When Little Becomes Much

The last two days our readings have featured stories about little that becomes much.  In Mark 6, we saw Jesus take table scraps and turn them into a meal for 5,000 people.  And today in Mark 7, we saw a woman humbly accept "scraps" from Jesus and have her daughter healed.  Both stories speak to the greatness of Jesus.

What strikes me is how different the attitudes of those around Jesus are in the two stories.  In the incident of the loaves and the fishes, the disciples cannot understand how the little that they have could be used to blessed others.  In the incident of the Gentile woman, the woman knows that even a little with Jesus will become a lot.  This Gentile outsider has more insight on Jesus than the Jewish men who had followed Jesus everywhere day and night.

I am glad to know that a little is a lot with Jesus.  Like the disciples, I don't have much to offer, but it is reassuring to know that Jesus can take the little that I have and do more with it than I ever could.  Like the woman, I cannot make grand claims upon by Jesus, but I can know that even scraps of Jesus' grace are more than sufficient for the needs I find in my life and my soul.  Praise God that with Jesus a little becomes a lot.

The Complete Job Description (Mark 3)

In Mark 3, Jesus is overwhelmed.  Verse 9 tells us that He has to retreat from land to boat just to escape the crush of the crowds who were coming to be healed by Him and to hear Him teach.  In verses 13-19, Jesus appoints 12 to help in the work.  He realizes that He cannot go it alone.

As I read Mark 3 and see Jesus appoint His disciples, the thing that strikes me is their job description.  Note carefully in verses 14-15 what Jesus appointed His disciples to do.  It says that Jesus appointed His disciples to be with Him, to preach, and to drive out demons.  Don't miss that first part of the job description.  I did the first time I read it.  I heard that Jesus sent them to preach and to drive out demons (the very things He was doing).  But I missed the first part of the description.  Not only were the disciples called to preach and to liberate people from spiritual bondage, but they were also called to simply be with Jesus, to see what He was doing and to learn from Him.

It is important that being with Jesus came before the preaching and the liberating.  Hearing and knowing Him is the vital precedent to all ministry.  Yet, so often I have a busy ministry day ahead, and I think, "I don't have time for a quiet time.  I have real work to do."  That is so wrongheaded.  Being with Jesus is the real work also.  It is the thing out of which the work preaching and the liberating flow.  Never forget that as a Christian ministry and life flow out of Jesus.  The first part of being a disciple is spending time with Him, knowing His will and His way.

Critics (Mark 2)

Critics- they are everywhere.  Even in the church.  It is amazing how some Christians will review the relationships that other Christians have with God as though they were were evaluating a movie or a piece of music.  In my almost 47 years in the church, I don't know how many times I have heard Christians comment on and evaluate the godliness of another.  Certainly as Christians, we are to encourage and admonish one another.  More mature believers should help those who are just starting in their faith.  But usually the barbs of religious criticism aren't offered with helpful intent.  And often those barbs seem to come from those who are watching rather than doing.

Take for example Mark 2.  In Mark's narrative, Jesus has just begun His ministry.  Already, though, the criticisms are coming.  Four times in this chapter the religious leaders question Jesus and His disciples about their behavior.  First, they criticize Jesus for forgiving sin.  Second, they don't like the company He keeps.  Third, they don't like His fasting schedule.  And finally, these religious leaders find Jesus' disciples' Sabbath observance less than stellar.  In this chapter, Jesus has healed a paralytic and He has successfully evangelized a group that wanted nothing to do with God.  Before that, He healed dozens of people in miraculous ways in Mark 1.  What have the religious leaders accomplished in ministry during this time?  They have filled the complaint box with criticisms of Jesus while contributing nothing positive to God's work on earth.        

How is your walk with God?  It is characterized by active ministry and participation in the work of God in calling people to Himself?  Or is it plagued by carping and criticism toward those who are doing the real work of the church?  Godliness isn't found in maintaining a list of rules that God Himself didn't endorse.  Godliness is found in ministering to people and in letting God's mercy toward human need rule the day.  Mingle with the sinners.  Stop shouting snide remarks with the sideline saints. 

Good News (Mark 1)

In Mark 1, Mark introduces the subject that he will be writing about.  He says that he will be writing about the "gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God."  Most of us know that Gospel means "Good News," but what really is the Good News about Jesus?  When I grew up in the church, I was taught that the Gospel equaled salvation.  In other words, the Gospel could be reduced to Jesus died for you so that your sins could be forgiven and you could live forever in heaven.  As a child, I understood the Gospel to be future oriented.

As we read through Mark, though, we will see that Jesus' teaching is often as present centered as it is future oriented.  And we will see that while the forgiveness of sins through Jesus' death is an absolutely essential part of the Good News, the Good News cannot be reduced to that.  Note in Mark 1, where the Gospel is introduced, there is almost nothing about heaven or the future.  Instead, the truth of the Good News is revealed in the authority with which Jesus teaches and heals.  Jesus is not just bring a future kingdom.  He is reigning very much in the present as well.  He is ushering a new experience of God and the Spirit, and He is demonstrating a love and compassion for the poor and the broken.

Did Jesus die for our sins and make atonement for us? Yes.  Is that Good News? Yes.  Does the Good News only shape our future?  No.  If we think so, that is our mistake.  Mark 1 makes it clear that the Good News about Jesus shapes and transforms our present world as well.

What A Difference a Day Makes (Matthew 28)

There can be no doubt that the resurrection accounts are the most challenging passages in all of the Gospels.  Whereas most of the parallel passages in the Gospels dovetail together rather nicely, the four resurrection passages are rather messy things that really defy facile harmonization.  I have seen a harmonization attempt that seeks to show that none of the four resurrection accounts contradicts the other, but one has to admit that in the end that effort is rather unconvincing.  I don't know what the resurrection passages do to our evangelical doctrines of Scripture, but I do know that they show a world turned upside down and transformed after Jesus comes back to life.  Matthew is not afraid to let us know that some doubted.  But he also is eager to let us know that for those who believed everything was gloriously transformed.  Think about it.  On Friday, Jesus was killed by a powerful political alliance that combined the Temple authorities with their usual enemies the Romans.   On Good Friday, it seemed that Jesus took on some powerful people and paid dearly.  Now, after the resurrection, Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."  On Good Friday, the disciples were in hiding.  Now, they have a mission to the world.  "Go and make disciples..."  On Good Friday, and the day that followed, the disciples were alone.  Jesus, with whom they had walked for three years, was taken from them.  Now, He is with them always "even to the end of the world." 

The events surrounding the resurrection defied easy historical description because they forever turned the world upside down.  Don't let the chaos of the events lead to doubt.  Instead, see the glorious transformation that is made in the lives of those who believe.

Why I Am Glad Not to Live in Old Testament Times (And Why It Has Almost Nothing to Do with Mold)

Very often, I have heard Christians say: "Boy am I glad that I don't live in Old Testament times."  Often, this declaration of fondness for our New Testament times comes after reading Leviticus or some other particularly dense an foreign section of Old Testament Law.  How happy we are that we don't have to slaughter a goat to worship God.  How happy we are that we don't have to have the priest inspect the mold on our shower wall.  How happy we are that we can wear clothes made from more than one type of fabric. Our joy at being New Testament Christians rather than Old Testament saints usually stems from freedom from regulation.  In regard to covenants, we are all conservatives, desirous of less regulation rather than more.

I agree with Christians who say "Boy am I glad that I don't live in Old Testament times."  I feel the same way.  But it is not just because the regulations are less.  It is also because the benefits are more. In Jeremiah 31, we get a summary of the difference between the Old and New Testaments.  Here, Jeremiah has a prophetic vision of what New Testament life under Christ will be like.  Jeremiah 31:31-34 says:

"'The time is coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ' declares the LORD. 33 'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the LORD. 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the LORD. 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more'" (NIV).   

Jeremiah tells us at least three ways that the New Covenant under which we live is unique from the old:

1. Our law is not external but internal.  The Lord says: "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts."  Under the New Covenant, we have the Holy Spirit to change our hearts and our minds and our personality.  The Old Covenant came with no power to obey.  Through Christ's work, the New Covenant grants us the Holy Spirit.  He slowly changes our sinful nature so that we can respond to the law properly and have the power to obey. 

2. We know God in a personal way.  "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me from the last of them to the greatest."  In the Old Testament, the message was keep away from God.  Only one person (the high priest) on one day of the year (Yom Kippur) could enter into God's presence.  Now, the presence of God is with all His people every day, and we as a community and as individuals are called temples of His Holy Spirit.

3. We are forgiven.  "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."  Our righteousness is not rendered by obedience to the Law (which is good for us because we can't obey it).  Our righteousness is granted by God, in His grace, through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.

I'm very happy that as a pastor I don't have to inspect the mold in people's showers.  But the joy of the New Testament isn't merely freedom from regulation.  It is instead the positive blessing of God's power, God's presence, and God's pardon as ministered through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.   

A Slow Go

The story of Joseph reminds us that progress in godliness is often slow but with persistence it does come.  At the start of Genesis 31, Jacob is once again doing what he does best-- acting deceitfully.  The author of Genesis doesn't want you to miss that truth.  He spells it out in 31:20.  You would think that after deceiving and being deceived, Jacob might have learned another means of doing business, but decades after first deceiving Esau, Jacob is stuck in the same pattern.

Yet, Genesis 32 provides hope that perhaps Jacob is beginning to learn.  While Jacob hid his departure from Laban, he sends messangers to let Esau know he is arriving.  Jacob is not going to try deceit here.  When Jacob hears that Esau is coming to meet him with a mighty force, he prays to God and pleads for his help rather than relying on his own craftiness and schemes.  Genesis 32 gives us some signs that Jacob may be growing up ever so slightly.

Spiritual progress is often not a sprint.  In our lives and in the lives of others, growth requires patience.  Praise God that He is long suffering, that  He gives us the chance to grow in grace and to learn all the lessons that He has for us.