Monthly Archives: August 2020

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – GREATNESS IS DOWN, NOT UP

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GREATNESS IS DOWN, NOT UP

33 They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” 34 But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
35 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
36 He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.” Mark 9:33-37

The disciples had not yet learned to live in the realm of the kingdom of God as Jesus did. They were still very much a part of this world system with its understanding of power as force and control. In complete contrast to the yoke of Jesus, they contended for top political place in a kingdom that already had its hierarchy in place which Jesus had no intention of overthrowing.

By contrast, the kingdom of God drew its power from everything opposite to what they understood. Leadership and greatness flows from servant-hood. Power lies in gentleness and humility and love overcomes fear, light drives out darkness and government begins on the inside, in one’s heart first, by submitting to and embracing the rule of God over one’s life first.

By engaging in the on-going power struggle, the disciples were feeding the old selfish, greedy nature that reflected the darkness still in their own souls. It was obvious that they needed the transformation of the new heart but that experience for them lay beyond the cross and resurrection when they could finally “see” for themselves what God’s reign in the hearts really meant.

Jesus continued, patiently to sow the seed of truth because the Holy Spirit’s role in their hearts was to bring that truth to life in the on-going experiences of their lives. He would remind them of Jesus’ words and open the eyes of their hearts to see what they could not see now. Jesus did not despair of their “getting it “. He continued to lay the foundation of the real yet unseen kingdom in them into which they would finally be catapulted on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit would put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Their lack of understanding meant loss for Jesus at this point. He would have to endure the cross experience without their understanding or support. He knew that but it did not faze Him because He was fully confident of the Holy Spirit’s partnership in the ultimate success of His mission.

THE GOSPEL 0F MARK – THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND

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THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND 

30 They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31 because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” 32 But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. Mark 9:30-32

This seems to have been quite a long interlude in the region of Caesarea Philippi. Isn’t it likely that the high mountain Mark was referring to was Mount Hermon since Caesarea Philippi lay at the base of Mt Hermon? The nine disciples were in the same vicinity for a whole week, waiting for Jesus and His disciples to return, surrounded by all the evidence of godless idolatry and depraved behaviour. It is difficult to imagine what went on in the minds of these twelve men in this atmosphere.

Jesus was completely unfazed by His experience. As always, these kinds of experiences only served to strengthen His awareness of the kingdom in which He lived and which He represented. He used every opportunity He could to condition the minds of His disciples to His impending death as a very necessary part of His purpose for coming “from the other side” so that they would also learn to live in the awareness of the kingdom of God.

At this point, His disciples were still held captive by their “this-worldly” perceptions of the kingdom of God, to the idea that Jesus was going to restore a David-type kingdom in Israel. After all, were not many of the Old Testament prophecies about Messiah related to His being the son of David? Although the two streams of thought were clear in the Old Testament, both king and suffering servant, it was the king-concept that was uppermost in their minds. They could not embrace His death as an atoning sacrifice for sin and the concept of the kingdom as a spiritual domain open to all who would receive His sacrifice as a once-for-all act to reconcile them to God.

Their failure to make this paradigm shift shut their minds to all His efforts to prepare them for the apparent disaster that loomed ahead. It was almost as though there was a part of their brains that was deaf and dead to His words. They could not make the connection between their sacrificial system of offering animal sacrifices to atone for sin and Jesus, the Lamb of God, being the one offering for all time to take away the sins of the world. It would take revelation truth from the Holy Spirit to make this connection.

Strange as it may seem, despite the presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers today, there are still many who do not understand the relevance of the suffering and death of Jesus in their own lives. They may wear the symbol of His death as a piece of jewelry around their necks but they do not carry the cross daily and follow Him. Their connection to Jesus is no more than a free pass to heaven, not an indissoluble union with Him in His death  and resurrection.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

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THE WAR TO END ALL WARS

14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.
17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.
28 After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
29 He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
Mark 9:14-30

We must never forget that these twelve men were serving their apprenticeship and that failure was an essential part of their learning experience. Their successes only strengthened their self-confidence and edged them towards self-sufficiency. Failure made them more aware of the lessons that came out of it and helped them to focus more on God and less on themselves. Since humility is one of the chief qualities of their Rabbi’s yoke, it was failure that made them aware of how much they needed God. The success and failure of their entire mission leaned on how closely they followed their Rabbi’s teaching and example under the companionship, tutoring, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

It would not be long before Jesus would undergo His final and toughest test of submission and obedience upon which the destiny of the entire human race depended. Although the disciples did not understand at the time, they would be observers of the fiercest battle the planet had ever witnessed. Wars may be the battle between human forces with darkness and light the underlying conflict, but this encounter was the ultimate clash between the only human representative of the kingdom of God and all the powers of darkness at work through all the human representatives ranged against Him. This war can possibly be summed up in three principles: religion, envy and greed.

There was only one thing that guaranteed Jesus’ victory – His God-awareness shaped by His knowledge of the Word of God which sustained His unity with the Father. Jesus was the living epitome of Acts 17:28, “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” These two factors, God-awareness and the Word of God, are our only guarantee of a safe passage through life lived in a completely hostile environment.

Jesus navigated life through hostility in its worst forms: pathological and murderous hatred from the religious hierarchy, and misunderstanding from His own followers. He lived His entire life in aloneness in the world which cast Him even more strongly upon His Father. He won the battle that Adam lost in the garden, He resisted every temptation to go it alone. He and the Father were indissolubly one and that alone, in reliance upon the Word and the Spirit, was the guarantee of the success of His mission.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – NO SENSE OF GOD!

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NO SENSE OF GOD

19 “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”
20 So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.
21 Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”
“From childhood,” he answered. 22 “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
23 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
24 Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
25 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”
26 The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. Mark 9:19-27

If our understanding of prayer is that the essence of prayer is changing our awareness from self-awareness to God-awareness, then Jesus’ diagnosis of the disciples’ powerlessness to deliver the demon-possessed boy, “No sense of God”, and the reason for their powerlessness, “There is no way to get rid of this demon except by prayer,” makes a whole lot of sense.

What made Jesus so effective in His campaign against evil, both in His teaching and in His works? Was it because His God-awareness put Him in perfect alignment with the wisdom and power of God? Since He functioned as a human being and not as God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, where did His God-awareness come from? Jesus was the last Adam, born innocent but not righteous. His righteousness was won through a hard-fought battle against the continual onslaughts of the enemy. Satan had one objective – to destroy Jesus’ unity with God and by getting Him to act independently of His Father. He succeeded in the Garden of Eden with Adam but he failed with Jesus.

Jesus had two powerful weapons, the Word of God and prayer. He spent thirty years in obscurity, becoming saturated in the use of these two weapons. Then He emerged into the limelight to engage His enemy and prove His true sonship by overcoming the enemy’s many-pronged attacks. “He learned obedience from what He suffered.” Hebrews 5:8. Did He learn obedience through trial and error? No, He learned the power of obedience by obeying. Obedience made Him stronger and stronger in His ECHAD and in His perfect dependence on the Father.

So, what He taught His disciples that day through their failure to rescue this child from his tormentors was what they and we need to learn to fulfil and complete His mission on earth. God’s kingdom can only come and His will be done through disciples who learn to imitate their Master; people whose minds are saturated with the word of God, who are constantly practising the presence of God, walk in the Spirit and live in unity with the Father. Such people are as serious a threat to Satan as Jesus was.

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – THEY STILL HADN’T GOT IT!

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THEY STILL HADN’T GOT IT!

14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. 15 As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.
16 “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.
17 A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 18 Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” Mark 9:14-18

Jesus left behind nine disciples when He went up the mountain with the other three. What were they supposed to be doing? Hanging around waiting for Jesus? As long as there were needy people around, they were never off duty. When Jesus and His disciples arrived back, the nine were engaged in a heated debate with the religion scholars. About what? Was it over their failure to drive the demon out of an epileptic boy or were they trying to defend their association with Jesus?

Another tough experience for them because they themselves were plagued with doubts and misunderstandings about Jesus. He kept speaking about things that had no connection with their expectations. Perhaps their failure to deliver the sick boy was linked with their perception of the kingdom of God, which resembled the kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon, rather than the concept of a spiritual dimension ruled by God.

The commotion Jesus encountered must have had something to do with the child because the father emerged from the crowd with the complaint that the disciples had failed to help them.

The description of the child’s seizures seems to indicate that he had epilepsy but the father attributed it to a demon and Jesus did not contradict him. This prompts the question, “Is epilepsy demonic in origin or is this a case of demonic activity manifesting in epilepsy-like symptoms?” Epileptics are not usually mute unless there is some interference with the speech centre.

This prompts another question? “How much of what goes wrong in our bodies is caused by demonic activity? Are demons behind many illnesses and conditions because we have allowed them in by sinful habits and attitudes? Has our pre-occupation with scientific research and scientific explanations blinded us to the war zone we are in?” Since Jesus was the only person who fully knew the truth, His understanding and actions would have reflected what was actually going on. 87