of reading, ‘The book of the genealogy’. The book is not strictly genealogy. In fact, only the opening paragraphs deal with genealogy at all. Unless, of course, the genealogy Matthew truly has in mind is that of the Son of God. Mark, on the other hand, introduces us to the beginning of the gospel.

Luke indicates how he hopes to set the record straight, perhaps by way of excising from his accounting the sorts of apocryphal tales that had cropped up over the years. It’s as though he is sending Theophilus a screen by which to filter out the impurities from any other teachings he may be hearing, which is most assuredly a wonderful aspect of Scripture. Here is the Truth. If any comes with a different tale to tell, measure against this and reject what does not conform.

Then, of course, there is John, who comes with a somewhat higher concept, presenting us the Living Word of God Who Was and Is and ever shall be God. Here we are given immediate data as to the eternality of Christ, and he spends the better part of his account explaining the significance of what has come to pass. It’s almost a contrast of past (Matthew), present (Mark, Luke), and future (John). Here’s what was fulfilled. Here’s how He did it, what He did, and here’s what it means for those of us who remain.

But, Mark: Mark presents us with that great thought that this is the beginning of the gospel. He is not merely indicating that this is page one, in case you dropped your codex and couldn’t remember what order the material was in. No, this is a statement about the entirety of his material. What is recorded here, from the arrival of John the Baptist to open up this period of prophetic fulfillments right up to that closing description of Christ ascended and His Apostles about the business of preaching: All of that is the beginning of the gospel, the introductory effort of the Good News. The Good News continues, as the Christ Who IS the Good News continues. What He achieved on the Cross, that greatest and most necessary of blessings for mankind, did not spend its full efficacy on this one period of history. It was not just for the Galileans, or the Jews more generally. It was not something that had limited benefit for the disciples then present. It continues. It continues to the local Gentile populations. It continues far beyond Israel’s borders, even to the ends of the earth. “They went out and preached everywhere.” It continues down through the ages. It continues, though Mark does not take us to this point, until He should return in the same fashion as He departed.

Actually, Mark does give us a glimpse of that later point, delivered by Jesus Himself: “You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power” (done), “and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Mk 14:62). Is that latter half equally completed in His ascension, or does this point us to His return? I think the latter, but His indication that the high priest He was speaking to would themselves see that event gives me pause. I can reconcile the thought, though, by noting that at His return, all shall indeed see Him with no room left for doubt. I would normally associate that thought with those then abiding on the earth. But, then, we know that the dead in Christ shall rise to meet Him in that moment, and there is also the established fact of Judgment for those who are not in Christ. This is also a matter that touches both the quick and the dead as measured in that moment. So, yes, in that sense it can certainly be said, I should think, that Caiaphas and Annas will see His return, and then have eternity to rue the day and their great folly in striking down their King.

It seems no sooner had this King arrived in His kingdom then opposition arose. It arose, sad to say, from the halls of religion, the very place which ought most to have been attuned and attentive to the coming of the King. They had complaints about everything this Jesus was doing, and there was a reason for their complaints. That reason was not to be found in the particulars of the issues they would raise, though. These were, in many ways, but a smokescreen. The real reason was that to do things the King’s way was hard. They had made themselves an easy religion. They had made their own role easy, because they had by and large limited their efforts to working with the faithful.

This whole attitude is shown up for what it is when Jesus responds to their issues with Him meeting with publicans and sinners. “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk 2:17). Now, this is not to say that those who have heard His call do not need further instruction. There is a clear command to not simply make converts, but to make disciples, and making disciples requires that there be those who instruct by way of both instruction and example. However, it is easy for us to decide that discipling, being a life-long effort, is the sum total required of us. It is far easier, after all, to be a teacher to a receptive and sympathetic class of believers than to go bring the gospel before a people who not only don’t care to hear it, but are actively opposed to it.

This is a difficult thing for me to face, for I very much prefer the former duty, that of aiding in the maturing of those who have already heard the call of Christ and answered. This does seem to be my calling and by degree my forte. But, if I allow this to be my sole effort, then I think I must recognize that I have failed to heed my own Teacher. “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician.” Am I, as a disciple of the Physician, necessarily and unavoidably a physician as well? It would seem reasonable to suppose that this must follow. The disciple is not greater than his teacher, to be sure; but the disciple, in being so joined to his teacher, has determined that this teacher is the one whose way of life he would follow, whose character and habit he would develop as his own. If, then, the Teacher is a Physician, should I expect that by following Him I would become, say, an architect? I should think that an odd sort of apprenticeship.

To follow Jesus must necessarily mean that we are not simply tagging along like His little brother, but that we are going where He goes, doing as He does, learning – be it ever so slowly – to think as He thinks. If, then, He went to the lost as a primary aspect of His own activity, then surely we must go and do likewise. But, we are not so very different from that rich young ruler. He thought himself doing well in the ways of the Lord, but down deep, he knew there was something amiss. Confronted with the real demands of righteousness, he discovered himself incapable, though the sorrow of that discovery was great indeed. In his case, the issue was his wealth. He could not conceive of selling all he had to give to the poor. He could not conceive of departing his comfort zone to truly follow this wandering Rabbi.

This too may be more of an issue for me than I care to accept. But, the more immediate thought has to do with this question of discipleship versus evangelism. Discipleship is easier, at least for me. Evangelism is risky. It entails presenting a reasonable case for the Gospel to people who are at the least skeptical, at most hostile, potentially violently so, to the Gospel and even to the very idea of God’s existence. At least, this is how it seems to me. But, then I look at the actual work Jesus was doing by going to these publicans and sinners, and it is clear, particularly in Matthew’s example, that they were not hostile or skeptical at all. They were hungry – starving! They wanted nothing more than to know God’s love. The problem wasn’t with them. It was with us! We were withholding the one thing that would feed them.

So, then, I see a two-fold issue for myself. The first lies in being rid of these misconceptions as to the goals of evangelism. It is not, at least not necessarily, the purpose of evangelism to get in the face of the determined opposition with the truth of the Gospel. There’s a time and a place for that, and it may be more reasonable to say that this task goes to the apologist. No, the purpose of evangelism is to make the Gospel known and available to those who have been longing for it, but have been given no news thereof. These might be split into two categories, probably more, but I’ll settle for two at the moment.

The first are those who simply have not heard at all. They may be populations in distant lands or near, who for reasons of language or culture have simply never known anyone who would speak to them of the Gospel and its Christ. This group we are inclined to think of as being in the purview of the missionary. We associate them with wild lands and remote where modern man has not yet set foot. But, that is overly limiting. Even if we go so far as to include the poorer sections of our own society, the slums and ghettos, or maybe the backwoods communities, we have not yet understood the scope as it applies to our day. There are those who, by reason of parental choice or societal influence or what have you, who have grown up in this post-Christian nation without ever actually hearing the Gospel. They may have been raised as atheists, or simply raised with no religious instruction whatsoever. They may have heard discussions about Christianity, but always from an unbelieving perspective. They may even be in what pass for churches, for there is many a church that, if they mention Christ at all, describe for their congregants a Christ who never was. And some of these are not the committed atheists or ambivalent unbelievers we suppose them to be. They are lost and they know it. They are starving and they know it. What they don’t know is where to find food and directions. Whom shall God send?

The second group are sadder still to consider, for they are the ones that the Church has deemed unreachable. We know we ought not consider any to be in that class, and yet, we establish such a class. It may be all but unconscious, but it’s there. It’s always there. For the Pharisees, it was these tax-collectors, prostitutes and the like. There was no hope for their like, and so there was no point in trying to draw them to God. Who is it today? Perhaps it’s the Muslims that we think cannot possibly be brought to Christ, and yet they are brought! They are brought to Him even though they know it to be a life-threatening decision on their part to follow. Maybe it’s the gang members, those rough characters with their metal-festooned and tattooed bodies, doing their best to radiate a dangerous persona. How could we accept the likes of them in our pews? Maybe it’s the homeless addicts wandering the sidewalks of the city. Seriously, they’ve clearly rejected life in general. What chance that they’re going to hear the Gospel and respond.

I would almost guarantee that, if we seriously consider our own perspectives about people, we will discover in ourselves a list by which we filter prospects. There are those we will think are in reach of the Gospel and those we think beyond its reach. We know better. We understand the idea of none being so far down that He can’t lift them up, none so far astray that He cannot bring them back to the Way. We know, for there was a time when we were in the very categories we now consider such dim prospects. I once was lost, but now I’m found! I once wanted anything but Christianity to satisfy my spiritism. I once lived and behaved exactly like those who are so scary to me now, who I would rather cross the street than encounter face to face. Bring the Gospel to them? You must be kidding! Welcome them into the congregation? Unthinkable! And yet, it is exactly for these that Christ came, exactly for these that He trains His disciples, because they are the most desperately in need of the Physician.

Lord Jesus, I must stop at this point and come to You for my own healing, for as I have written so I know myself to be. I have developed my list of who can be saved and who cannot, and I have done, it seems, everything I can to avoid having to deal with unbelievers. You know this. I know this. And, as I have been considering here, I know that much of my thinking comes not from Truth, but from misconceptions. Yet, I know this as well: That I am powerless to change except it be that You so will and work in me that I am changed. I come then both to repent of this unwillingness I find in myself to bring Your Word to bear when the opportunity presents itself, and to seek that You would indeed bring this change of heart to me, that I might burn with the desire to seek and save the lost. This is, after all, Who You are. It is who You have called me to be. So, Lord, would You cause this heart of mine to care as You care, to love as You love, to act where You act? I know without doubt that I love You, as I know without doubt that You love me. Yet, I know myself a rather poor servant, in spite of such things as I do. There is more. God, let me be willing to go where You say to go, and to speak what You give me to speak.

[06/29/13] I might note, at this point, that this is not so much an effort to seek out the binding theme of Mark’s Gospel and expound upon it as it is a pursuit of certain items that caught my eye as I reread the text. One thing that surprised me was this: “And as soon as He was alone, His followers, along with the twelve, began asking Him about the parables” (Mk 4:10). Somehow, it seems I missed the fact that it was not just Jesus plus Twelve who were discussing the parables. It was His followers along with the Twelve. That simple point, so easily missed as we hurry on to the explanation of the parable of the seed and the sower, completely changes the texture of the event. I had always pictured this as thirteen men seated in the living room, chairs in a circle, or maybe, being younger men, seated on the floor as they listened to their Teacher explain the lesson in more detail. Perhaps some of the women were there as well, hanging back a bit, but it was a small group gathering in my view. But, now? Yes, the Twelve are there, but they are reduced to being part of the crowd. It’s His followers who came to hear, not just the select few who would be so fundamental to establishing His church.

So, then, the scene is changed. In fact, the phrasing becomes particularly curious to me. “As soon as He was alone, His followers began asking.” Obviously, if they were still there to ask, He was hardly alone, was He? The point, then, is something different. The point is that they are down to the disciples. The onlookers, the spectators, the skeptics: They have all gone on home. Those that came for entertainment, maybe to see the miracle man, hear this latest novelty (not so unlike the Greeks, really), had their enjoyment, such as it was, and departed. The audience for His teaching was a mixed crowd, just as holds in our own congregations. Many were there in earnest desire for the Truth, but many were there for lesser motives. What has happened is not that Jesus has departed and the faithful few have followed Him. What has happened is that the casual observers have got bored and gone home. The crowds have dispersed, but more in the manner of the chaff blowing away from the grains of wheat. What are left are those who came with serious desire to learn from the Master, and He is more than willing that they should indeed learn.

On this occasion, He was teaching them about the matter of preaching the Gospel, using that image of the man sowing seed after the fashion of any observable farmer of that day. Seed everywhere, no real tilling and prepping the garden; just cast the seed where you will. Some of it is bound to grow well, whatever becomes of the rest. It’s just not really worth the effort to be more careful about it. Seed is abundant, and however much is wasted, the return on what’s left will more than make up for it. Sounds kind of callous when said that way, but that’s the gist of it. When you go out with the Gospel, don’t spend all your time looking for that receptive ear. Don’t waste your time assessing who’s receptive and who’s not. You’d never figure it out anyway. Your mission is not to prejudge, but to preach with abandon to any ear that will sit still long enough. The results are not your responsibility, the sowing is.

There is more to learn from that parable, though, than simply that we ought to be generous and impartial in proclaiming the Gospel. For, Jesus spends a great deal of time describing the nature of the various soils into which the seed is cast. The parable and its explanation are sufficiently familiar that I needn’t spend all that much time on those soils. But, the one type that really jumps out at me in reviewing the book is the weedy soil. Here I find my own greatest cause for concern. Consider the reason given for the poor growth in that soil. “The worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mk 4:19). Indeed! This is life in America. This is life in the Western world more generally. We are at one and the same time pummeled by the daily deluge of worries, and yet buoyed up by false confidence in our relative wealth.

Listen, you don’t have to be rich to be led astray by the deceitfulness of riches. We have houses, and we are convinced in spite of the historical record that those houses will stand so long as we may live. We have jobs and we are convinced in our own heads that we are so indispensable as to render our jobs secure so long as we choose to remain. For all that, you know, we have God on our side. What could happen? Who could boot me from my job if He’s in charge? What tree would dare to fall on my house when I belong to Him? Perhaps our false confidence is not quite so bold or boldly deluded as that. Perhaps it is simply that we are comfortable in knowing where our next meal is coming from, how we shall pay the bills this month, and so on. Even if we are living paycheck to paycheck, we know that next paycheck is coming and when, so we’re not particularly concerned with the next week or the next month or even the next year.

Yet, we also see the state of society around us. If anything is inclined to catch us up in the worries of the world, that will do it. Just think of the last few weeks and months. Every day, it seems, we are given news of yet another apparent government overreach. Every day we find our privacy has long been something of a joke. Every day we find further evidence of our own politicians proclaiming the good as evil and the evil as good. Worried? We have every cause to be worried, if we are looking at it in terms of our own strength, our own innate capacity to achieve any sort of change.

We need to be asking, though: Are we pursuing the right sorts of activities (assuming we pursue anything beyond hand wringing) by which to prompt the change we desire? I have been in churches which encouraged political engagement on the issues. I have known those who will go out and seek by their presence and their words to change the minds of those seeking out the local abortionist. I have seen us gathered in protest at this proposed law, phoning our congressmen to discuss that one. But, is this the instruction we are given? Is this the Biblical mandate? I am not suggesting that we, as Christians, should completely eschew such activities. Far from it! Indeed, would that we had more sound believers seeking office and strong enough in their faith to survive office unscathed. What I do see, though, is that these tactics are by and large futile, and they are futile because we ignore the more important battleground, we ignore our own instruction manual!

What are we to do? How are we to alter this culture? Well, how did twelve relatively unimportant men do it the first time? What was it turned Roman society on its head, as the opposition put it? It wasn’t in riots and demonstrations and petitions to the governor. It was a much simpler thing. They went out and preached. And what did they preach? They preached “that men should repent” (Mk 6:12). And, they preached the Gospel, the Gospel of which this text I am reviewing was but the beginning. Good news! Yes, you have brought an eternal weight of legal penalty upon yourself, and yes, it is against God you have sinned, and His vengeance is sure. But, that’s not the end of it! See, there was His Son – is His Son. He came here. He chose of His own free will to experience this life we live in the same way we must live it, as a man. But, He lived a life devoid of sin. Oh, He knew temptation well enough, faced everything we have ever faced and more besides. But, He did not succumb to the weakness of flesh that so swiftly leads us astray. No! He reached the end of His days still perfectly obedient to God. And what came of it? We killed Him. The very priests of this God Whose Son He Is killed Him! Can you imagine? But, look! This was no surprise to God. In fact, it was His idea. This death of His Son was necessary, and it was necessary precisely because you and I, and all mankind for that matter, had already fallen under the eternal penalty that is sin’s due. The wages of sin is death, and a death most vehemently to be abhorred. Somebody had to pay for our crimes, and had it been you, had it been me, we would spend eternity in an agonizing, never ending process of dying, never to know relief. But, Jesus! The Son of God came and died not for His sins, for He had no sin, but for ours! And, wonder of wonders! The Father was pleased to accept His payment of our penalty. Good news! There is redemption. There is reconciliation. We need not cringe from God and hide away from Him. He has seen to our need, provided for our weakness, and has gone far beyond this! He has written out your adoption papers, wants you to be part of His family. Yes, you! You, who has been opposing Him and bucking His rightful authority all these years! He offers to forgive your crimes, forget your sentence, and make you part of the royal household in spite of your record. And, with that comes a life as eternal as your death should have been. What is required on your part, that you might have this much to be preferred future? Repent. That is all. Repent and come home.

Listen! That’s what reshaped Roman society. That, my friends, is what will succeed in reshaping our own. Legislation isn’t going to do it. Legislation has never managed to shape a society. It may, by sheer force and tyrannical abuse, manage to subdue a society for a season, but it cannot shape that society. Thus far, as concerns our own situation, it still holds that society shapes its governance, much though we decry it as being not nearly so representative as it could be. No, the sad truth is that it is representative. We just don’t care much for the image mirrored in that government we have elected for ourselves. But, it’s not elections shall change it. It’s not a better set of laws, or even a return to a more traditional understanding of the Constitution. It’s not purging the halls of education and entertainment and replacing those presently holding sway with others whose ideology is more to our tastes. If we would change the culture, it’s the culture we must change, not the institutions. This is where, I think, we have missed it entirely. To insinuate one’s views via the institutions is the method preferred by the opposition, but that is in part because they have not the tools at their disposal that have been placed in the hands of the Church. Preach and pray! These are the two chief weapons given us, and they are weapons fit to lead us to overwhelming victory if we will but take them in hand.

Our problem is that we’ve rather lost sight of the power of prayer. It’s a nice practice. It’s not unlike meditation, as we pursue it. Or, if it’s a more congregational sort of opportunity, maybe it’s a chance to practice a bit of oratorical skill. But, it’s prayer without conviction. I’m not sure we really think God is listening anymore. Not as a rule. There are certainly those who are wholly and absolutely convinced as to the power of prayer. But, I fear they are the exception in the Church rather than the rule. I know for my own part that, though I hear examples of powerfully answered prayers, though I see evidence of such answers on occasion, if not so high on the scale of powerfulness, yet my own prayers often lack the conviction of knowing God is listening, knowing He is going to answer. Indeed, I would have to say that there are some prayers that I quietly hope He isn’t going to answer, because if He does, it’s going to mean change in my life. It’s change for the better, yes, but it’s change that, because of the sinfulness of my own flesh, is not as welcome as it should be.

I could simply go back to this matter of spreading the Gospel. I pray for the wisdom and the will to do so, yet the very idea of doing so makes me edgy, and I have to confess I don’t really expect to be changed in that regard. I am me, and in spite of understanding God’s sovereignty, in spite of knowing Him as my Lord, my human mind remains convinced that the me I am is not really subject to change. Well, there’s a need to repent right there, isn’t there? Men should repent. God’s people should repent. After all, who do you suppose they were going out and preaching to? It wasn’t yet the Gentiles. It wasn’t even the Samaritans. They were going to God’s own. We, who count ourselves as God’s people today, must constantly hear the very same message. Repent and be saved! Repent and know forgiveness. Repent, give all you have of sin, and then come, follow Me.

There is another aspect of this particular passage which caught me up as I read through Mark’s account, and that is the way in which this first effort by the disciples to go out preaching is interwoven with the accounts of Jesus feeding the masses. Can I just offer a brief juxtaposition here? As I’ve been considering, we have that statement from Mark 6:12. They went out and preached. Then, not so very much later, although Mark takes a moment to inject the story of the tragic death of John the Baptist, they are amongst the crowds again, and the day has grown late, and the disciples are expressing concern about those crowds. They need to head out so they can reach town before nightfall, get something to eat. And how does Jesus react? “You give them to eat” (Mk 6:37). Ok. Two items: They went out to preach. Jesus, on this occasion: “You give them to eat.” Then, as they are crossing the sea, and they have their minds blown by Him calling a halt to the wind and wave that were threatening their passage, Mark tells us that “they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves” (Mk 6:52).

OK. What insight ought they have gained? Well, certainly they had been watching Jesus doing some rather amazing things in regard to multiplying their provisions. But, were they supposed to learn that He was some sort of nature God, is this what they were expected to take away? No. Was the issue that they should have known He would take care of them? Perhaps. But, I find a certain connection between the matter of them being sent out to preach, and the command He gives them to see to feeding the people themselves, rather than sending them away. Take that in connection with the famous account of Peter’s restoration. “Tend My sheep” (Jn 21:17). See to their needs, minister to them. See to it that they know the things I have taught you. Preach to them! Give them the Gospel, the Good News. Disciple them! Make sure they really understand Me, and aren’t worshiping some vain imagination of their own. Make sure they learn what it means to be a Christian, how to live a Christian life, how to go out, like you are being sent out, to preach this Gospel. I have made you fishers of men. Now, go and train these fish to be fishers themselves.

This is the bread that is truly needed. Food is good, yes. And, in fairness, this earthly life is good, for all its troubles. It was not given to us as a torment, but as a good. It is not the best, given what we have done with it, but it is good. There is that higher matter, though. There is the bread that will keep our bodies going for another day, and then there is the Bread of Life. The spiritual is not at odds with the physical, but it is I dare say, of greater import. I don’t wish to get all gnostic here, and I won’t. But, we are too inclined to focus on strictly physical means of pursuing Kingdom goals, and they simply will not work, not in isolation from the spiritual backing that is our chief weapon and tool. Programs without prayer will fail. Preaching without prayer, quite frankly, will fail. There are those who would promote praise and worship as being the chief tool of the Church, but even that will go nowhere except there be prayerful faith behind the effort. And, let us be assured in understanding that prayer is – must be – a two-way street. It is not enough to pour our wants and complaints and desires out upon God’s ear and think we have good and truly prayed. No, prayer is also an opportunity to hear God. Yes, we have the Word of Scripture by which to hear Him. But, without the quickening of the Spirit, it will pass us by, just as Jesus’ words passed by the disciples so often. We need that time of prayerful contemplation, not the outward bound prayers of request, but the inbound prayers of direction. God, what does it mean? God, how should I proceed? God, what would You like to tell me today?

The prayer Jesus modeled for us includes the requests that God would lead us, that His will would be done. Again, there are assuredly sufficient instructions in the manual that we may develop a fine sense of His will as generally applied and be guided by that. But, the specifics? The particulars for here and now in the situations we face? How shall He lead, if we will not seek to be led? How shall we be led if we will not listen? And, how shall we listen, if not in prayerful communion with God Himself? The Word is our foundation and our surety. Let there be no doubt about that! But, there is nothing in the written Word which precludes this prayerful communion. Indeed, there is everything in that written Word to indicate we ought more faithfully to pursue it.

[06/30/13] Turning to what is something of a theme in the teaching of Jesus, I want to consider another confluence of passages. I begin with the point as Jesus clearly states it. “All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mk 7:23). This will be familiar as coming from that occasion when the Pharisees were once more scandalized by the way Jesus’ followers ignored the various additions of Pharisaic practice. Look! They didn’t wash their hands! Surely, they are sinners. Look! They had the audacity to pick some wheat grains out there as they were walking, and it’s the Sabbath. How can they consider themselves holy men? You don’t see us doing that, do you? Jesus, in effect, is saying, no we don’t see you doing it. You’re too careful for that. But, then, outward acts mean little if the internal state is corrupt and dead.

This feeds into that later issue between Jesus and His disciples after the feeding of the masses. He speaks to them about avoiding the leaven of the Pharisees, and their thoughts go straight to checking their food supplies. Oh! We forgot to get bread before we left, what idiots! That must be what He’s talking about. But, Jesus instead points their thinking back to those two occasions where He had fed thousands from next to nothing, and then says, “Do you not yet understand?” (Mk 8:21). What is it they should understand, though? Is it simply that they’re hanging about with a miracle worker, and ought not to be concerned in the least as to mundane matters of food? Perhaps. That is certainly an immediate concern, as they measure things. But, is it the concern Jesus has?

Maybe His concern is more along the lines of, “Don’t you yet understand Who I AM?” If they did, then certainly there would be little enough concern on their part for provision. But, then, though God provides, and teaches us not to be anxious about our provision, yet He also teaches us to be industrious and provide for ourselves as He gives provision. So, I really don’t think that’s the point He’s after making here.

I find myself brought back to that inward state versus outward practice as being the concern that is on Jesus’ mind. He has spoken of the leaven of the Pharisees, and leaven is almost always symbolic of sin’s corrupting influence. Leaven also has the characteristic of being hidden away within the very thing it is corrupting. That dough may look relatively unchanged on the outside. It might look just like unleavened dough. But, the fact of the matter is that the leaven has wormed its way through the whole mass. So it is with sin. The outward practice of the Pharisees might look holy and acceptable. But, their inward state? It’s in worse shape than with those they think excluded from all hope of redemption! The average homeless addict out on the streets has a better state of soul than they, and this is partly because that addict has long since tossed all thought of appearances. He has nothing but his inward state.

So, then, when Jesus speaks of this inward corrupting influence of sin, that which proceeds from within, and the disciples hear nothing but concern about dinner, that which goes into the man, it’s not surprising that Jesus would wonder, “Do you not yet understand?” Truly, it’s amazing the amount of patience He displays in regard to His disciples, for it seems they never did understand. Even when they grasped the Truth for a moment, it was but seconds later that they had returned to error. And, let us not suppose ourselves superior! Indeed, consider how long after the sermon it will be before you can no longer recall the point that was made. Or, consider how soon after praying about this issue or that in your practice of faith you have returned to the exact sin you were just praying about. We are like that in our fallen state, wholly incapable of compliance with the God we seek to serve. I was going to write ‘almost wholly incapable’ but the truth is that even crediting us with that slim bit of ‘almost’ is overestimating ourselves.

And here, we too, might do well to hear the question, “Do you not yet understand?” We do, and yet we don’t. We recognize our weakness when forced to consider. But, it is takes less than a second for our eyes to be blinded to it once more, as we go forth in our own strength. We know beyond a shadow of doubt that we are utterly dependent on the indwelling God of Creation, the Spirit working within, if we are to have anything at all good in ourselves. Yet, should we see some evidence of that good, how quickly we pat ourselves on the back. How hard it is for us to consider that this was not our doing.

Further, we too have our tendency to focus on the externals. Come see us this Sunday! We, at least of a certain generation, will likely be dressed and groomed rather better than normal. This is not a bad thing, per se. Indeed, for many, it is an effort to show honor to the Lord. For others, though, it’s more of a cloaking device, seeking to hide the real condition. And this is but the least of our deceits. Ask your brother how he is doing, and the odds are strongly in your favor that the reply will be that he’s fine, all is well, couldn’t be better. And this will transpire even with those you know full well have been facing tremendous difficulties.

There are worse matters. We will neglect to pray for days on end, and yet come into the house of God with all the confidence of having been on constant communication. We will have neglected His word, failed to give Him a thought during the lion’s share of the week, and yet come into the house of God seeking to put the best face on it. But, God’s not impressed. He could care less if our singing is done in four part harmony with virtuoso performances turned in by one and all. He could care less if we have orchestrated the congregation at large and instructed them as to their parts. He could care less for the oratory fineries and skills of the preacher. All of these are fine things, but they are not the thing. Oh, we must preach! Be in no doubt of that. It is our chiefest purpose apart from loving and enjoying God in the first place.

And how are we doing with that? Do we love God in more than word? Do we enjoy Him when things are a tad difficult for us? Truly, I think many of us will say we do, and we’ll mean it. But, if we are entirely truthful, we shall also, like Martin Luther before us, acknowledge that there are times when we are far from loving God, actually hating Him and rather foolishly wishing He’d just leave us alone. May it never be! But, surely, when we are sinning and we know it, the last thing we wish to be contemplating is that Jesus Himself has said, “I am with you always.” We don’t want Him there to witness our failure. Wait for us to but the church face back on, Jesus. Wait until I’m back amongst my brethren, then we can meet. But, not here. Not when I’m trying to fit in. It’s so awkward.

You know, we like to think this is an issue that only the teens deal with, but it’s not. We continue to have this desire to fit in, to be part of the gang. In our workplaces, we would like to be known as the one everybody can work with, the one everybody turns to. And, we should be! But, that should not require that we feign worldliness in an effort to be acceptable. Truth be told, we don’t have to do much feigning in that regard, do we? But, we are far better served to practice righteousness. In fact, if we must put on our church face, it would seem we would make far better use of it were it worn at work than we can wearing it at church. If there’s one place where sinfulness in a believer ought to be understood as pretty normal, it’s going to be amongst our fellow believers. They face the same things, have the same failings, or near enough to. Yet, we expend so much energy trying to fool one another. We expend so much concern because surely brother so and so has his sanctity together. Just look at him! It’s clear that he and God are like this. Me? I’m so far from that ideal yet. But, do you know, brother so and so is looking at you with the same foolish thoughts and anxieties.

We are shocked, shocked!, when we hear of a believer falling, particularly should it be a pastor. How can that be? Clearly, this was no man of God, whatever we may have thought before. But, come on! We have only to consider Peter, only to consider ourselves, to know there is nothing at all shocking here. If anything is shocking in the event, it’s that we haven’t done it ourselves. A quick glance inside would likely reveal a desire, and it may be only our fears that have kept us on the straight and narrow. But, Peter does give us a fine example when he responds to the news that Jesus is expecting to be killed shortly. Oh! Jesus! How can You say that? Surely, this will never happen to You. I mean, just because You’re God and all, and You’re saying it’s going to happen… Well, You must be mistaken. It doesn’t fit my worldview.

Jesus’ response points up our biggest issue: We come to this matter of life in the Kingdom, and we consider it chiefly with our own minds. Well, what other tool do we have, after all? But, we measure not according as we have been instructed by the Word of God, rather as we have learned from the world around us. We look at operations in the Church and we think it sensible to apply best business practices to those operations. We see that businesses have hard-nosed HR policies and they seem to serve them well, and we figure we should have the same. Oh, yes! Nothing announces God’s kingdom quite like hard-nosed HR policies!

But, Jesus, as He expounds upon the issue, arrives at this point: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul” (Mk 8:36)? Indeed, what does it profit a church to protect its assets and fail its mission? It’s what’s on the inside that matters. This is the theme of the Kingdom. Empty outward ritual is worthless. Even rich and meaningful ritual is worthless, quite honestly. Ritual is but an outward act. It has no more intrinsic value than does the greatest miracle. The greatest miracle does not have its value in the way natural order has been set aside for a moment. The value of the Red Sea parting was not in the fact that those waters rose up like curtains to allow the Israelites passage. The value of that event was that it demonstrated that God was near and in charge, that He was watching over, and even managing events. The value of baptism, as we well understand, is not to be found in the act of being dropped underwater for a moment. It is in the death of the Christ into which we are baptized, and the newness of life in Christ into which we rise from those waters that any value is found. It is in the already accomplished renewing of our heart, a matter we are but acknowledging by our obedience in baptism. God has already done the work, and therein lies the whole value of the act we now perform in response.

I want to touch on one final passage in regard to this theme of inward versus outward. This comes much later in the text, during the final week in Jerusalem. There, the disciples have been with Jesus at temple. They have just been witness to the verbal sparring between Jesus and the religious power factors of the day, have watched Jesus win every round, and leave them cast down and angry. Let there be no doubt they’re angry! He has also just finished pointing out that widow with her nearly invisible contribution, who in truth has given far more than those Pharisees making great noisy show of the quantity of coin they are throwing in the collection. They are giving outwardly, she inwardly, having given her all, He explains. But, now, they are on their way back out, walking around the perimeter of the temple to reach the gates, and notice where the disciples’ focus is: “Look at the wonderful stones, Jesus! Aren’t these buildings just marvelous” (Mk 13:1)? Jesus responds by noting that these most marvelous stones and buildings will all be utterly destroyed before too long. What does it profit to have these marvelous buildings, when the soul of the nation is dead? What value all the wonders of engineering and architecture, when the moral state of the nation has become rotten to the core, and the judgment of God must come?

This is exactly what follows on to that remark. Jesus begins to speak of what must befall Jerusalem, for she has once again mistaken the marks of God’s presence for a guaranteed protection that leaves them free to be as sinful and corrupt as they please. And, the tale of that city before the walls finally fell is a tale of sinfulness and corruption such as no man should suffer. It is almost a matter of mercy that those who committed such atrocities upon their own flesh and blood did not survive to live with the memories. But, then, they did survive after a fashion, didn’t they? And in truth, they shall have eternity to know those regrets, and that in itself is hell enough.

Oh! What wonderful buildings! But, what is that lies hid within? What goes on in those buildings? Is it in keeping with appearances? That looks like a church, but what goes on inside? Today, there are many churches around which, having fallen on hard times, are no longer churches at all. They may be apartments, music stores, boutiques. They may even be mosques, of all things. And purportedly Christian nations, or post-Christian nations, just let it happen. But, let’s just look at those buildings which are still being utilized as churches, and again ask: What’s going on inside? Does it reflect what ought to be found? Are people seeking the God Who Is? Are disciples being made? Are the lost being found? Is the Truth being preached unabashedly, both in its salvific and its condemning aspect? Or is it a social club where people come to be comfortable amidst their own kind? Is it a place for entertainments, a place where never a discouraging word is heard?

Understand that the edifice that is our church, and the reality of that church are but a reflection of the same correlation or lack of it writ small in the lives of each congregant. We can as well look at ourselves and think, “My, what a fine looking specimen! Just look at me! Fit, trim, well-clothed and well fed.” And the same applies. Give it sixty years at most, and that fine specimen will be a-moldering in the grave. What then? What profit if you’ve enjoyed the wealth of the world, the fat of the land, but have forfeited your own soul in the process? What profit if the church has all manner of assets and tax advantages, but couldn’t even save the souls of its own officers? What profit the claim of Christianity, if the claimant pursues and promotes gravest sins from the pulpit ‘in the name of Christ’? It is not the outward practice that condemns. It is the inward state of death from which those practices have sprung. And the only hope remains as it ever has been: Repent and be saved!

This morning, I turn to that perplexing prophecy which lies near the middle of Mark’s account. I seem to recall discussing this same passage when reviewing Matthew’s account. But, here, it seems to me I find the answer to its meaning. The prophecy is that in which Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power” (Mk 9:1). My attention is drawn to that which follows immediately upon this statement in verse 2: Six days later, Jesus, Peter, James and John are up on the mountain and Jesus is transfigured before them. Is this sufficient to satisfy the prophecy? In His transformation, in the presence of Moses and Elijah, are we not seeing the kingdom come with power? No, it’s certainly not the consummation. But, it is an arrival. I suppose we need not consider this the sole fulfillment, even if it is accepted as a fulfillment. But, unless we wish to see the fall of Jerusalem as the kingdom come in power, how else do we give answer to that prophecy? The Ascension? But, that was more like Jesus returning to the Kingdom than the Kingdom coming. Life eternal? Then, who won’t be there to witness it? But, if it be accepted that these three, who were instructed to keep the event quiet until later, were the ones who saw the kingdom before their deaths, then the word stands as fulfilled.

As I look in this central section of Mark, I see what comes out as another theme, that of possibility and impossibility. Of course, wherever we observe a true miracle we are seeing something which must be described as impossible in human terms. From the scientific perspective, they are not even possible in terms of reality, of the physical universe. And yet, they happened. We have seen various attempts to put aside this problem of miracles over the years. There are those who attempt to reduce miracle to coincidence. Yes, there are possible explanations for there being a temporary sandbar across the Red Sea. We can assign a natural explanation for the event. The miracle is that it happened to come at the right time, and to persist just long enough. We might conceive of a way to explain Jonah’s survival in the belly of a fish. Other tales of similar nature have arisen over the years. But, it’s not as though God just poofed that fish into existence for the sole purpose of scooping up Jonah for delivery to Assyria.

But, these attempts, while understandable, fail to understand. There is a very simple statement from the mouth of Jesus which sums up the situation. “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God” (Mk 10:27). This comes in the course of a discussion about salvation, where Jesus has just declared that the rich shall find it particularly difficult, effectively impossible, to enter heaven. And this has struck the disciples as particularly troubling because, after all, if the rich won’t make it, what hope is there for anybody else? So, the message comes by way of correcting the popular misconception. It’s not wealth that gets one into heaven. Nor, for that matter, is it anything in man. Indeed, with men it is impossible to enter heaven. Period. With men, in the strength and wit of men, it is impossible to save even one in the course of history. Nobody. We must discount even Enoch and Elijah, David and Moses. The greatest of the prophets could not, for all their service and all their visions, save even themselves. Impossible! For they remained men.

But, it’s not up to them! That’s the Good News! That’s the Gospel! The whole deal is that what mankind could not, in its finest hour, manage to do for even one from amongst their number, God has found possible to do, and that, for all whom He chooses to save. We look back on our history, and find those who went to battle against the great evils of mankind in World War II to be the Greatest Generation. They did great things, pursued grand ideals, achieved mighty deeds worthy of David’s own heroes. But, they did not achieve a single salvation. They could not. All the might and armor of every nation on earth could not. With men it is impossible.

Why, then, do we try? Why then should the church persist in seeking to reach the lost? Well, we can drop back to the simplest of reasons, which is that this is the command of our Lord and King. “Go preach the Gospel.” It is for this that we were saved, indeed, for this that we were created. Life, as we ought understand, is not happenstance, a chance meeting of ovum and sperm, a zygote that beat the odds. Life is a planned occurrence, a thing not achieved, but ordained. There is no accident of birth. There is the eternal plan that led to birth. And that birth is given reason and purpose in the Gospel, in the Commission: Go preach. Go make disciples. Teach as you have been taught. Give as you have been given.

But, correct though this answer is, it is something of a cop out. It’s an answer by which to blithely sidestep the question. There is a much stronger answer. We do not go out alone when we pursue the Commission of God. It’s clearly proclaimed in Matthew’s account. “I am with you always.” If we are serving in God’s purpose, if we are pursuing that to which He has called us, that for which He has sent us, then we are never alone. He is with us. If it is our task to preach the Gospel, as Peter learned that first time in Jerusalem, we are not preaching from our own strength, we are preaching as God gives us the word to speak. It is well to be trained to the task, to have deep knowledge of the original languages, to have a solid doctrinal foundation, and well-honed skills for conveying that message. But, in the end, if this is the basis for our preaching, we are preaching from the strength of men, and the salvations we would see are impossible. It is with God that all things are possible, and only with God.

Now, considering that statement, we must fit it harmoniously with a previous proclamation from our Christ. Mind you, this comes in reference to Himself, but by His remark, He makes clear that it does not apply to Himself alone. This comes as reply to a father seeking aid for his son. In fact, it comes on the heels of that mountaintop transfiguration, and it comes in the face of His own disciples having failed to make a difference in this child’s condition. The father, from the depths of his despair, pleads. “If You can do anything for him, please help” (Mk 9:20-23). This leads to a most marvelous response from Jesus. How I wish we could hear His tone when He responds, but I think we must rule out anger at being underestimated. I tend to hear Him, on this occasion, with more a tone of amusement mixed with compassion. “If You can!” Dear man, all things are possible to him who believes.

Now, the man clearly hears this as applied to himself, and responds with that most honest of self-assessments, “I do believe. But, help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24). And isn’t that our steady state condition? We believe and yet we don’t. We trust and yet we doubt. We want to lean entirely on Jesus, and yet we don’t dare do so. We must keep our own skin in the game. But, I wonder. Is Jesus speaking about the man or about Himself? Given what was asked of Him, it seems it should apply primarily to Himself.

In fact, while there are those who look upon faith and unbelief as things which control what Jesus can do, I find that there is no such limit upon His action. As if! Do we really suppose God controllable by matters of our own understanding? It may well be that He won’t act where unbelief is rampant, but to suggest that He cannot act is to wholly undervalue God. Of course He can. First and foremost, we could go back that that first wonderful pronouncement: All things are possible with God. I like that formulation that arises when Gabriel is explaining the situation to Mary. Were it to be translated more fully, the thing Gabriel says would come across to the effect that the term impossible doesn’t even apply where God is involved. The two concepts – God and impossible – are so utterly at odds one with the other that it’s inconceivable to even attempt to touch one with the other.

All things are possible, because impossibility becomes a nonsense term when God is involved. It falls to His will alone, never to His power, to determine what He shall do. If He chooses to hold back from those who persist in unbelief, that is certainly His prerogative, but let us not be so foolish as to assign some power to unbelief that is greater even than God! No, all things are possible, and were this not to include His ability to act in the face of greatest unbelief, then there would, quite simply, be not so much as a single follower in all history who could count himself a worshiper of God, call himself a Christian. There would be, apart from this truth, not the least shred of hope for any man in all of existence throughout all time. The fall of Adam would remain final and determining for every man, woman and child. We would be born dead, walk in death all our days, and face nothing but eternal torment when we finally acceded to our death and took to the grave.

Now, the disciples, seeing Jesus achieve with ease what they had failed to do for days, are rightly curious as to what made the difference. Why couldn’t we do this, Teacher? We’ve done it before. When you sent us out the first time, we were casting out demons with abandon, but this time? Nothing. The immediate answer Jesus gives is, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer” (Mk 9:29). Yes. That is a key. Matthew’s coverage adds fasting as a necessary ingredient, and that’s even more problematic for us. We can barely handle dealing with prayer, and you want us to skip meals on top of that? Where, then, would we find the strength to face such a challenge? Really, Jesus? Weaken ourselves before going into battle like this? That’s Your advice?

Well, yes. Yes, it is. Because the problem, the thing that demonstrates the need for prayer and fasting is that they have slipped into thinking the power is in themselves. They have forgotten. This ties back (or forward as the case may be) to the later statement, “With men it is impossible, but not with God.” That is not just about salvation. That is the summation of the Christian walk in every aspect. We cannot live a godly life except it be with God. We cannot save ourselves, let alone another, except it be with God. Preaching will avail nothing except it be with God. Tracts will be powerless except that it be with God’s hand in ours that they are passed out. Church becomes worse than meaningless except it be with God. Whenever and wherever we fall back on man’s skill, man’s wisdom, man’s programs and pursuits, we have left God out, and God will stay out until we once more recognize our own futility.

“This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” We might well say that nothing we would seek to do in the kingdom of God will ever happen except it be accompanied by, preceded by, saturated in prayer. If our primary weapon against the forces of darkness is to preach the Gospel, then the ammunition with which that weapon is to be loaded is prayer. If we would see our church be a significant factor in the community, if we would see the Church informing the shape of society, if we would see the world once more turned upside down by the Gospel, then prayer is going to be a necessity.

It has been noted over and over that every time there has been a major resurgence of faith, in every place where it has been seen that the man of God was achieving much, it has been because that man of God was being surrounded by prayer, was praying in preparation, praying in the aftermath, praying in the midst of his work, and had others praying besides. The missionary today who does not have a prayer team behind him will not survive, however well-funded his mission. The missionary without funds, though, may well prosper beyond measure, so long as he has prayer backing him up and prayer in his life.

I find it rather amazing how much this is become a theme for me, who would consider his own prayer life rather minimal. There is, to be sure, a message in there for me, that I need to look to my own house. But, there is a much larger message, and I find it a wonder and a marvel that God would choose the likes of me to hear this, and to speak this. He can be amusing, sometimes.

[07/02/13] And, of course, this morning I find myself awoken quite early by a need to pray. God! I have to wonder, sometimes, how to fit so much into a day. But, I am mindful that You own time, and can surely redeem it to Your purposes. I pray I have been obedient to Your voice this morning, and I trust in You to supply the strength of mind needful to the day, as You seem determined to be my strength in my weakest places.

I have a few, hopefully brief, observations to make next. The first concerns Jesus’ famous declaration regarding marriage, given when He was questioned about permissible grounds for divorce. “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Mk 10:9). Now, the context is clearly that of addressing the question of marriage and divorce. At the same time, it is equally clear that His apostles heard a greater application to His message. Consider that marriage comes to describe the relationship of Christ and His church. We are prepared as His bride. We look forward to the marriage feast of the Lamb, and we do so because that feast will be in celebration of our coming to completion. It will be that day when He welcomes us into the home He has prepared for us, as a proper groom should.

So then, God sets forth this institution of marriage, this married state, amongst His people. I am not, at this point, looking to argue the proper bounds between clerical and secular authority, nor to discuss who has the right to define what constitutes a marriage. That, quite frankly, is not a matter that requires discussion. It is God’s creation, it is God’s prerogative to define that which He ordains. The more interesting consideration is why. Why did God institute marriage? It is striking that from very near the earliest days of humanity we have evidence of this arrangement between husband and wife.

The first thing we ought to notice about marriage is that it is a covenant. Husband and wife cut covenant with one another, proclaiming a lifelong mutual fealty. As a covenant, it is a declaration made with God as witness, whether His name be invoked directly in that role or not. As a covenant, it is also a model of how He determines to interact with His people. God is God of covenant. He covenanted with Adam. He covenanted with Abraham. He covenanted with me. In this sense, we might do well to look at our own commitment to our marriages (assuming, of course, we are married) as a measure of our own faithfulness. More critically, we who are both married and in Christ hopefully recognize that our ability to truly and faithfully uphold the commitment of marriage depend as wholly upon Him as does our salvation.

I dare say, this is very much by design. He is our all in all, and our only strength. He is both author and finisher of our faith. When the reformers proclaimed that salvation was only through Christ, they meant it not only in the sense that He is the sole gate-keeper of salvation, but also that it is only by His continuous working within us – as Paul writes, that He is in us both to will and to work (Php 2:13) – that we have any hope of heaven at all. Add to this what Jesus has said about marriage, and recognizing marriage as the model of His own relationship with the redeemed, we come to realize that if we have any hope of heaven at all, we have every hope of heaven. God has joined us together with Christ, with Himself! What He has joined together, let it be understood no man could separate!

Now, if we look upon marriages undertaken in this human condition, we see far too many cases where man has separated what God intended as permanent. This is not, however, a demonstration of God’s weakness, but rather of sin’s pervasiveness. Even godly, god-fearing men and women, having entered into the covenant of marriage, do not fully accede to God’s requirements of that union. They will, like those Pharisees confronting Jesus in this scene, seek to discover cause to slip the bonds of marriage, should the effort of union become too much. For those whose marriages are but civil unions, whatever name they may be given, one would think it harder to maintain the covenant. It is perhaps one of the saddest commentaries on the condition of the Church that the facts indicate otherwise, that God’s people are as disinclined to preserve what God has joined together than are those who deny His very being.

But, if we will accept what He is modeling, if we will see that our marriages are intended as a visible parable of the Gospel, can that, perhaps change our sense of commitment to the institution? What a marvelous blessing, that God should so endow us with a built-in means of expressing His love for us by our love for one another! But, the more I think on that, the more I must consider the woe that is earned by those that despoil so great a sign of God’s love, and so often for no greater cause than convenience.

Shift of topic: I look now at Mark 12:6, where we have Jesus relaying the parable of the Vineyard and the Tenants. Describing the efforts of that vineyard’s owner to receive his due from the tenants, we arrive at this stunning declaration: “He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them.” There is much that is worth considering about that sentence, not least that it paints a clear picture of Jesus’ self-awareness. He certainly knew Himself to be the very Son of God, for He is very clearly displaying God as the owner of the Vineyard over which the Sanhedrin were but tenants, men hired to see to the production and profitability of His vine. This has clear connection to the parable, for Jesus is describing the many times God had sent word to His priests and His people, the many times He had sought His rightful return from this Vineyard called Israel. And, He is clearly pointing to the results: Prophets, His slaves, humiliated, beaten, killed. One needn’t speculate on that. The very Scriptures which authorized the priests and the Sanhedrin paint the record quite plainly. And now, here was the Son Himself come to them, and was their reaction one of contrition? Did they seek clemency? No! They sought to destroy Him that they might drive God completely from His own house and they might do as they please with impunity!

And let us never suppose this was a problem unique to the time. Let us not even suppose that it is a problem restricted to other denominations and movements in our own time. It is our problem! Just look to your own reaction next time sin and temptation are knocking at the door. How long shall it be before you are effectively demanding that God abandon His own temple for awhile so that you can enjoy our sinful ‘pleasures’? Oh, He can come back later, when you’re done. But, just now? Sorry, Sir. Out with You.

This, however, is not my primary focus as concerns that verse. Rather, I am focused on the second clause. “HE sent Him last of all to them.” This would seem to be a thought the author of Hebrews picks up on when he writes, “in these last days [He] has spoken to us in His Son” (Heb 1:2). I confess, I still find it difficult to find a requirement of finality in that reference to the last days, particularly when in a mindset that perceives the last days have stretching from the arrival of Christ in His Incarnation to the day of His victorious return. If all of the last few thousand years are these last days, what cause have we to suppose Jesus stopped speaking? Well, there is that word from the cross, “It is finished!” Perhaps we could conclude from that statement that He has said every last thing that Father gave Him to speak. That’s a reasonable supposition. There is also this bit from the parable, that He was sent last of all. There would be no further emissaries sent out. This was very much the last chance for repentance as concerned those tenants, there would be no further opportunity for clemency.

Indeed, we can understand that with the events of the final week, Jerusalem’s fate was sealed, and the prophecies regarding its fall made certain. The events of 70 AD were no longer in question. Oh, Jerusalem! How I longed to take you under My wings, but you would have none of it! If you had but recognized the day of your visitation, but now the die is cast, the time has passed and your choice has been made. You have killed the Son, and Father will send no more.

As I have been writing these thoughts, I have been recalling some of the discussion around the significance of what Jesus was saying here, thoughts from various commentators as to the scope of His meaning. Was He really pointing to 70 AD? Was He really speaking to the close of Scripture? Or was this a message that had more to do with the sect of the Sadducees, which was certainly nearing its end? Perhaps it was for the Pharisees who, though they continue to this day, are no nearer the Truth and salvation than they were in those moments. No further word. No further envoys. You’re on your own, and that is the most terrible news one could have from heaven. You wanted this vineyard for yourselves? Fine. It’s yours. Don’t bother calling again, though. When the walls have fallen in, and the grapes succumbed to rot and depredations, it’s no longer My business. You wanted ownership? You’ve got it.

My, but I drift to unexpected topics as I consider these little bits of the story that caught my eye a week or two back! What of our own case? What of this congregation that has seen fit to set me amongst the elders? What about me? Am I being diligent to seek out the owner of this vineyard, to ensure that my efforts are aimed towards His profit? I must needs come back around yet again to the matter of prayer. How else am I to seek out the owner of this field? How else shall I know His instruction for its care? And who would I turn to besides Him? For, He has been tending His gardens since the first day of creation! When He set Adam as caretaker over Eden, was it really any different than what He is doing by setting pastors and elders over His flock today? No. The one models the other. It behooves me to take heed from the example of my earliest forebear. If he could fail so miserably, who had known the boon of walking with God in that garden, how easily might I fail? How easy, indeed, to slip into that sense of authority which might very foolishly think it could supplant the King! No, I don’t believe I have gone there. But, I could point to those places where my confidence in my own opinion has been far greater than wisdom would dictate. And, as I have been noting over and over again in recent days, there is ever the question of prayer. Study is wonderful, but prayer is equally needful, and I am keenly, painfully aware that I neglect it too easily, and at far too great a risk.

This next verse jumped to my attention simply because it is at odds with how I always seem to envision the scene. The scene, in this case, is that of the Olivet Discourse, wherein Jesus is laying out events which are to come. Debate rages as to whether He speaks of the fall of Jerusalem, of His return, or perhaps of both. But, it is not the content which catches my eye in this case, but rather the introduction. The thing that caught me is this: “Peter and James and John and Andrew were questioning Him privately” (Mk 13:3). Somehow, my mind’s eye has always seen this part transpiring with all of the Apostles gathered to listen. Why would Jesus restrict the teaching of so important a point to but a few, and if He were to do so, would it not be those same three who had seen Him transfigured? But, we have Andrew present on this occasion.

One thing we can note is that in the case of the Transfiguration, it was Jesus calling whom He would to accompany Him. Here, it is the disciples taking the initiative and seeking Jesus out. It’s worth noting, as well, the impetus for this question. Jesus had just made His statement about the temple (and the city, for all that) being torn apart until no stone remained untouched by the effort, and now they are up on Mount Olivet, sitting in a place which Mark notes is opposite the temple. So, the scene is still in view, and the word Jesus had spoken still ringing in their ears, and they would know more. When’s it going to happen Jesus? What’s the plan? What should we be looking for? What should we be doing?

But, the surprising thing, as I said, is that we have the four, the first four to be called, coming with these questions while the remaining Apostles are either hanging back or just disinterested. They came to question Him privately. Why? Are they still angling for positions in His government? Still looking for the Victorious Warrior to toss the Romans out on their ears and set up the Davidic kingdom once more? That would hardly be surprising, and it goes far towards explaining their shock and dismay as they watched Jesus put on trial, condemned and crucified. How did this in any way fit the plan? It didn’t so far as they could see. But, then, they couldn’t see all that far.

So, then, this major lesson, the last that Jesus would give in so didactic a fashion, was given to but a select few. It would be easy to suggest they were a self-selected few, but that would be to give God less than His due. No, they chose of their own free will to seek Him out in private, apart from the other guys. But, it was no less God’s plan that they be the ones made privy to this information. Peter, James and John: We know how great a part they were to play in the birthing of the Church. Andrew seems a lesser player, as we see him in the pages of Scripture, but I don’t suppose he was really a lesser player in God’s eyes. Nor were the others, for all that. But, these four were honored with this lesson, entrusted with some of the most disturbing, disquieting aspects of what the Father had for Jesus to impart to His students. They were, if you will, the graduate class, having been first into the school. That alone might explain their selection for the lesson. OK, seniors! Here’s the material that will be on your final exam: They will arrest you, put you to death because of Me. Brothers will turn on one another, parents and children will be set at odds because of My name. That’s going to be true right on down through the ages, but it is somehow particularly necessary that these four should hear it and understand it.

For the sake of the elect whom He chose, He shortened the days (Mk 13:20). Indeed, had He not done so there would be no life whatsoever. Ponder that. It’s beyond just the fall of Jerusalem now, so far as I can see. That fall would certainly be a sufficiently horrible disaster in the perspective of these four men, and certainly for those who suffered through it. But, it is not the tribulation such as has never happened before nor ever shall again. Cities were destroyed often enough. Or, for all that, we could look to Dresden, or Hiroshima. Did these not exceed the horrors of Jerusalem’s fall in terms of destruction and loss of life? But, Jesus has shifted focus to something so terrible that the only way there are any who survive, the only reason mankind continues at all (or even animal kind, I suppose) is that He shortened the days. And yes, that is a past-tense statement about the future.

Thinking about the nature of the material Jesus is presenting, it’s not as hard as it might be to understand why it might have been reserved to these four who had been with Him longest. The message was most needful, or would be. Even with this, they were unprepared for the immediate future. But, when once they had weathered that crisis, when they faced the challenges ahead of them as the Church met opposition first in Jerusalem, then in Judea and then in all the world, then the power of this message, the Power of Whom it speaks and the certainty of the outcome would keep them true to their mission even unto death. And these four, we know, were each challenged even unto death. Apart from John, each of them met death at the hands of an unbelieving people, and with John, they certainly tried hard enough to do the same. That would be true for the other Apostles as well, but these are prominent players, leaders in the early church, and in John’s case, the last of the leaders. Yes, it would be well that they were given this word, lest the message not get out at all.

Do you know what question this leaves unresolved? How did Matthew hear of it? Well, no doubt these four hardly kept the lesson to themselves. Maybe for the first day or two, but as they took up the task of leading the flock of Christ? No way! He had felt it important that they know and they, as they trained up disciples, teaching them all that they had been taught, would have to include this part, wouldn’t they? And for the other Apostles in particular, this was critical information. These four would know that, once the initial pride of being in the know faded. They would see to it that the others knew and understood this message, certainly before they went out on their own specific missions.

Now, I shall turn my attention to one of the topics that arises in this final lesson; that of signs and wonders. As concerns this prophecy which Jesus is forthtelling, the immediate point is this: “False Christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order, if possible, to lead the elect astray” (Mk 13:22). Yet, at the same time, we have that closing stanza of Mark’s Gospel, as Jesus commissions His own. “These signs will accompany those who have believed:” (Mk 16:17). This matter of signs and wonders has been a central aspect of Mark’s Gospel, hasn’t it? From the outset, we have been shown these marvels that Jesus was performing. Truly amazing, unbelievable stuff! And, we have been shown, repeatedly, those who came out to challenge Him, seeking even more signs. His reaction? “No sign will be given.” You’ve had enough. You either believe based on what God has already shown you, or you never will.

And, for them the sad truth is, they never would. Even there on the Cross, the Son of God dying before their eyes, they are still looking for a sign – a sign which, quite frankly, they would have rejected even had it been given. How they mocked Him! “Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe” (Mk 15:32)! Yes, yes. We’ve heard all these marvelous tales. We’ve even seen some of the results. Lazarus, after all, is known to us and rather hard to deny that he is up and walking, isn’t it? But, really. If You’re more than just some particularly adept magician, more than just another Jewish exorcist, if You are really Who You’re claiming to be, surely You can just pop down off that cross. And, if You can’t why then should we believe You at all? It just never occurred to them that it wasn’t a question of ability, but a question of will. He can come down. He won’t. No sign will be given.

Well and good. We know this scene. We know how it turns out, and we know that He is risen, a sign even greater than that which they sought of Him, and still (even as He had said in parable) they would not believe. But, I am more keen to see this brought into the present tense. What is the present-tense state of faith? Well, there are certainly those places in the Church that are continuing to seek signs and wonders. I don’t suppose it would suit to paint the whole of the Charismatic and Pentecostal movements in such a negative light, and yet… Yet, I know that there is this fascination with wonders which permeates those movements, and I know just how contagious it can be, even when we are being watchful. How marvelous it is to us when our dreams and imaginations are given the weight of religious significance! My every thought being shaped by the Holy Spirit! Even when I’m asleep, He’s speaking to me, if only I understood what He was saying!

Look! This is real! This is the way of it. So, we have people waking from every strange dream questioning what it must mean, for it must mean something! And, they’ll seek out whoever it is that has a reputation for interpreting these dreams to explain it to them. If they’ve imagined some vision, they must check it out with whoever they have available who might be wiser in the ways of the Spirit, that this one might explain to them what the vision means. And, if there is a place where strange things are happening, even if it’s nothing more than odd flashes of colored light in the air, even if it’s congregants baying like dogs in their ecstatic states, why we simply must get there and be a part of it all! God’s moving! We must make ourselves available. We need the thrill.

That, for all the pious trappings we attempt to throw on the matter, is the matter. We need the thrill. We want a fix. We don’t want God. We don’t want the responsibility. We don’t want the difficult task of pursuing a transformed life. We want to be entertained. Show us the pretty lights. Let us see angels. As if! Look through Scripture for one case of somebody who was thrilled and delighted to find an angel standing before them. No, the universal experience is one of abject terror at being in the presence of something so powerful, so holy. There is a reason their every introduction seems to include the phrase, “fear not”.

There is also a particularly dangerous tendency amongst these more ‘spirit-led’ movements to suppose that any man who can show signs and wonders on his resume must necessarily be a true man of God. There’s even a bit of suspicion that any man who can’t ought not to be trusted as speaking God’s truth. Why is this? How can it be that God’s people, who presumably seek to know His word and live by it, would in this case ignore the message? False Christs will come showing signs and wonders so as to mislead. Satan’s workers disguise themselves as angels of light. The signs and wonders aren’t the point. They were not the point with Jesus. They were a tool, they were a sign. A sign, to be a sign, must necessarily point to something. Street signs point us to the place we are going. But, the street sign is never itself the place we seek. It is but a marker either telling us we’ve arrived at our destination, or showing us which way to proceed that we might get there. For Jesus, every sign pointed to God, and in pointing to God, confirmed that He was sent by God.

What, then, of these signs and wonders which seem to become the main attraction? Jesus would have none of that. When the crowds began following Him for no other reason than to see Him feed the masses one more time, He stopped doing it, and rebuked them. It’s not about the signs, people! It’s about the Truth! It’s about God and the Gospel that He has made the impossible possible. You can be reconciled to God. Your sins are not fatal to that cause. He has redeemed you from your slavery to sin, and you can have life instead of death. The victory has been won, and the enemy is defeated, for all that he still plays his games of destruction for a season. Oh yes, you need to be wary, for that one still roves about, a lion seeking prey. But, you! You belong to the risen Lord, the Lamb Who was slain and yet lives! You belong to God. He has called you by name. You are His! He named you! The older generations understood that the one meant the other. He named you, you are His. It could not be otherwise. And being His, He has covenanted to keep you safe by His own right arm! And He has done it! That’s the Gospel! That’s the stuff that saves. It’s not the signs and wonders.

Physical healing never saved a soul. But a soul, once saved, remains saved even though the body perish. Speaking in tongues never saved. It is a beneficial aid to the one who is saved, but it is not able to save either speaker or hearer. Prophecy? We shall, according to Paul, have need of it so long as our vision remains a thing in part, which is to say, until we are firmly ensconced in heaven’s bright sun. But, the best of prophets never saved a soul by proclaiming what was to come, not even by revealing the hidden secrets of the hearer’s hearts. Prophecy has no power to save. God has the power to save. He may, in His will, choose to work through prophecy, through tongues, through inexplicable restorations of health, and we rightly rejoice in whatever means He chooses as His tool du jour. Why, then, ought we not to rejoice just as greatly should salvation come through more mundane means?

Why are we so quick to see God if healing comes about in a revival meeting, and yet give Him little to no credit should healing come about in the hospital? Why are we excited when we hear the people of God speaking in languages that mean nothing to us, yet fail to be excited by those who are making the Word of God comprehensible to those whose languages we don’t know ourselves? Why is it that even the best of God’s people seem to become so focused on whatever their own personal favorite part of faith is that they feel the need to denigrate all else as being less significant?

I look even at this book I’ve been reading the last several days. The author’s focus is firmly upon prayer, and that is certainly a subject worthy of our focus. But, to promote prayer as the single, key ingredient for all else? How is this different from another author who insists that worship is the key, or the typical Reformed stance that preaching is the key? Isn’t evangelism the key? Isn’t discipleship, teaching, training? Isn’t communion the key? Compassion? Helps? Healing? Oh wait! They’re all the key! That, I suspect, is the true key. The key is not the signs and wonders, it is the God Who inhabits all these things, else they become every one of them empty and worthless.

Prayer has no value except God is in it. Worship is just music, and not always even excellent music, except God is in it. Preaching achieves nothing beyond that which any actor on the stage can achieve except God is in it. Teaching is to no avail except God is in it. Discipleship will do no more than waste your time and energy except God is in it. The worst atheist out there knows how to be compassionate, how to help. Choose your sign. Choose your key. It matters not. If God is not the be all and end all of that key, the key will never open the least of locks. And, if God is the be all and end all, then really, the nature of the key doesn’t matter. You may pray with the poorest of skills, present the most simplistic of music as your worship, speak the Word with stuttering lips, and it shall still avail to the salvation of souls, because it is God at work not you and your preferences, not you and your skills.

When it comes to these signs and wonders, or for that matter, even these more mundane and traditional aspects of doing church, let us beware lest we find that we, too, are still looking for a sign. Let us take heed to the words of our Master. “Be on the alert, for you do not know when the Master of the house is coming” (Mk 13:35). Happy is he who is found doing as his Master has told him when that day comes. Happy is he who has ceased from seeking proofs of God and set himself to pursue the God Who Is, to heed that One’s instructions and seek Him and His will daily.

[07/04/13] Here on this Independence Day, I have arrived at the last two passages upon which I wish to comment. They are a particularly fitting pair of verses to contemplate on such a day, for they remind me that we are never so independent as we think. Rather our dependence upon God is absolute. I am considering the occasion of Peter’s greatest failure, as he himself apparently related the event in his preaching. The Apostles were gathered together with Jesus for that final celebration of the Passover, and it has been an eventful, even a stressful time. He has been talking about one of them – one of them! – being about to betray Him. How could He say such a thing? How could He even think it? But, there it was. It had been said, and by Him. Who? If they could not imagine any of themselves doing this evil, then it became equally possible for any one of them to be the one. It’s not me, is it, Lord? Surely, not me! I couldn’t bear it.

Then came that business with Jesus setting Himself forth as the covenant meal. This bread: It’s My body. This wine: It’s My blood. Sure, it was a symbolic thing, but it was still troubling to hear, confusing at the very least. And then, He followed up by telling us that every last man of us would fall away. Peter had had enough of this dark and depressing talk. Not me, sir! Nope. Everybody else may abandon You, but not me. No way! And what does Jesus answer? “Truly I say to you, that you yourself this very night, before a cock crows twice, shall three times deny Me” (Mk 14:30). Still, Peter says, he was insistent that this was not to be the case. You would think he would have learned not to tell Jesus He was wrong. But, he could not believe this of himself. Why, even if he had to die with Jesus, no way was he going to deny Him. Nor was he the only one expressing those sentiments.

What is telling is that Mark proceeds straight from that declaration of undying fealty to the garden of Gethsemene. There, we know how things fall out. But, it is not at the moment of fall out that I would set my gaze this morning, but to the scene preceding. Jesus has gone to pray, and with good reason! But, He has asked Peter, James and John, His inner circle, to come not necessarily with Him but to remain nearby to keep watch. Instead of watching, though, the fall asleep. That’s hardly a surprising thing. They have just had a good meal accompanied by several glasses of wine. It’s been a long and eventful day, and they are quite naturally exhausted by it all. Jesus, having prayed for a time, walks back to where they are and sees them passed out. We are not granted to hear His tone as He stirs them back to wakefulness, but one suspects there is more of tenderness and concern than there is of anger. “Simon! You’re sleeping? Couldn’t you even handle a one hour watch?” Was that really too much to ask?

But, here’s the thing. Jesus is still on the same subject as He had been at dinner. He’s still addressing Peter’s boast. You won’t fall away, even on threat of death? You haven’t even been able to stay awake for an hour, let alone face any serious opposition! Oh, Simon. Don’t you get it? Your spirit is great. Yes, in your heart of hearts you want to be that man you claim to be. You want so much to live up to this ideal you’ve set for yourself, but the flesh is weak, Simon. Even this little task is too much, don’t you see. And yet, you think I have spoken awry in telling you that you will run from Me? Oh, Simon.

But, hear the advice that comes of this: “Keep watching and praying” (Mk 14:38). Yes, Lord, we understand this. It is something You have modeled well for us, this need to pray. Yet, as we have seen with these three (for Simon is hardly alone) that to keep watchful and praying is quite possibly the hardest thing we shall ever do. Keep awake and studying? We can do that. Keep listening during the sermon? For the most part, we can do that, too. Keep singing and worshipful during that part of the sermon? Check. Keep joining in fellowship with likeminded believers, keep breaking bread together, keep pretty much any other part of the Christian lifestyle, we’re on it! But, keep watching and praying? How swiftly the mind wanders to other matters. How difficult to keep focus on the task at hand. Indeed, as often as not, unless it is early morning, our own efforts at prayer lead to the same result: That we have gone to sleep.

But, Jesus doesn’t just give the command to get back after it. He gives us a particularly sobering reason. Do this in order “that you may not come into temptation.” Our tendency, when it comes to praying for ourselves, is to save the issue of sin as a subject for repentance and the seeking of forgiveness. It’s not often a matter we consider in advance. After all, truth be told, if we are considering our besetting sin, it is likely with an eye to the next opportunity to fail. Sin is like that. The more we are made aware of the danger, the more enticing it seems, and the more inevitable. The last thing we want, then, is to make it a matter of prayer, for what would that say of our faith, if we were praying for an outcome we were all but certain would not happen? What would it say of our God, when we know (or think we know) that He’s not going to answer this one? So, we leave it out entirely. We’ll pray afterwards. For now, let’s focus on seeking blessings in spite of what we know of ourselves. Or, because it’s the pious thing, we’ll make all our prayers about others and their needs, or about grand themes. We’ll pray safe prayers.

But, Jesus advises something completely at odds with that approach: Pray that you may not come into temptation. Now, if I am reading this correctly, this is not saying, as His model prayer offers, “Please don’t set me in the way of temptation.” There’s a place for that, yes! He has made clear that this is a fitting mode of prayer. But, in this case, it’s actually more powerful. Pray in order that you not come into temptation. Prayer is that powerful a tool set in our hands by God. If we will but pray aright, it would seem, we might indeed find our spirit so strengthened as to turn from that temptation before it sets in. If we would but pray aright, it might just be that those thoughts of sin which seem forever to draw us in would instead trigger such a response of power that we would flee the chance, if that’s what it takes, or that the temptation itself would flee from us.

How about that thought! We, who in our fleshly weakness rightly fear temptation because we know how easily we are overcome by its wiles, are in possession of a weapon so powerful that temptation will run away from us! That weapon is not will-power. That weapon is not some particular formula we must recite just so. That weapon is prayer itself. And, does this not stand to reason? Indeed, we have backing for this understanding. “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (Jas 4:7-8a). How do we submit to and draw near to God, if not in prayer? And, if God is near to us, how will to devil do anything but flee? He is no more capable of standing in the face of Holiness than are we.

This raises a point worth recognizing. It is not that prayer itself is some power we wield. No. It is God Who draws near Who is powerful. Neither are we to suppose that prayer is some mystical cant by which we are able to summon God as if He were a genii or some such. Not at all. He would hardly be a God Whom we could force to come to us at our beck and call. No, the instruction is that that we should cause God to submit to us, but that we submit to Him. What is that submission but to do as He has instructed? And what is the instruction? Pray, that you not come into temptation.

And, don’t think it’s a one shot deal. Don’t you go supposing that you can toss off a prayer this morning and be set for the day. No! Keep watching. Keep praying. Some way, somehow this needs to become even more than a habit for us. It needs to be the very fiber of our being. Pray always, we are instructed; continually. Are there times of day when you stop breathing? Of course not. To stop breathing would be death in short order. Prayer is just as necessary, more necessary to our life. And yet, I know from my own habit that it is a thing neglected. And then we wonder how it is that temptation gets to us so easily. What a surprise! We ignore the instructions, refuse to submit ourselves to God, and discover that we remain absolutely defenseless against the evils of our own nature.

I commented that this was a particularly fitting verse to be contemplating on Independence Day, and it is for this reason: We are brought to prayer by our need. The more we understand our need, the more we shall pray. Thing is, we are a nation who has learned to think about ourselves as not needing a thing. We are, after all, the last ‘super power’ left standing. Even in our darkest hours, it seems, we do not really suppose ourselves in any great danger. The Day of Infamy which launched us into participation in World War II: It was a dark hour, but we felt no sense of doom and dread, only the resolve to see that evil avenged. We could do it. Why, our women are stronger than their soldiers. You just watch.

We could look to the felling of the Twin Towers on 9-11. Oh, for a moment or two, a few days, there was a sense of our need for God in many hearts. But, the stronger reaction was that this is America, and we shall not let this stand. We shall defeat the evil. The same sort of response shows in the reaction to the bombing at the Boston Marathon this year. Do we consider our need for God? No, we boast of our strength. Boston Strong! You not take Boston down so easily. We shall be avenged, and we shall rise above. But, it’s all about the we. God is nowhere to be found in this picture. What need have we for Him? We are independent! We are the very definition of independence.

And just look and see how well we’ve done with that! At prayer last night, I was reading from Psalm 12, which opens, “Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases to be, for the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.” Later, David shows his insight into the thinking of that fallen people around him. They say, “With our tongue we will prevail; Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?” (Ps 12:4)

This is the mindset that pervades our own society today. We can be as crass and disgusting as we please. We have freedom of speech! Who shall lord it over us and tell us what we can or cannot say? Yes, it’s true. This is embedded in our constitution. But, it’s hard to imagine our forebears setting this guarantee down in order that we might pursue our pornographic delights with impunity, in order that we could curse and swear and generally lower the level of civility at every opportunity with total disregard for any who might hear us.

What of our freedom of religion? I sincerely doubt that the same men who provided us with a declaration of God-given rights, who saw God as the author of our national condition, supposed freedom of religion should apply in the fashion it has been applied in our day. Invite the Muslims, the Hindus, the Satan-worshipers to come and enjoy themselves and pursue their religions? I doubt that was even thinkable to such men. Would we welcome the Incas with their system of human sacrifice? Could we really suppose that when they set forth freedom of religion, this was included in their thinking? Surely, they were not intent on granting equal status to every crackpot who came along, coining some ‘religion’ to grant himself permission for his own favorite sins. But, this is what we’ve made of it. After all: Who is lord over us?

This is the American mindset today. Who is lord over us? We won’t suffer our neighbor to tell us what we may and may not do. We won’t suffer the government to do so. Oh, we’re OK with them telling everybody else what they can do. We’d just as soon that they’d lock up those who think differently than we do. It would be so much easier to get along then. Go ahead and tread on them, just don’t tread on me. And that same mindset goes for God. We’ll go to church. It’s the socially acceptable thing to do still – at least for the moment. But, don’t go thinking God has any right to tell me how to act. If I like His advice I’ll take it. If I don’t, well, He can save His breath.

Yes, we have become just that very society David saw. The faithful seemingly have disappeared from our shores, or been so beaten down and confined as to have no influence whatsoever on the functioning of this once Christian nation. But, note the reaction of God. “I will arise. I will set him in the safety for which he longs” (Ps 12:5). And David reminds us: The words of the Lord are pure words, tried in the furnace and seven times refined. There’s that seven that Pastor spoke on last week: The number of perfection. God’s words are perfectly pure, absolutely free of any hint of lying or even of uncertainty. If He has said it, it is. And, He has said it! Now, I will arise, and I will set him in safety. I will preserve him from this generation. I will keep them.

“Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” That was the word of Christ to His own. It is His word to us today. It is His word to us as individuals, that we cannot even take our next breath except He continue to uphold our life. It’s as true for the atheist as for the True Believer. It is His word to us as His Church. All of our programs and services, all of our preaching and our prayers, all of our worship and evangelism and missionary efforts, it is doing nothing unless He is in it. And, it is true of our nation. As we drift towards being a nation apart from Him, we are finding ourselves more and more a nation that can do nothing, that impacts nothing. We are become the most powerless of super powers, a source of amusement or disgust to the other nations of the earth, and why? Because we have insisted that we are independent, that God has no say over us.

God, not surprisingly, is unimpressed. Yet, He continues to be God. He continues to desire that no man should perish, yet His own essential justice requires that those who insist on the path to perdition be granted the perishing they have chosen. He continues to hold out His promise of life. He continues to call His own, and not one of them shall ever be lost to Him. But, nations? Nations rise and nations fall. The Word of the Lord goes on forever. Happy Utter Dependence Day!