Monthly Archives: May 2020

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE TIME HAS COME

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THE TIME HAS COME

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 1:12-15

The evidence of Jesus’ absolute confidence in the Father’s love is startling. He was not fazed by the horrific experience He has just come through – forty days in an environment so hostile that no human being ever ventured there, at least not for an extended stay.  And, on top of that, a lone human being at the mercy of an angelic spirit who was unseen, elusive, and bent on destroying Him. On His own, He could not have survived. He had to lean hard on the Holy Spirit, His companion and comforter.

According to Luke, Jesus was FILLED with the Spirit prior to His wilderness experience but returned in the POWER of the Spirit. What made the difference? Forty days of leaning hard on God; forty days of moving from human to divine energy; forty days of the kingdom pressing in on His spirit, thinning the veil between flesh and spirit. What was it that so soaked into His being that it spilled out of His mouth when He opened it? “God is here!”

What was the impact of His announcement on the people? “After 400 years of hearing nothing from God, left to battle it out on our own, abandoned, misused, oppressed, is God really here?   Jesus, you must be joking. How can we believe you?” Jesus said, “I’ll show you.” and He did. Suddenly things began to happen that made them sit up and take notice, things God had promised long ago would happen, that would accompany His Messiah’s coming.

“God is here!” What difference would that make to the people around us if we were to announce it to them boldly? What difference would it make to the people in the church? Do we really, really believe that God is here, now? What difference does it make to you and me? Does it allay fear and anxiety and give us courage and confidence to face life head on? Yes! A thousand times, yes! The fact that God is here makes all the difference in the world. We have a freedom and a peace that carries us up above circumstances and steadies us all the time.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – IN THE WILDERNESS

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IN THE WILDERNESS

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. Mark 1:9-13

God’s pleasure in His son is expressed in an unusual way. The human tendency would be to cushion our sons by making their lives easier, plying them with gifts or just “spoiling” them in one way or another, but of what benefit would that be to them in the long term? God’s way of benefiting Jesus was to isolate Him in rough and hostile surroundings in order to put Him through the most stringent of tests – cut off from every comfort including a supply of food and water. He had to rely completely on His Father to sustain Him and keep Him alive.

We can be sure that the Father closely monitored every moment in that dangerous place – dangerous in both the natural and spiritual environments: extreme heat and cold, wild creatures and even the terrain itself were all pitted against Him. What kind of father would do that to his son?

God knew what lay ahead for Jesus. To be unprepared would have been suicide. It was the very love of God for His son that manoeuvred Him into that setting because the next three-and-a-half years would be fraught with dangers that would affect His eternal destiny and ours. There was no time for a little “spoiling” to express His love for Jesus. Far greater would be God’s approval and appreciation for His trust and obedience in the toughest of circumstances.

And what about you and me? Wherein lies the greatest of God’s favour and blessing? Yes, He does shower His benefits on us because of Jesus. We are the apple of His eye and the object of His extravagant love and furious grace, but sometimes His greatest benefits come to us in disguise. Why? Because God’s eye is focussed on the finish line and the prize, and it’s the journey to the finish line that matters..

Jesus was striving for a huge prize – the restoration of all things – and He could not rest and take His ease along the way. The “big test” was part of His journey and it is part of ours. That is the greatest evidence of God’s love.

 

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – YOU ARE MY SON

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YOU ARE MY SON

 

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:9- 

This is an unembellished record of Jesus’ first public appearance – baptism by the hand of John. This practice of ritual washing was a recognised part of Jewish religion. It happened on many occasions and for many different reasons. It was a symbol of old and new, cleansing and initiation into something new. For Jesus, a big part of its meaning was identification – full participation with the human race so that He could be a faithful high priest (Hebrews 4:16).

According to Mark, the voice from heaven that accompanied Jesus’ baptism was heard by Him, not necessarily by the crowd, and yet the message was an affirmation of His sonship and God’s total approval of phase 1 of His human existence.

Three times in the gospels, God, the Father, speaks audibly. The first time He acknowledges His Son’s flawless hidden years, at His baptism; the second time His equally flawless public ministry, on the mount of transfiguration; the third time the Father responded to Jesus’ prayer “Father, glorify your name,” (John 12:28), at the end of His public life and on the eve of His crucifixion.

The Father’s affirmation is accompanied by the Holy Spirit’s manifestation – again seen and experienced by Jesus as a visible and personal presence. Why did Jesus need the Holy Spirit? As always, the triune God functioned as ECHAD, indissolubly intertwined in their salvation plan. Jesus was the last Adam, created in the image of the first Adam, innocent but not righteous. He had every potential to fail, like the first Adam but, like the first Adam, He also had the Spirit of God to empower His choices.

Jesus had to navigate the treacherous path of life under the total focus of the enemy without one slip into self-sufficiency or independence. He offers to all who believe in Him the same Spirit that empowered Him, to live the same life of obedience to the Father and complete trust in Him, and He showed us how it was done.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – AND SO, JOHN THE BAPTIST…

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AND SO, JOHN THE BAPTIST…

 CHAPTER 1: Verses 4-6

And so, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

 True to character, John focussed his attention on the one whose coming he was announcing. He was making the way smooth for the one coming behind him. John was a mere blip on the radar of history. Jesus IS history. Jesus appears on the radar screen, but He always was, unseen in the eternal realm and touching down on earth for a nano-second to realign a wayward humanity with God.

From the vast, eternal “now” of God, Jesus enters the time line of earth in human form, and in the manner in which all humans make their entrance – human birth. Mark assumes this and ignores the miracles that accompanied this special child’s arrival. Instead, he focuses on His entry onto the stage of His public life.

What is important about this performance is that John invites people not to be spectators but to be a part of this grand unrehearsed production. This is the whole pivot of his ministry. “Don’t just stand there looking! Get involved and be a part of what God is doing!” It begins with a change of heart and attitude.

For 400 years God seems to be silent and inactive. But that’s how we perceive things to be. The truth is that God has been preparing the stage for His entrance. The drama is about to begin.

A call to repentance and baptism is a call to a new awareness of God’s nearness and a new identification and participation in what God is doing. He’s come Himself to intervene in human history with a daring rescue plan. It involves taking the enemy on, on his turf, and playing his game. Satan’s ploy is to lure people by deception and enslavement into death, a grip that no-one can break. Jesus took him on with His eyes wide open. He set the pace and called the shots. He held the trump card because death had no hold on Him.

John could offer Jesus as the author of a new life for everyone who wanted to participate because, from eternity’s perspective, it was already accomplished.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – INTRODUCTION

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FOLLOWING JESUS THROUGH MARK’S GOSPEL

INTRODUCTION

Our journey with Jesus must inevitably take us through the gospels because they are the record of much of His life and teachings that we are called to understand and to imitate.

Why Mark’s Gospel first?

According to Biblical scholarship, it is the first and earliest written record of the life and teachings of Jesus and it is the main source of Matthew and Luke.

It is the shortest and simplest gospel, written for Gentile readers, especially the Romans with explanations of some of the Jewish beliefs and practices.

It presents Jesus as the servant of the Lord, which is a powerful model for the disciple to follow.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1: Verses 1-8

 

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,
2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: “I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way” —
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ’Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.
6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

 Matthew and Luke begin their stories with the previous generation, Joseph and Mary, Zachariah and Elizabeth, and the events leading up to the birth of their respective sons. Mark’s story is open-ended – no record of who John was, who his parents were, and how he came to be carrying out a prophetic role; no record of Jesus’ human origins. He plonks the reader down in the middle of a story and leaves the other gospel writers to fill in the gaps.

At the same time, though, there’s a kingly majesty about the human figure of Jesus. He has a crier announcing His coming and preparing the way for Him. In true godly fashion, His forerunner is not dressed in finery, coming from the royal court in pomp and ceremony. He bursts from the wilderness because anywhere is God’s royal throne room. He appears from the courts of heaven, from years of tutoring in the wilderness school of God, dressed simply and eating simply. The focus is not on the messenger but on the message.

John was not merely mouthing the words of the prophet Isaiah. He was soaked, marinated in the words of the prophet. He had a burden and a burning in his spirit which, like Jeremiah, he could not keep shut up in his bones. It was a passion so fiery that he released it by shouting it to the wind. At first no-one heard it. He announced it to nature and nature listened.

Then one here, one there, who happened to be in earshot, began to hear, to listen and to call in a friend, a neighbour, a brother, to come and listen. It was a radical message like no other message they had ever heard. Messiah! Kingdom! Holy Spirit! New life! Change! Repent! God is here!

What was this? They had not heard from God in 400 years. Now a strange, scantily clad, wild man appears, shouting so convincingly that they had to respond. A tide of hope begins to rise within them. No man speaks so boldly unless he knows and speaks the truth.