Jesus & Sinners

Mark 2:13-17

Funny how God sticks the same thing in our paths enough times to get it to sink in. When I read this passage this morning, it was a combination of two other thoughts I've been offered this morning. In my weekly study, we covered a similar passage in Luke 15, and discussed the love that God had for sinners, and the rejoicing when they repent. Upon getting home, I picked up the July 14th edition of World Magazine. In her article Security Counsel, Andrée Seu (by way of a Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote) points out that if Levi had not left his job for some wandering behind Christ, he would have missed out on learning how to really trust God.
So it seems that the two things that God is telling me today are 1) be prepared to follow Him wherever He leads and 2) truly care about a dying world. OK, now what? I've got a sneaking suspicion that this is somehow leading to an answer to my prayer for a employment. Which means, I'm not completely comfortable with that yet, but maybe that's why the rest of the message hasn't come yet. Funny thing is, despite my lack of complete comfort with God controlling every detail of my life, I'm pot committed. I mean, I've done what I was supposed to for the last 2 years, despite no financial guarantees, which has set the table for my current unemployment. I don't have any options EXCEPT waiting for God to open a door. Which probably means I should work on caring for the lost. Huh. Didn't see that coming when I started writing. Guess now I've got something to work on.

Love as a demonstration of Spirituality.

Mark 2:1-12

I've posted on this story before, although I used the text from Luke. I also mentioned it on Sunday, so if you were there, you might be able to predict what I write. Or maybe not.
After the man is lowered down, Jesus response is not what we would expect from a person with the reputation of a healer: He says, "Your sins are forgiven." The response of the Pharisees, that only God could forgive sins, raises an interesting response from Jesus. We must ask ourselves, why did Jesus do what he did? Clearly, He felt that the forgiveness was most important. He offers s his reasoning behind the encounter when he says "So that you may know that the son of man has the power to forgive sins." Christ offered his healing as evidence for His deity. He allowed the purity of His relationship with the Father, evidenced by the unprovable ability to forgive sin, to be demonstrated through His display of godly love.
In a similar way, our responsibility is to display our relationship with God through our actions. Actions are the language and evidence of our love for and faith in God. In following Christ's example, we can provide evidence for our life in Him.

Four Brief Insights

Mark 1:21-45

So, four different paragraphs, four passages to comment on so I can finish chapter 1.

Jesus drives out a demon
It's interesting that there was a man with a demon in the synagogue. What was he doing there? We might think that he was there to be healed, but the position as the first miracle in Mark makes me question that a little. The man had to have control at least some of the time. I wonder if the man hadn't hidden the demon from the view of most, but presence of Christ brought the demon to the front, despite the man's intentions. Do our churches honestly represent Christ? If we are truly the body of Christ, it will be difficult for sin to be concealed among us, but it will be brought into the open, confessed and dealt with.

Jesus Heals Peter's mom (and others)
It's funny, so often when we think of Jesus Healing, we think of the spectacularly big miracles, the resurrections, the healing of paralysis, the lepers. Here, Jesus justs drives out a fever. It's a "small" miracle, but what a relief to the woman. This small miracle provides the impetus for the rest of the town to come to be healed, and Christ was able to further demonstrate God's glory.

Jesus' Quite Time
This is a convicting passage. If Christ can heal a town, cast out demons and still get up early to pray, I ought to be able to work some more prayer into my schedule. It's such a simple thing, and so amazing but we don't make nearly enough time for it. We'll I'm speaking for myself, but I'm going to guess I'm not along. We have the opportunity to approach the God of the universe on a personal basis. We need to take advantage of that.

Jesus heals a leper
I recently posted on this passage, but I've got some different thoughts now, so I'll post those. To see the Dr. Who version, wander this way. Jesus tells the leper to present himself to the priest, according to the law. Interesting, there's a pretty significant passage on skin diseases in Leviticus. There are pretty specific rules about what healing from leprosy looks like, and I'd be surprised, based on available treatments, if the priests ever saw anyone for this particular inspection & sacrifice. I do not doubt that a least a part of the motivation in Christs order to go and be inspected according to the law was to bear witness to the priests that God was working in Israel.

Walking away from your net.

Mark 1:12-27

One thing I think it's important to notice in the first few verses of this passage is that Christ went from a wonderful, uplifting spiritual experience to a pretty rough time of temptation directly by Satan. In the same way that we go through "dry" times or "desert experiences," Christ had times in his life that were more of a struggle than others.

The calling of the first few disciples here is often glossed over. Christ didn't go out and and choose venerated and scholarly old fishermen, who had spent as much time studying and praying and fishing, although this seems to be the opinion of Domenico Ghirlandaio, who did the painting above. No, it's much more likely that the 30ish Christ chose young guys, 15 - 20, to follow him. And the strange thing is, these guys were good with that. They just chuck down their nets "See ya, pops" and off to follow the Rabbi. Zebedee's standing there with the hired men "Guys, hang on, you've got to finish, your nets are still a mess, we've got mouths to feed, get back here." They're walking away, they don't even know what a fisher of men is, but this guy is important, and their gonna follow him.
Are we willing to drop our lives when Christ calls? When he yells, "Hey, I need you to reel this person in with a demonstration of my love" are we right there, chucking down our nets and filling the gap He needs to? Or do we tell the God of the universe "Hang on a minute, I'm fishing, and it's very important."


Christ taught with authority. That's always surprised me a bit, growing up in churches where ALL the teaching was authoritative. But no longer. The world and empty religious ritual lack authority. We've realized that WE can't know anything for certain. Part of that is our own preconceptions which influence our understanding, and part is a certain uncertainty that we are receiving correct data to begin with. Christ had none of these problems. He perfectly understood the Word of God, (Himself) and had no incorrect preconceptions to deal with. As a result, He taught the Word correctly, and with authority. We can follow His example to the extent we are sure we understand Him correctly.

Sort of a New Beginning

Over the last few days, I have realized that I've been atrocious in my upkeep of this blog. Which is inexcusable, considering the fact that I'm currently unemployed. So I have resolved to quit making excuses, and blog my daily reading. I've been in the epistles recently, but I really want to get back to the gospels. So, without further ado, my new (running) commentary through Mark.

Mark 1:1-12
I feel bad for John the Baptist. We kind of always assume that he was this crazy tough guy, who loved his (ahem) rustic lifestyle, and wasn't all that bothered by eating bugs. I'm not so sure. I only know 1 or 2 people who could even come close to genuinely enjoying that particular lifestyle, and they would want to spend it with friends and family, rather than by themselves. I can't imagine that this was John's 1st career choice. He was from a priestly family, so serving in the temple was at least familiar to him, because of his father. It wouldn't surprise me at all if John had to walk away from a decent education, a girl that he wanted to marry, or a position of respect, if not all three. But when the Spirit calls you, you're a fool to resist, no matter what you want. If He tells you to go into the wilderness, because you have to open hearts for the coming Messiah, you'd better obey, no matter the personal cost. But the life of the lone prophet preaching hellfire and brimstone is lonely, to say the least. Jeremiah was worn down by it, I can't imagine that John was not. That being said, what a rush to see your ministry fulfilled. What an absolute joy to see the Messiah walking toward you, and know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your work was acceptable to God.
I think we often expect that same sense of accomplishment in our ministry. We think, "Hey, I'll preach and baptize for a few years, and then Jesus is going to come and tell me what a wonderful job I did." I'm not sure it's that easy. We know we get rewarded, but we forget that it's in the next life. In this life, we can expect to wear camel hair shirts, and eat locusts. Well, I'm not going to say we should expect that. God, in His grace, often gives us more than we could possibly dream of, but I don't think we should be surprised by it either. Pray for rain, but be ready to eat locusts.