Mark Part 5 - Time To Make A Choice

Just a note of warning, this video contains some graphic images of the suffering of Jesus Christ. It is a powerful video, but I advise you - if violence bothers your conscience, please do not watch it. Use your best judgment. 

This is what Christ went through to pay for my sins and for yours. In reality, what you've just seen in this video is likely just scratching the surface of that suffering - the agony Christ endured to take God's wrath for our iniquities is not something I can describe with words. 

At the end of Mark, something astounding happens. It's the ultimate cliff-hanger. Jesus has been buried, and the women of faith who had been followers in Jesus' life went to prepare His body for burial. They expected to have to ask some of the Roman soldiers to help them roll the stone away from the door. They expected to find Jesus right where He'd been left, wrapped in linens and awaiting His burial. They expected to have to prepare His body with the traditional burial spices. They expected to say their goodbyes to the man they'd followed in faith, hoping and praying that He was who He'd said He was - the Son of God. They'd expected Him to take the Throne from Rome, to assume His position on the throne and institute the Kingdom of God in their midst. They'd expected Him to live. They'd expected so much, and now all they had left was to expect a dead body buried behind a stone.

How often does God take what we expect of Him - and blast to pieces our expectations with who He actually is?

Where they'd expected a heavy stone securing the entrance of the tomb, they found a gaping hole - for the stone had already been rolled away. Where they'd expected Jesus' body to be, they found a young man sitting there in white clothing, beside Him neatly folded were the linens their Lord had been wrapped in.

Who was this young man? Where had he come from? What had he done with Jesus?

The young man said to them that they shouldn't be afraid, and that the Lord wasn't there - the Lord had risen. "He's going ahead of you to meet the disciples in Galilee. Go and tell them that."

The women left, terrified out of their minds at what they'd just seen.

...The End.

...!?!!?!?!?!?!?!

Really!? That's how the story ends? He's not here, see you in Galilee, G'bye? Best of luck to you?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! This isn't some season finale to our favorite sitcom THIS IS THE STORY OF JESUS RISING AGAIN ON THE THIRD DAY SO WHERE THE HECK IS HE!? Are you kidding me!?

What happened? Why did the story end this way? Did Jesus rise from the dead like He said He would? Is He coming back for us? Who else found these questions circulating in their heads upon the abrupt ending of this story? I'll be honest and say I was a bit frustrated at the ending. But I think the author did this to us on purpose.

We have all of the information those women did at that point. We've seen Jesus do amazing things - cast out demons, perform miracles, teach amazing lessons about how to live for Him...we've seen Him be beaten and scourged on our behalf...we've seen Him nailed to the cross, drawing His last breath through gritted teeth and a blood-soaked face. We've seen these things. And now we have a choice to make. Is it enough?

All of the signs and wonders and teachings that Jesus gave to His people in His time on the earth wasn't enough for some. For the Pharisees, nothing could soften their hearts to Jesus - no sign was enough. For some of the crowd the miracles, the wonders, they were all great, but they were parlor tricks. Not enough to merit a lifetime commitment to Him. It wasn't even enough for Judas. All that He'd said and done and proven wasn't enough for them.

But it was enough for Peter. It was enough for His apostles. It was enough for His disciples. All that they'd seen and done - it was proof enough for them that God is who He says He is, and therefore Jesus is Lord.

And so, dear reader, I ask - is it enough for you? We have all of the evidence we're going to get from the gospel of Mark to make that choice. The rest is up to you - will you be counted among those with faith? Or those without? Because if the tomb is empty, we have a serious question to answer within ourselves. Where is Jesus? If the tomb is empty - Jesus is Alive. And He is who He says He is. And He can do all of the things He promised He can and will do. 

I have decided it's enough for me - I have decided to follow Jesus. What about you?

Mark Part 4 - Faithless or Faithful?

We’ve established now the definitive “good guys” and “bad guys” in the Gospel of Mark, but one people group has yet to be mentioned and categorized. Enter: The Apostles.

These were them. The men that Jesus hand-picked to be in His inner circle. His closest friends. The ones on whom He could rely on. These were the guys who, if nobody else got it, at least they would understand what Jesus was trying to say. These men, above the other disciples, would be the exemplary model of how to follow Christ with every little bit of them.

Right?

These guys didn’t get it half the time – which might even be a generous assessment. The guys who were closest to Jesus – expected to have the greatest faith – were often arrogant, ignorant, and faithless. 

Exhibit A: Miracles.

 

 

 

 

...

 

 

 Exhibit B:Understanding Jesus' Teachings

Exhibit C:

In the middle of Jesus' beautiful example of leading with the heart of a servant and serving with the heart of a king...they argued about who among them would get to “ride shotgun” in Heaven and sit next to Jesus.

Exhibit D:

When Jesus needed their support and faithfulness the most in the Garden of Gethsemane – right before Jesus was betrayed and delivered by one of his own apostles – when He needed His friends to be diligent, awake, and in prayer, they fell asleep while He alone prayed to the Father about the upcoming suffering He was about to endure.

And we won’t even get into how the Apostles scattered like rats when Jesus was taken captive, even going so far as to deny any association with Him at all.

Faithful men, right?

Who feels just a little better about themselves and their walk with Jesus now?

In all seriousness, we are doomed to fail because of our humanity. Because we’re fallen people and we tend to suck more often than we succeed. That’s just the way it is. The example, though, of how the apostles actually WERE men of faithfulness (with that term pretty loosely defined) was that they kept coming back to Jesus. They returned to Him with their questions, with their concerns, with their prayers, with their failures. They allowed their hearts to be humble before the Christ in saying, “Oh, Man did I mess this one up, Lord” or “Hey, Jesus, I really don’t understand what you’re trying to teach me here.”

Did Jesus get frustrated with their lack of faith at times? Absolutely. As, quite frankly, I think He gets with us from time to time.

I know in my life, Jesus has had to repeatedly teach me the same lessons. Over and over. Lather, rinse, repeat. And still I don’t understand fully what He tries to teach me…it doesn’t always sink in the first, second, or forty-third time. But I have to allow myself to bring my failures and my misunderstandings to Christ. Or else I become faithless.

I become like Judas Iscariot – who in spite of being among the closest friends of Jesus – still allowed Himself to be overtaken by a lack of faith, a lack of belief that the Christ could do all that He came here to do, and in the end it not only cost Jesus His life (Jesus would have gone to the cross anyways, but Judas certainly was the catalyst for the whole event), but it cost Judas something much greater – eternal fellowship with God.

There will be times in our lives when our faith will be tested. And there will be times when our faith comes up lacking. But the difference between faithlessness and faithfulness is whether or not we allow the failures of our faith to drive us back into the arms of Christ who is the source of all faithfulness, or whether we allow them to drive us away.

 

We each have a choice to make.

Mark Part 3 - Opposition

Every moderate-to-AWESOME story needs at least one of the following[1]:

and...

And when you put the two together, the outcome is almost always

This was no different in Jesus’ case. In the gospel of Mark, opposition and the ensuing conflict is at the very heart of Jesus’ story, from shortly after His baptism to His final breath on the cross. Jesus faces opposition in basically two forms[2]:

(1) Satanic/demonic forces

(2) Religious leaders (a.k.a. Pharisees and scribes).

Satanic/Demonic Forces

Right after Jesus gets baptized 

It appears as though Jesus hadn’t even finished drying His beard before the Holy Spirit drove Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil himself. Mark tells us that Satan tempted Jesus for forty days, and immediately afterward Jesus began His ministry.

(I got this picture in an email, and thought it was pretty win.)

Imagine squaring off with the devil Himself for forty days. Think of how grueling a process this must have been for Jesus. And yet Scripture tells us He never sinned, He never gave into any of those temptations. [3] From the moment Satan tried to stand between Jesus and the will of God, Jesus prevailed.

Teaching in Synagogue
So Jesus sends Satan away to lick his wounds and ends up teaching in Capernaum on the Sabbath. And the people are astounded by the authority with which Jesus knows and speaks the word of God. Things appear to be going just according to plan, when a man with an “unclean spirit” crashes the party. 

The demon leaves the man, and word gets around that this “new teacher” Jesus has such authority that even the demons listen to Him. People are amazed by this, because it keeps happening. Mark 1:34 says that “He was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who He was.”

Don’t you think the word would have gotten around in the demonic world that this guy Jesus was not someone to be messed with? It would seem to me that the dark forces would have taken the hint those first few times and left well enough alone, but it appears as though the opposite happens. Jesus meets a man who is so extremely tormented by the demonic that he is left destitute, naked, injuring himself, and left to dwell among the dead in the tombs of a town in Gerasenes:

The Gerasene Demonaic
“…he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no man was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain…and no one was able to subdue him. Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.”

 

Now let’s think for a moment. What does the term “legion” mean? According to my handy-dandy-Microsoft Word dictionary, a legion is defined as “In ancient Rome, an army division of 3,000 – 6,000 soldiers, including cavalry.”

Yes, I am telling you that anywhere from 3 – 6,000 demons were tormenting this man at once. “We are many” doesn’t even begin to cover the torture this man likely endured while being held captive by Legion.

And yet, do you catch that a legion of demons still cowered in fear of the Son of God? They were begging Him for mercy. They implored Him to leave them alone, to not banish them into the abyss. The most profound level of demonic opposition my human mind can grasp cowers in fear of Jesus, Son of the Most High God. And Jesus handles them quickly, as if they are nothing at all to Him.

And so they did.

Jesus handles demonic opposition with the authority that has been given Him by God. Through faith in the Father and confidence in His position in God, Jesus faces that opposition and comes out on top, as he rightfully should. And though in this circumstance the people begged Jesus to leave their town, typically when Jesus bests the demonic, it is received as a sign of authority from God.  However, the demonic forces are by no means the only opposition Jesus faces in His time here on earth. The most persistent, annoying, and troubling to Jesus’ life is the opposition He faces from those who are supposed to be the strongest supporters of God’s Kingdom –

The Religious Elite

 

The scribes and Pharisees are supposed to be the men who know God’s word inside and out, and follow the law the most passionately. But the men that Jesus faces are constantly described as having hardened hearts[4] . These are the men who are constantly challenging the authority of Jesus. They constantly try to trap Him in His words, bring charges against Him. These are the very men who paid Judas Iscariot (one of the Apostles) off to turn Jesus over to them for His crucifixion.

All throughout the gospel of Mark these Pharisees pop up left and right – challenging Jesus’ authority to heal on the Sabbath, pestering Him about Jesus having a relationship with sinners and tax collectors, trying to trick Him in His knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures, and plotting against Him to have Him killed.

Why? What are these men’s problems with Jesus? Why don’t they let Him alone – why don’t these men, of all people, recognize the Son of God when they see Him?

The answer is actually quite simple. They are all about the kingdom of Man, not the kingdom of God. The Pharisees saw Jesus as a threat to their position of status in the Jewish community. If you were a Pharisee in these times, you were the most godly, most religious man around. You had your spiritual “act” together. You observed EVERY tradition, EVERY ritual, and your spiritual life was flawless to anyone on the outside looking in.

Which is where they encountered problems with Jesus.

He wasn’t interested in the outside. He was all about the INSIDE of man, the hearts of people. And he saw straight into the hearts of these Pharisees and observed that they were hardened, self-righteous, and hypocritical. They were the furthest from the Lord and unwilling to budge. And they were unwilling to approach Jesus and include Him in their questions about His practices. They were far more content to grumble amongst themselves about Jesus not doing things THEIR way. And Jesus called them out again and again and again for it.

And so these men decided to “get rid of the problem.” Which they no doubt answered for in eternity - every person involved in His capture and crucifixion.

So what are our big take-aways from this? (Other than the obvious: Jesus is more powerful than demons and don’t be a Pharisee because they suck.)

For me, personally, the big take-away was this: if I don’t want to be a force of opposition (a “bad guy”) then the biggest thing that I need to do is approach Jesus when I have a problem with how He’s doing things. Because it happens. I’m human. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve likely had this dialogue with God –

I need to keep God a part of the conversation. I need to be honest with  Jesus when I don’t understand what He’s doing or why. And here’s the key, ladies and gentlemen: I need to approach God with a humble heart that is willing to be shown why God’s way is better than mine. Because it’s about His Kingdom, isn’t it? It’s His will, His way. He doesn’t owe me an explanation. And more often than not, when I include God in the conversation about what’s bothering me, and come at Him with a soft heart, He gives me that explanation even when He doesn’t have to.

I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to be is in opposition of Jesus. Because I know who wins at the end of the day. And I’d much rather play for the winning team than for the team that gets a great big “Jesus-BOOYA” when it’s all said and done. Opposing God only causes big problems.

So how do I follow Jesus in faith even when I don’t understand what He’s doing? What happens when my faith fails, or when I don’t operate in the faith that I have? What happens when I’m not quite a “bad guy” but I’m certainly struggling to be one of the “good guys”?

 
That, my friends, is a discussion for another post. See you next time!

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[1]blatant Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog reference

[2]Mark L. Strauss, Four Portraits, One Jesus, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2006), page 197 

[3]See Matthew 4 and Luke 4 for more details on the temptation of Jesus

[4]Mark 3:4