THE RULER WHO SERVES

RAY C. STEDMAN

EDITED BY JAMES DENNEY

The Ruler Who Serves @ 2002 by Elaine Stedman

Discovery House Publishers is affiliated with RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49512.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture references are from the New International Version, @ 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stedman, Ray C. [Ruler who serves] The ruler who serves: exploring the gospel of Mark / by Ray C. Stedman. p. cm. Originally published: The ruler who serves. Waco, Tex.: Word Books, cl976. ISBN 1-57293-085-3 1. Bible. NT. Mark VIII-XVI-Commentaries. I. Title.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword by David Roper

Part Two: The Ruler Who Serves

15. The Way of the Cross (Mark 8:34-38)

16. Glory on the Mountaintop (Mark 8:38-9:29)

17. The Child in Our Midst (Mark 9:30-50)

18. What About Divorce? (Mark 10:1-12)

19. The Plight of the Overprivileged (Mark 10:13-31)

20. The Ambitious Heart (Mark 10:32-52)

21. The King Is Coming (Mark 11:1-25)

22. By What Authority? (Mark 11:27-12:27)

23. Top Priority (Mark 12:28-44)

24. Watch! (Mark 13)

25. Love's Extravagance (Mark 14:1-25)

26. Strike the Shepherd (Mark 14:26-52)

27. Jesus and the Priests (Mark 14:53-72)

28. Jesus and the Rulers (Mark 15:1-20)

29. The Awful Penalty (Mark 15:21-47)

30. A Rumor of Hope (Mark 16:1-8)

31. Alive Forever! (Mark 16:9-20)

Notes

Foreword

An author I read many years ago drew a distinction between those who manufacture servanthood and those who distribute it.

"Manufacturers" derive their motivation to serve from within themselves. They serve because they pity the needy or because they believe they have a duty to give something back to the world (noblesse oblige). Some have a compulsive need to be needed; others serve out of guilt and fear. In any case, "manufacturers" soon find their efforts dreary and empty, and they lose interest; for, as Ray Stedman continues to remind us, "the flesh [human endeavor] counts for nothing" (John 6:63).

"Distributors," on the other hand, serve out of an intimate connection to Jesus. They sit at His feet, listen to His words, learn from His great heart, respond to Him in prayer, drink in His love, draw on His power, and distribute His compassion to others. That's what keeps Jesus' servants going for the long haul. They give away all that He has given to them, a concept Ray weaves through the warp and woof of these studies.

It was my privilege to gather weekly with staff members at Peninsula Bible Church when Ray was first thinking his way through the gospel of Mark in preparation for preaching this material, and then I heard each text taught on subsequent Sundays. More importantly, I saw the texts lived out in Ray's life, for he was truly a leader who served over the long haul. He was my friend and teacher for many years, and I sorely miss him. But like Abel, though now in God's presence, he "still speaks."

David Roper

Boise, Idaho

Fifteen

The Way of the Cross

äMark 8:34-38

Some years ago, a Christian businessman and friend of mine, Howard Butt, wrote an article entitled "The Art of Being a Big Shot." One statement he made particularly impressed me as a powerful truth about the Christian life:

It is my pride that makes me independent of God. It's appealing to me to feel that I am the master of my fate, that I run my own life, call my own shots, go it alone. But, that feeling is my basic dishonesty. I can't go it alone. I have to get help from other people, and I can't ultimately rely on myself. I'm dependent on God for my very next breath. It is dishonest of me to pretend that I'm anything but a man--small, weak, and limited. So, living independent of God is self-delusion. It is not just a matter of pride being an unfortunate little trait, and humility being an attractive little virtue; it's my inner psychological integrity that's at stake. When I am conceited, I am lying to myself about what I am. I am pretending to be God, and not man. My pride is the idolatrous worship of myself. And that is the national religion of hell!

That is a profound restatement of what I call the way of the cross. It is an eloquent interpretation of what Jesus means when He says, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." To follow the way of the cross means to give up all rights to run our lives, to submit ourselves to His leadership and His lordship.

To take the way of the cross is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, for He was the first to walk that path. In this study, we will watch Him as He turns His footsteps toward that bloody instrument of terror and torture, and we will discover what it means to take up one's cross and follow Him.

Turning His Steps Toward the Cross

We now enter the second half of Mark's gospel. In the first half, we watched as Jesus, the Servant, came healing the sick, helping the hurting, comforting the brokenhearted, restoring shattered lives. His power and authority could be glimpsed as undercurrents of His ministry, but for the most part that power and authority remained cloaked by His role as a servant.

Now, however, the disciples know who Jesus is. This Servant is none other than the Christ, the Anointed One of God. He is the Servant who rules in all the far-flung creation of God.

And yet, no sooner have the disciples discovered who Jesus is than He begins to predict His suffering and death. This startling revelation of the approaching death of the Christ is disturbing for these disciples. They greet it with denial.

But this revelation represents the turning point in the gospel of Mark. From this point, Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem, trudging inexorably into the darkness of Gethsemane's garden, then toward the judgment hall of Pilate, then to the intolerable torture of the bloody whipping post, and finally to the grisly cross. Yet, all along the way, we see that He is still ministering to people, still healing, still comforting, and still bringing blessing to needy men and women.

His role has been transformed. From this point on, we see Him not as the Servant who rules but as the Ruler who serves.

Let's look at an outline of the second half of Mark's gospel. This second half falls into two major divisions. From Mark 8:34 through the end of Mark 13, we have the section I call 'The Way of the Cross." This section deals with our Lord's preparation of His disciples for the terrible events that await Him in Jerusalem. Mark 14-16 make up the section I call "The Cross and the Empty Tomb," the events of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

In the first division, "The Way of the Cross," there are also two subdivisions. In the first our Lord prepares the disciples at Caesarea and at Capernaum and proceeds down the Jordan River valley. In the second we read about the events at Jericho, on the Mount of Olives, and in Jerusalem. In this study, we will look only at that portion of His preparation of the disciples that took place at Caesarea Philippi in the north of Galilee at the foot of Mount Hermon.

As we begin this first division of the second half of Mark's gospel, we must recall the context of events. Jesus has just announced the cross to His disciples. In response, Peter rebukes Jesus, for which Jesus rebukes Peter. At this point Mark records Jesus' next words:

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. " (Mark 8:34)

Here Jesus tells us what it means to be a disciple. Notice that Jesus does something that raises questions in people's minds. He calls together not only His disciples but also the crowd. Some commentators have wondered what this means. Was Jesus seeking to make disciples? That is, was He evangelizing the crowd? Or was He primarily addressing His disciples and telling them what the cost of discipleship would be?

Many people read this passage and wonder, "Can I be a Christian and not be a disciple? Is discipleship the same as being a Christian, or is it a second and much more intense stage of Christianity? Are there many Christians but only relatively few disciples?" These are important questions. In this study, we will go to the Lord's words for the answers.

The Three Steps of Discipleship

As we look at Mark 8:34, the first thing we learn about Christian discipleship is that it is a three-step process. In the first step, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself." Notice that Jesus does not say, "He must hate himself." Jesus does not ask us to despise ourselves or destroy ourselves or neglect our basic needs. The word "deny" has a specific meaning, which we need to understand in order to grasp this first step of discipleship.

To deny means to "disavow a person or thing; to state that one has no connection whatsoever with someone or something." Interestingly, this is the very word used to refer to Peter's denial of Jesus a little later on in Mark's gospel. As Peter was standing in the courtyard of the high priest, warming himself at a fire, a servant girl said to Peter, "You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus." Mark records, "But he denied it." When the servant girl again accused him, Mark records, "Again he denied it." Later Peter again denies knowing Christ, sealing his denial with a curse on himself (see Mark 14:66-72).

It is important to understand that Jesus does not mean what we usually mean by the term "self-denial." By this we usually mean that we are giving up something. One example of self-denial is when people give up something they enjoy, such as eating meat or sweets or watching television, during the season of Lent. But Jesus is not talking about self-denial in this sense. He is never concerned so much about what we do as about who we are. To deny oneself in the sense that Jesus means is a different concept.

Denying self means that we repudiate our natural feelings about ourselves, our ownership of ourselves, and even our right to run our lives. We abdicate the right to decide what we are going to do or where we are going to go. At this point, Jesus is saying something fundamental and even shocking. It strikes at the heart of our existence, because the one thing that we, as human beings, value and defend above all else is our right to make our own decisions. We demand to be the captains of our fate, and we will fight to the death any outside attempt to overrule our wills.

Now, perhaps, it becomes clear that Jesus is not asking us to give up this habit or that privilege. He is demanding that we give up our selves. A statement from the New Testament sums up the first step of discipleship, and it is so profound a statement that it is carved on the wall of the sanctuary at Peninsula Bible Church: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price" (l Corinthians 6:19-20). If you are going to follow Jesus, you no longer own yourself. You give up all rights to yourself, and you yield those rights to Jesus. That is why we call Him Lord. A lord is a sovereign king, whose merest word is absolute law.

If Jesus is the Lord of your life, you are no longer the lord over your self. Jesus has all rights. You have none. You willingly surrendered those rights when you chose to follow Christ and walk the way of the cross. "If anyone would come after me," said Jesus, "he must deny himself." That is the first step of discipleship.

The second step immediately follows: "and take up his cross." What does "take up his cross" mean? I am sure that those words were almost incomprehensible to the disciples when Jesus first spoke them. They didn't understand why Jesus was talking about the cross, that instrument of Roman execution. They did not understand where Jesus was heading. But He knew. And He knew that after the awful events that were to come in Jerusalem, after the torture and anguish of the cross was answered by the joy and glory of resurrection, the disciples would remember those words. And they would understand.

Many people think that a cross is any kind of trial or hardship we have to endure: a harsh and despotic boss at the office, a spiteful mother-in-law, a disagreeable neighbor, a cantankerous car that refuses to start on cold mornings. "Well," we say, "I guess that's just my cross to bear." But that is not what Jesus means. In fact, such a view trivializes what the cross means. Jesus had obstacles, trials, setbacks, and opposition, but He had only one cross. That cross represented much more than mere problems or annoyances. The cross stood for shame, humiliation, torture, and death.

So what does it mean for us to take up our cross? It means that if any shame, pain, humiliation, or even death comes our way for the sake of following Christ, then we are to welcome it. Whatever happens to us for the sake of the gospel, we are to accept it, glory in it, and cling to it, because that is our cross. God will give us the grace to endure it. He will use that terrible circumstance in our lives to make us more like Christ, and the ultimate result will be resurrection and glory, just as the cross led to resurrection and glory in the life of Jesus. That is why the cross is so valuable to us.

Now, perhaps, you begin to see what a radical approach to life this is, and how different it is from the way the world tells us we should think and act. The world says, "If pain comes your way, escape it, avoid it, numb it with alcohol or drugs. If someone hurts you, get even. If someone humiliates you, strike back. Stand up for your rights. Assert yourself. Look out for number one." But the message of Jesus is, "Take up your cross." That is the second step of discipleship.

The third step is "follow me." What does it mean to follow Jesus? Quite simply, it means to obey Him. Before we were Christians, our lives were characterized by disobedience; it is only logical that our lives as Christians must move in the opposite direction, toward complete obedience to Christ.

I have been saddened and amazed, over the years, at the number of people I have met who call themselves Christians yet blatantly, even proudly, declare that they do not follow or obey Him. We all struggle in the area of obedience. I fail in this area on a continuing basis; this is the struggle we all contend with in our fallen humanity. But the Lord is not saying He expects perfection of His disciples. He is telling us what discipleship means, what it involves--and discipleship involves following Him. It means that we commit ourselves to carrying out His commands and looking to Him as our example and source of strength. When we fail, we repent and recommit ourselves to a new resolve to follow in obedience.

We see how obedience works in the lives of the Twelve. Jesus entrusted them with much of His ministry, and they obeyed Him. For example, when Jesus fed the multitudes, He gave them the bread and fish to distribute to the people, and in obedience, they did so. But the disciples could not supply the food. That was for Jesus to do. God supplies the resources, and disciples (like you and me) supply the willingness and obedience. That is what Christianity is all about.

What has Jesus commanded us to do? What commands are we to obey? He has told us to love one another (John 13:34-35), to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44), to pray for those who hurt us (Matthew 5:44), to forgive those who offend us (Matthew 6:14-15), to show kindness even to the ungrateful and selfish (Luke 6:35), and to give as freely as we have received (Matthew 10:8). When we obey these commands of Christ, we are not only doing what He said, but also we are doing what He did, for Jesus exemplified all of these commands again and again in His life.

We won't always feel like showing love to the unloving and forgiveness to the unforgiving, but obedience is not about following our feelings; it is about following Christ. We are to obey even when obedience cuts across the grain of our feelings. Obeying Christ is not a natural thing to do; it is a supernatural act. "Follow me" means we live in obedience to these commands of Christ and to all the other exhortations found in Scripture. Jesus said, "Follow me." That is the third step of discipleship.

In the Greek, these three steps are stated in the present, continuous tense. That means, "Keep on denying yourself, keep on taking up your cross, keep on following me." This is not the decision of a moment but a program for a lifetime. These three steps, carried out simultaneously and continuously, present to us what it truly means to be a disciple or follower of Jesus Christ.

Jesus does not paint an attractive picture of discipleship, does He? His words surely struck the disciples and the crowd like a ton of falling bricks. In fact, John tells us that many who had followed Christ suddenly turned away and followed Him no more, because these words seemed too harsh and demanding (John 6:66). Jesus never invites people to follow Him without first telling them what it will cost. He does not seek followers under false pretenses. He wants us to understand that true discipleship will shatter us, change us, and make us into a different kind of people. It must. If it has any meaning in our lives, following Christ is going to shake us to the core of our being.

Living by Losing: The Great Paradox of Discipleship

Next Jesus gives us the right motive for authentic Christian discipleship. As Mark records, Jesus says:

"Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." (Mark 8:35)

That is motive enough! Who is not interested in saving his or her life? In other words, who is not interested in making life worthwhile, making it rich and complete and worth the living? We all want that. God designed us with that hunger for life. "If life is what you want," Jesus says, "I'll tell you how to acquire it."

Here is a paradox. The only way you can save your life, says Jesus, is by losing it. In this paradox, Jesus underscores that there are only two possible attitudes toward life, and they are mutually exclusive. Everyone, without exception, lives by one or the other.

The first attitude toward life is that of the world: save your life in the here and now! Take care of yourself first. Focus on fulfilling yourself, on satisfying yourself, on gratifying yourself. In every situation, your first concern is what's in it for me. That is the attitude of the world. And if you live by this attitude, you will ultimately lose your life and all that is of eternal importance.

The other attitude toward life is that of Jesus: think nothing of your life, your self, your wants, your desire for pleasure and comfort and security. Fling all of that away and move out in obedience to God, in utter dependence on God, entrusting your temporal and eternal future to Him.

This is the attitude expressed by Paul, who said, "I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me" (Acts 20:24). This is to be a way of life, Jesus says. Trust God, obey Him, and put the responsibility for what happens on His infinitely broad shoulders. That is the life of a true disciple and follower of Jesus Christ.

There are only two attitudes toward life, and each attitude produces its own distinct and different result. If you choose to focus on clutching your life in the here and now, you will ultimately lose your life. That is not a mere platitude; Jesus is stating a fundamental, unbreakable law of life. Those who focus on saving and gratifying the self will end up with nothing but a handful of cobwebs and ashes. We see this tragic principle at work in the dying words of some of the most famous people in history.

As he was dying, the French philosopher Voltaire said to his physician, Dr. Fochin, "I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life." The doctor replied that it could not be done. "Then I shall die," Voltaire moaned, "and go to hell!"

Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century philosopher and skeptic, lay on his deathbed, pondering the loss of his soul. "If I had the whole world at my disposal," he said, "I would give it to live one day. I am about to take a leap into the dark."

Honore Gabriel Mirabeau, the French revolutionary and unbeliever, asked his doctor for an opiate as he lay dying in 1791. "Give me laudanum," he begged, "that I may not think of eternity."

"Nothing matters. Nothing matters," were the last words of film producer Louis B. Mayer, who died in 1957.

"I must end it. There's no hope left," read the suicide note of comedian Freddie Prinze, who shot himself while at the height of his fame and success in 1977.

But compare those words of loss, hopelessness, and despair with the dying words of Christians.

"I die hard but am not afraid to go," said George Washington, the first American president and a man of deep Christian faith, who died in 1799.

"See in what peace a Christian can die" was the final statement of writer Joseph Addison, who died in 1719.

John Hus, the great Reformer, calmly prayed as he was bound to a stake to be burned alive: "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit."

Evangelist Dwight L. Moody's dying words were "Earth is receding, heaven is opening, and this is my coronation day."

David Brainerd, missionary to American Indians, lay dying of tuberculosis in 1747. "I am going into eternity," he said, "and it is sweet to me to think of eternity."

Augustus Toplady, theologian and composer of the hymn "Rock of Ages," died of tuberculosis in 1778, when he was thirty-eight years old. Moments before his death, he said, "I enjoy heaven already in my soul."

Adoniram Judson, the great American hymn writer and missionary to India and Burma, fell sick and died during an ocean voyage. Before his death, he said, "I go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school. I feel so strong in Christ."

And another American missionary, Jim Elliot, wrote these words in his diary at the age of twenty-two: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." A few years later, he was killed by South American Indians as he tried to take the gospel to them.

Jesus did not come to call us to a lifetime of misery, barrenness, darkness, and death. He called us to life, to richness, to enjoyment, to fulfillment. But He has told us that the path to all of these wonderful things leads through the cross. True Christian discipleship leads us to eternal life and fulfillment beyond anything we can imagine, but the only way we can find that infinite quality of life is by means of the cross.

That is the great and wonderful paradox of the Christian life.

True Discipleship: Deeds, Not Words

The final issue is set forth in our Lord's words in the closing verses of Mark 8:

"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37)

These questions of Jesus are the most searching, penetrating questions of all. They pierce to the core of our humanity. What good is it to get all the things you want, only to lose your life and soul in the process? Is it not the essence of wisdom, if you are going to invest your time and energy in something, to make sure you will be able to enjoy the fruit of that investment? You can spend all you have on pleasure and possessions, but once your life is gone, what do you have left to barter with?

Many years ago, archaeologists discovered the tomb of Charlemagne, emperor of France (742-814). During his lifetime, Charlemagne's goal had to been to Christianize all of Europe. When his tomb was opened, the men who entered it found something amazing. The tomb was filled with treasures, and in the center of one large vault the men found a throne. Seated on the throne were the skeletal remains of Charlemagne. A Bible lay open on the lap of the skeleton, a bony finger pointing at the words of Jesus, "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" What a tremendous lesson for us from history!

There is no way we can cheat or fake the life of discipleship. Either we are genuine disciples, or we will lose everything in the final analysis. Jesus says:

"If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38)

Deeds, not words, will tell the story. It is not what we say we believe that matters. It is how we show our belief by the way we live. A true disciple boldly acknowledges Jesus as Lord by the way he or she lives on a daily basis.

I once heard of a boy who was concerned about being teased by his classmates for being a Christian. He devised a way of praying over his lunch in the cafeteria without anyone knowing he was praying: he would bend over and pretend to be tying his shoe. Is that what Jesus means when He says, "If anyone is ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of him"? Yes, in a way, but I think little incidents like this are only peripheral to what our Lord is talking about. There are much bigger ways in which we show ourselves to be ashamed of Christ.

Most of us are nervous about making an open profession of faith in Christ. We wonder what people will think of us or how they will respond to us. We worry about appearing to be religious fanatics. But being nervous about witnessing is not sin; it is merely temptation. What our Lord is talking about here is a continuous, habitual way of life that outwardly calls itself Christian but inwardly adopts the values of the world. This, Jesus says, is what will be revealed in the Day of Judgment. At the close of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

"Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matthew 7:22-23)

Here, then, is the answer to the question we asked at the beginning: Can I be a Christian and not be a disciple? You can come to Christ, and all who come to Christ are given life, if they come to Christ in honesty and sincerity. But unless you take up the work of discipleship, this life is given in vain. Paul calls this "[receiving] God's grace in vain" (see 2 Corinthians 6:1). Only true disciples enter into the abundant life.

We are not all good disciples at all times. We are fallen human beings, and we will fail. But our Lord has made provision for failure in our lives. The test of true disciples is not whether or not they occasionally fail but whether or not the aim of their lives is to take up their cross and follow Christ. If that is truly the aim of your life, regardless of your occasional failures, then you are a disciple of Jesus Christ, and He is your Lord.

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis suggests that we in the Christian church are a kind of invasion force, secretly and stealthily moving into an "enemy-occupied world," and the enemy, of course, is the devil. We are, Lewis says, "a sort of secret society to undermine the devil." Then he poses the question that many people ask: Why does God use a secret society in His war against the devil? Why doesn't He land in force and toss the devil out on his ear? We can't know for sure, says Lewis, but we can guess. God wants to give us the chance of freely, willingly joining His side, of becoming His disciples. We must choose to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him--and we must choose now. Tomorrow may be too late. Lewis explains why:

God is going to invade, all right. But what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream, and something else--something it never entered your head to conceive--comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us, and so terrible to others, that none of us will have any choice left? . . . It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we have really chosen, whether we realised it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back, to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it.

(C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, from The Best of C. S. Lewis (Washington, D.C.: Canon, 1969), 450. )

This is the same message Jesus gave to the people of His day. Becoming a Christian is not easy. It is radical. It demands nothing less of us than that we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus.

The way of the cross is a hard way, a narrow way. But it is the only pathway to life.

Sixteen

Glory on the Mountaintop

äMark 8:38-9:29

It was the last and most ambitious of all of the works of the great High Renaissance painter Raphael. It is called The Transfiguration.

Commissioned in 1517 by Cardinal Giulio de Medici for the Cathedral of Narbonne in France, The Transfiguration now hangs in the Vatican. The painting is divided into an upper level and a lower level. Dominating the upper half is a depiction of Jesus floating above the Mount of Transfiguration in an aura of brilliant clouds, accompanied on either side by Moses and Elijah. On the ground at His feet are Peter, James, and John, all shielding their faces from the Lord's brilliance.

The lower half of the painting presents the foreground of the scene. The other disciples at the foot of the mountain point upward, directing our attention to the transfigured Christ. To the right of the disciples, a demonized boy writhes, wide-eyed and contorted, waiting for the Lord to descend from the mountain and release him from his spiritual torment. The boy is held by his distraught father. The mother kneels nearby, begging for help from the disciples. It is the perfect juxtaposition of the people's misery and the Lord's majesty, of the Mount of Transfiguration rising above the valley of human despair.

Raphael died before he could put the final touches on The Transfiguration. The painting is technically unfinished, yet it seems perfect and complete. The last detail Raphael completed before his death was the face of Jesus. The features are serene yet strong, bold, masculine, and unforgettable. Raphael seems to have summoned every ounce of his creative strength to paint that memorable face.

And yet, for all its magnificent color and light, its powerful composition, and its emotional force, we know that Raphael's The Transfiguration is a pale and inadequate representation of this dramatic historical event. No artist could ever capture the blinding brilliance of the light that poured forth from the Mount of Transfiguration. No image summoned from a human mind could adequately express the awe and amazement that Peter, James, and John experienced in the presence of the transfigured Christ.

A painting like Raphael's, as beautiful as it is, presents a problem. The problem is that it takes an event from history and enshrines it in pigment and canvas, giving it the appearance of a scene out of mythology or folklore. It is important that we remember that the transfiguration of Jesus was a real, historic event that occurred atop a mountain in the land of Palestine some two thousand years ago. Although Raphael's painting conveys an ethereal, almost fantasylike quality, I hope we will begin to see this historical event with a tangible, three-dimensional realism.

So let's climb that mountain along with Jesus, Peter, James, and John. Let's look at this event through their eyes. Together, let's rediscover the meaning, the reality, and the wonder of the transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Predicts His Transfiguration

The Transfiguration is one of the most dramatic events in Scripture, ranking only after the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. This event follows His announcement of the cross and of the way of discipleship. It is clear from Mark's account that Jesus knew the Transfiguration was approaching. He announced it at least six full days before it took place. Jesus had led the Twelve to the foot of Mount Hermon so they could prepare for this event, and I believe that the Transfiguration occurred on Mount Hermon, that beautiful snow-covered mountain north of the Sea of Galilee.

The account begins in the closing verse of Mark 8 and continues through the first thirteen verses in Mark 9. The chapter and verse divisions in Scripture, remember, were added long after the Bible was written and should not be considered inspired by God. As often happens throughout Scripture, these divisions in the gospel story serve to interrupt rather than enhance and organize the storyline.

As we begin reading, we are immediately struck by the fact that the Lord explains the reason for the Transfiguration before it ever happens. Mark records:

He said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." (Mark 9:1)

Some liberal commentators have misunderstood this passage. They claim that Jesus was predicting the time of His second coming, saying that He expected His return to occur within the lifetime of people who were alive at that moment. Obviously this has not taken place, and many people have been troubled by this interpretation. Some have even gone so far as to say that Jesus was mistaken as to the time of His return.

But if you link this statement with what immediately follows, Jesus' meaning becomes clear. He is referring to the Transfiguration, saying that some who were there at that moment would not taste death until they saw this manifestation of the kingdom of God and the glory of His coming. This then provides a clue as to what the event meant. It is a preview that Jesus gives of the coming glory. He states that it will manifest His coming into His kingdom with power. On subsequent occasions, as He is teaching the disciples on the Mount of Olives and other places, He speaks of that coming with power: "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:30).

Notice that Jesus has just referred to His triumphant return at the close of Mark 8:

"If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38)

That is the future event that three of the Twelve are allowed to preview. The fact that this is the case is made clear by Peter. Our Lord chose Peter and James and John to be with Him on the mountaintop. Peter later refers to this event in one of his New Testament letters:

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)

Thus Peter confirms the purpose of the Transfiguration. Jesus was giving three of His closest disciples a foretaste of what it will be like when He comes again in power and glory, with all His holy angels.

Also implied in Jesus' words is the fact that this event also awaits the believer at death. Notice that Jesus says, "There are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." The implication is that in most cases, it is by the act of tasting death that the believer will see the kingdom of God come with power. Other passages confirm that when a believer dies, in that instant when the believer leaves time and enters eternity, he or she immediately witnesses the coming of the Lord with His angels. This is why the New Testament letter of Jude records,

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones. " (Jude 14)

This beautiful event awaits every believer at death. Whenever a loved one dies, remember this wonderful truth, and be comforted.

But here, before the Transfiguration, our Lord predicts that some who were then present would have a foretaste of this wonderful event before the end of their earthly lives. The Transfiguration, then, was to encourage the disciples. Jesus had just announced the way of the cross and His coming death in Jerusalem. This announcement was profoundly depressing and disheartening to the disciples. So Jesus gave them this incident to strengthen their faith, to encourage them that His mission on earth would not end in darkness and disaster, but that it would ultimately triumph. And this event should also encourage us in our lives as we must take up our cross. Whatever obstacles and tragedies we face in life, we know that our lives will ultimately end in glory and triumph.

Four Aspects of the Transfiguration

Now let us look at the event itself. As you read Mark's account, place yourself in the sandals of these three disciples. What would you feel if you experienced this event?

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!"

Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. (Mark 9:2-8)

Four dramatic occurrences in this account rivet our attention.

First, there is the glorious change in the person of the Lord. The account in Matthew supplies a few additional details. Putting these two accounts together, we see that the face of Jesus began to shine with an intense light. His garments became white, and His whole being radiated glory. Some critics of the Bible interpret these details as suggesting that Jesus was praying on the mountaintop when the sun suddenly broke through the clouds and shone on Him, so that His appearance only seemed to be supernaturally changed. Assuming that is the correct explanation, how does it account for the appearance of Moses and Elijah? No, it is clear, as the gospel writers go to great lengths to underscore, that this was a supernatural event and that the change in Jesus' appearance was a supernatural change. Peter, James, and John were witnessing a brightness of light and a whiteness of white for which there was no earthly explanation.

What happened to Jesus? For a moment, a glimpse of eternity shone through the veil of His humanity. The disciples caught a glimpse of the glory that was the Son's long before He was born on earth as a human being. We catch a sense of the Son's pre-existent glory in the great prayer of Jesus that is recorded in John: "And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began" (John 17:5). This glory, which belonged to God the Son before the moment of creation, was suddenly revealed to the three disciples on that mountaintop.

One implication that flows from this event is the fact that our Lord did not have to die. That is one of the meanings of the Transfiguration. He had no reason to pass through death. He could step back across the boundary of time into eternity without passing through death. You and I are bound by time. We must die, but He did not have to. When He laid down His life, He did so willingly and deliberately.

I am sure that this is what John refers to in his gospel when he writes, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory" (John 1:14). Although John was an eyewitness to the Transfiguration, he does not record the event in his gospel. Yet this statement, "We have seen his glory," leaves no doubt in my mind that John is referring to his vivid recollection of that astounding moment on the mountain.

The second dramatic occurrence in this account is the appearance of Moses and Elijah, who return from heaven and begin to talk with Jesus. It is interesting that the disciples have no difficulty recognizing these men. Jesus does not pause to make introductions: "Peter, James, and John, I'd like you to meet Moses and Elijah." The disciples knew instantly who they were. In glory there will be no need for introductions; we will know each other instantly. This account gives us a glimpse into heaven.

Many people have wondered why Moses and Elijah were chosen to be there. Why not Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, Abraham, or Noah? I believe it is because these two men were preeminently the representatives of the Law and the Prophets, the two great Old Testament sections that pointed to the coming of the Messiah. Moses was the great lawgiver. Elijah was the first and greatest of the prophets.

These two men represent the two ways by which people have entered heaven and will enter heaven. Moses left this life through the normal, natural process of death. No one was present when Moses died, but God buried him, the Old Testament says. Although the body of Moses still lies in some unmarked grave on a mountaintop beyond the Jordan River, Moses, in a resurrected body, was present on the mountain with Jesus.

Elijah, by contrast, was one of two men who were privileged to be caught up into heaven without experiencing death (the other was Enoch; see Genesis 5:24). We have the dramatic story in the Old Testament of Elijah's ascension into glory, caught up in a fiery chariot, without passing through the normal process of death (see 2 Kings 2:11).

We have a prediction of this same phenomenon in the New Testament. Believers today normally enter into glory through death, as Moses did. But Paul tells us that the generation of Christians who are living on the day of the Lord's return shall not taste of death.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

So there are two ways by which believers can enter into glory, and these two ways are represented in the Transfiguration by Moses and Elijah.

I am always intrigued by the fact that Moses is present at the Transfiguration, because it means that he finally made it into the Promised Land. In the wilderness, God told Moses that he would not be permitted to lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land because of his disobedience. He could see the land but could not enter. That prohibition, however, was only in time. At the Transfiguration, Moses had passed from time into eternity, and so he was permitted to enter the land and stand on the mountaintop. I can imagine him looking all around and saying, "So here is the land I longed to see! I've been wanting to come here for ages, and I've finally made it!"

Luke gives us only the briefest account of the conversation among Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. He writes:

Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. (Luke 9:30-31)

When he says that they "spoke about his departure," Luke means that they discussed Jesus' departure from earth by means of a cross and a resurrection just outside the city of Jerusalem. How I wish the disciples had thought to write down a full transcript of that heavenly discussion! Did Moses talk with the Messiah about how His sacrifice was the fulfillment of all the animal sacrifices demanded by the law? Did Elijah talk about how the death and resurrection of the Messiah would fulfill so many Old Testament prophecies? I think these matters were probably discussed, but we cannot know for sure, this side of eternity.

The third element of great interest in this account is the proposal made by Peter. After hearing these men discussing these strange events together, Peter, in his usual impulsive manner, interrupts: "Rabbi [that is, Master or Teacher], it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah." In other words, Peter says, "This is tremendous! Let's construct three buildings, one for each of you. Then let's settle down here and make this our world headquarters." Peter evidently had in mind that they would transform that mountain into the headquarters for the worldwide reformation movement that Jesus was about to begin.

Mark and Luke make an interesting commentary on Peter's proposal. Mark 9:6 records, "He [Peter] did not know what to say, they were so frightened." And Luke 9:33 observes that Peter "did not know what he was saying." So the assessment of Scripture is that Peter spoke foolishly, without any understanding of what Jesus had been trying to teach him. Mark, who undoubtedly got this account from Peter's lips, indicates that the motive that led Peter to speak was fear. And it wasn't just Peter who was afraid; Mark includes all three of the disciples when he writes, "they were so frightened." It has been said that there are two kinds of people, those who have something to say and those who have to say something. Peter was someone who had to say something. He blurted out whatever came to his mind, without stopping to think whether it made sense or not.

Immediately after Peter made his foolish proposal, the fourth dramatic event occurred. Suddenly the disciples were overshadowed by a cloud. Matthew tells us it was a bright cloud, a cloud of light. I believe that this was the same cloud mentioned in the Old Testament, which hovered over the tabernacle during the day: the glory of God, called the Shekinah. Then Peter, James, and John heard a voice speaking out of the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" There is no doubt that this statement from God the Father came as a rebuke to Peter's foolish proposal. The Father was saying, "Peter, do not put Jesus on a par with Moses and Elijah. Listen to Him. He is the one of whom Moses and Elijah spoke. He is the one who fulfilled all the predictions of the prophets and who is about to fulfill all the sacrifices of the law. Listen to Him; this is no mere man like Moses and Elijah. This is my beloved Son."

On three occasions in the New Testament the voice of God spoke directly from heaven concerning the work of Jesus. One was at His baptism, when He began His ministry. There the words were addressed to Jesus: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11). It is evident that the voice of God the Father came at that time to launch the ministry of Jesus. Here, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father speaks again, this time to correct a mistake the disciples are making.

The third account occurs in John 12, just before Jesus goes to the cross. When Jesus speaks of having completed the work the Father gave Him to do, He says in prayer, "Father, glorify your name!" In response, a voice comes from heaven saying, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John 12:28). This is a reference to the cross and the resurrection to follow. So three times we witness the voice of the Father from heaven: to launch Jesus' ministry; to correct a mistaken idea about Him; and to complete the testimony that Jesus gave by His life and ministry.

A Verbal Quarantine and a Misunderstanding

Mark ends this account by telling us that as the voice spoke, the scene suddenly faded. The world returned to normal. With majestic simplicity Mark states the transition: "Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus" (Mark 9:8).

In the next section we have the discussion that ensued as Jesus, Peter, James, and John came back down the mountainside.

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what "rising from the dead" meant.

And they asked him, "Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?"

Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him." (Mark 9:9-13)

Two features are important in this account. First, there is the verbal quarantine that Jesus imposes on these three disciples. Second, there is evidence that the disciples still do not understand what they have witnessed or what Jesus has been telling them. Let's look more closely at each of these features of the story.

First, the verbal quarantine. Once again Jesus forbade the disciples to talk of a miraculous occurrence they had seen. It seems that they were not even to discuss it with the other disciples. The obvious question is why Jesus does. Why does He show them His transfiguration and His glory, then swear the disciples to silence?

That brings us to the second feature of this account. Looking closely at this story, we can discover two reasons why Jesus commands them not to speak of what they have seen. Both reasons have to do with the fact that they do not understand what they have seen and heard.

For one thing, their information was incomplete. They could not understand what they had witnessed without the resurrection to put it into perspective. The disciples apparently ignored all Jesus had said about the resurrection. Apart from that fact, their message about the Transfiguration would be a sensational but ultimately meaningless jumble that would only mislead and misinform anyone they told.

For another thing, their understanding was incomplete. Not only was their information incomplete, but they even misunderstood the information they did have. They kept the matter to themselves but wondered what "rising from the dead" meant. Probably, like Martha (John 11), they thought that Jesus was talking about the great future resurrection, when all the dead would rise as foretold in the Old Testament. They did not understand that Jesus was speaking of His resurrection, even though He had been predicting His resurrection on the third day for some time.

This helps to explain why the disciples asked, "Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" It is clear that they believed that what they had seen on the mountain--Elijah and Moses speaking with Jesus--was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi that Elijah must come before the great and terrible day of the Lord:

"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace…. See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes." (Malachi 3:1, 5)

The disciples were baffled because it seemed that Elijah had come in the wrong order, after the appearance of the Messiah. They could not understand that, because they thought that the appearance of the Messiah was supposed to occur on "that great and dreadful day of the Lord." So they asked Jesus to explain: "Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?" Note that the emphasis is on the word "first." They do not know how to tie the resurrection to this prophecy, and they do not know how to explain that Elijah did not come first and restore all things before Messiah appeared.

Jesus' answer to them is instructive. We must observe it carefully, because the pronouns are confusing at first glance. Jesus says to them, "To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man [here Jesus refers to Himself, not Elijah] must suffer much and be rejected?" Notice that Jesus has changed the subject from Elijah to Himself. Then He says, "But I tell you, Elijah has come [here, Jesus shifts the subject to Himself again], and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him." Who does Jesus refer to in the rest of that sentence? Who do those pronouns refer to? If you do not read carefully, you would think they refer to Elijah. But in truth, they refer to Jesus, the Son of Man, not Elijah. This agrees with His previous statement that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected.

It is not written anywhere of Elijah that he would suffer and be rejected. This can only be a reference to the Messiah. So Jesus is saying, "Elijah will come; but as to Messiah, they are doing to Him whatever they please, as it is written of Him." He changes the focus of their question from Elijah to Himself. He is saying that the real issue is not that Elijah has come first but that the suffering and death of the Messiah must come first. That should be the disciples' focus. That is what Jesus continually tried to teach them in preparing them for the horror and despair of the cross.

We should also note that in Matthew's account of this event, Jesus refers to John the Baptist as having fulfilled, in metaphoric way, Malachi's promise concerning Elijah. You may recall that at the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, an angel appeared to John's father and said that John would go before the Lord to prepare His way and that He would do so in the spirit and power of Elijah. The Bible does not tell us that John was the reincarnation of Elijah; John and Elijah were two distinct and different men. But John did come in the spirit and power of Elijah, fulfilling an Elijahlike ministry.

Our Lord makes clear that before Messiah appears in His second coming, Elijah will come first. But Jesus doesn't want the disciples to get caught up in far-future speculations about Elijah. He wants them to understand the looming issue that is fast approaching: the torture and death of the Messiah on the cross.

At the Foot of the Mountain

This account closes with the story of an event that took place at the foot of the mountain: the deliverance of the demonized boy. This is the same demonized boy who is depicted, along with his parents, in the lower portion of Raphael's painting. The painter understood that there was an important link between the transfiguration of Jesus and the healing that He performed after He came down from the mountain. Mark begins by recounting the failure of the disciples who had stayed behind at the foot of the mountain.

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

"What are you arguing with them about?" he asked.

A man in the crowd answered, "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. 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."

"O unbelieving generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me." (Mark 9:14-19)

We need to be understanding of these disciples. They lacked faith, just as Jesus said, but they faced a difficult problem. This boy presented an especially difficult case, as Jesus acknowledged. It was not a simple case of epilepsy, although the symptoms seem like classic symptoms of epilepsy. But the Bible records instances of epilepsy and demon possession and distinguishes between them. Here the problem was not caused by epilepsy but by demonic power. We will later see that Jesus asks the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" The father replies, "From childhood." This was Jesus' clue that it was a difficult case. To make matters worse, while Jesus and the three disciples were up on the mountain, the disciples found themselves surrounded by unbelieving scribes ("teachers of the law") who opposed everything they did. So the disciples were asked to do a difficult task under extremely trying circumstances.

Why did they fail? The Lord put His finger on the basic reason: their lack of faith. But notice something crucial. We almost always think of faith as some kind of expectation that something is going to happen. If we can believe something is going to happen, it will happen. These disciples did believe a healing would happen, and they were surprised and dismayed when it did not. They had seen people delivered from demons before when they commanded the demons in Jesus' name. But this time it did not happen. So faith is not merely a sense of expectation that something will happen. Faith, as Jesus defines it, is something more. But what?

If you think about it, it becomes clear. The disciples had faith, but their faith was misplaced. Instead of having faith in God, they had faith in the process they had been following. They fell into the trap of thinking that if they said the right words and followed the right ritual, the demon would have to leave. Without realizing it, they had transferred their faith from the reality of God to the ritual of a formula.

That is so often what we do. We think that if we perform this ritual, say this prayer, give this offering, recite this creed, then a certain result will take place in our lives. We forget that it is not the ritual, prayer, offering, or creed that has power. The power resides in God alone. It is He who acts.

So Jesus reproved them for shifting their faith from God, who is real, to a formula, which is powerless. Our faith must be focused in God if it is to be a fresh, vital, and powerful faith. The power of that kind of faith is exemplified by our Lord. As Mark records:

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.

Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"

"From childhood," he answered. "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."

"'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the evil spirit. "You deaf and mute spirit," he said, "I command you, come out of him and never enter him again. "

The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, "He's dead." But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up. (Mark 9:20-27)

Notice the father's honest doubt as he comes to Jesus. He said, "If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." And Jesus gently challenges the man: "'If you can'? Everything is possible for him who believes." The question, says Jesus, is not whether He can accomplish the healing but whether the man has faith. And the man responds with heartrending honesty: "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" He believes, yet he also doubts. He is honest about his weakness, and he casts himself on the Lord of mercy, asking for help to increase his struggling faith. Such faith is small, but it is like a grain of mustard seed; focused on the power and person of God, this faith is enough to move mountains. The moment this father confessed his faith and his doubts, it was enough. God was ready and willing to act. Jesus spoke the word, and the boy was delivered.

As the demon leaves the boy, the severity of the case becomes obvious. The demon comes out of him violently and reluctantly, even though commanded by the Son of God. It cries out and convulses the boy, then leaves him as if he is dead. But Jesus lifts the boy by the hand, and all is well. In the final verses of this account, we discover the secret of the power that restored the boy:

After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, "Why couldn't we drive it out?"

He replied, "This kind can come out only by prayer." (Mark 9:28-29)

Jesus does not mean prayer uttered at that moment, because Jesus did not pray when He cast out this demon. He is not talking about a certain kind of prayer that you say at the moment you want to deliver someone from a demon. Jesus is talking about a lifestyle of prayer. In other words, "This kind cannot be driven out except by a heart which is kept fresh and alive and in touch with God by continual prayer." That is where Jesus' power came from. He was always in touch with the Father. He was always drawing on his Father's power. He always walked in reliance on God. He referred every event of His existence to the God who lived within Him. He prayed to the Father with such constancy and consistency that prayer to Jesus was like breathing out and breathing in.

In closing, I want to go back to the beginning of this story for a moment. Remember that in Mark 9:1, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

What had these disciples just seen? They had seen the kingdom of God come with power into the life of a father and his boy. Why did it come? It came because Jesus lived in continual communion and communication with the living God. A lifestyle of prayer is the key to experiencing the kingdom of God, the power of God, in our daily lives.

Seventeen

The Child in Our Midst

äMark 9:30-50

The son of an English admiral, William Penn was born to wealth and privilege in 1644. He was aimless and unambitious in his youth. After being expelled from Oxford, he spent some time managing his father's properties in Ireland. In his early twenties, Penn heard a powerful sermon by Quaker preacher Thomas Loe, and Penn's life was transformed. He plunged into radical Christianity and became a champion of the poor and powerless. In fact, his activism landed him in prison on several occasions.

While he was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the age of twenty-four, Penn wrote a devotional book called No Cross, No Crown, which he called an attempt "to show the nature and discipline of the holy Cross of Christ; and that the denial of self. . . is the alone way to the Rest and Kingdom of God."

A few years later, in 1677, Penn sailed with Quaker leader George Fox to America, where he founded a city, Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, and a colony, Pennsylvania, which he named after his late father. His goal in founding this city and this colony was to create a society of Christian love, brotherhood, and religious liberty, a "holy experiment," as he termed it, that he rightly predicted would become "the seed of a nation." Although America hasn't always lived up to Penn's dream, much of what is great about America flows from his vision.

Throughout his life, William Penn remained true to the words he wrote as a new Christian: no cross, no crown. If we are to receive the crown of God's favor in eternity, we must take up our cross and follow Jesus.

That is the lesson Jesus has gently but firmly been teaching His disciples: no cross, no crown. This is the lesson we all need to grasp, because if you are like me, you do not like the cross in your life. We Christians often make much of the joy and love and the glory of Christianity while downplaying the reality of suffering and persecution, of discipline and dying. It is easy to see why the church avoids such unpleasant subjects. But Jesus makes clear to His disciples--and to us--that there is no resurrection without a crucifixion. No cross, no crown.

As we continue our study in Mark, we will see how Jesus continues to prepare His disciples for the traumatic and shattering events to come, for the cross of Calvary and the crown of the resurrection.

A Debate on the Road

Mark tells us that following the Transfiguration and the healing of the demon-controlled boy, Jesus passed through Galilee again on His way to Capernaum. Mark underscores the teaching and training ministry of the Lord toward His disciples.

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

It is evident that Jesus took the back roads on the way to Capernaum. He deliberately avoided the crowds so that He could spend time with His disciples. All through the gospels you see that His target was these twelve men. He was intent on conveying truth to them, above all else.

As He instructs them and prepares them for what is to come, a new element is added: "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men." Jesus bluntly tells His disciples that His death will come as an act of betrayal. Only a friend could betray Jesus. What this meant to Judas we are not told, but Jesus knew what would happen.

Mark records that the disciples were baffled by what Jesus said--and afraid. They wanted to understand what He was telling them, but they were afraid to ask. Why? Were they afraid of His rebuke? For it is true that Jesus had rebuked them for lack of faith, yet there is no evidence in Scripture that He ever rebuked anyone for asking Him a question. So I don't think they feared His rebuke. Rather, I think they feared His answer. They didn't ask because they were afraid to know the truth. They preferred to bury their heads in the sand rather than find out what was going to happen to Jesus and who was going to betray Him.

Jesus tries to confront them with the fact of the cross, even though they don't want to hear it, because He wants them to be prepared when the time comes. But as we will later see, when the time comes they are unprepared. They have avoided the truth, but they cannot escape it. The fact of the cross is coming at them like a steamroller.

As they follow Jesus toward Capernaum, the disciples have a discussion on the road, and the subject of their discussion shows how little they understand of what Jesus is trying to teach them. They think that Jesus cannot overhear them as they whisper to each other, but He knows what is in their hearts. Mark writes:

They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all. "

He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "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)

Our Lord evidently knew what the disciples were discussing. Perhaps He overheard. Perhaps He merely sensed the tone of their conversation. In any case, He knew. So when they arrived at the house in Capernaum, He asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" It's a simple, normal question, but He is met by an embarrassed silence. When the Master asks, all their squabbling suddenly seems petty, egotistical, and immature--which it was. If only we had a continual sense of Jesus' presence with us. If only we could be aware of His eyes on us, His questioning of us: "What are you saying? What are you doing? What are you thinking?" I'm sure such an awareness would radically alter the way we live our lives.

The disciples' argument was probably occasioned by the events of the Transfiguration. James, Peter, and John had been chosen to go up on the mountain with the Lord and observe this marvelous sight. Afterwards, Jesus had warned them to tell no one what they had seen. I believe the three disciples obeyed Jesus and kept the matter to themselves. But we all know how to keep a secret in such a way as to incite the curiosity and envy of everyone around. When Peter, James, and John returned from the mountain, the others probably said, "Tell us what happened up there." And you can imagine the three disciples saying, "Oh, we're not permitted to tell anyone--not even you." And the other nine disciples would feel excluded and offended. It is not hard to imagine how, given those dynamics, a debate might arise as to which of the Twelve is the greatest.

To silence this debate, Jesus makes an astonishing statement about human ambition. He calls the disciples to Himself and shares with them a great paradox: "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." The embarrassed disciples did not expect this. No doubt they expected a rebuke for their egotism, but Jesus does not do that. He doesn't even tell them that their desire to be the greatest is wrong. I believe this is because God has built into every human heart the desire to succeed, and it is a good desire, not an evil one. Instead of rebuking that desire, He channels it in a righteous direction. He says, "You want to be great? Fine. Let me show you the way to true greatness, true success. If you want to succeed, then don't try to get others to serve you. True success comes as you become the servant of all."

Jesus is saying that there are two kinds of greatness, two kinds of ambition. There is the ambition to be approved and applauded by people and the ambition to be approved and commended by God. The measure of true greatness is not how many servants I have but how many I have served today.

Once again Jesus underscores for us the fact that Christianity is a radical faith. It revolutionizes our thinking. It goes against the natural instincts of the human will, and it goes against the self-centered notions of this world. This is why, as we grow and mature in the Christian faith, we learn more and more to act not according to the way we feel or according to how the people in the world around us act. We act on a different basis, because we serve a different purpose.

To drive this lesson home, Jesus called a boy to Him, wrapped His arms around the child, and said, "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." He was saying, "Is it true greatness you fellows want? Then show kindness to little children. Show kindness to all who seem small, forgotten, and insignificant. Don't try to be a big shot. Just have a big heart. Any kindness you show to the least significant among you is counted as a kindness to me."

The Three lessons of a Child

Lesson 1

Then Jesus went on to teach His disciples what could be called the three lessons of a child, the three true and righteous ambitions we should all set for our lives. Jesus wants us to know that it is right and godly to be ambitious if we are ambitious for right and godly things.

The first lesson is found in these words: "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me." Note that all-important phrase "in my name." The motive for welcoming and showing kindness to others should be that it is done as unto the Lord, it is done in His name. It is not done because you will receive something of value in return. Bible commentator William Barclay offers this meaningful insight:

Now, a child has no influence at all. A child cannot advance a man's career, nor enhance a man's prestige. A child cannot give us things; it's the other way around. A child needs things. A child must have things done for him. And so Jesus is saying, "If a man welcomes the poor, ordinary people, the people who have no influence, and no wealth, and no power, the people who need things done for them, then he's welcoming me. And more than that, he's welcoming God."

The first mark of true greatness is that you do not show respect in expectation of benefits. You welcome others in the Lord's name because they are people, and all people have value and worth in God's eyes, even the smallest, the least, the most humble and ordinary.

This principle is unwittingly illustrated in the next section by John, who interrupts Jesus:

"Teacher," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us."

"Do not stop him," Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:38-40)

Why did John interrupt? What had Jesus said that prompted this announcement? Perhaps it was the phrase Jesus used, "in my name." Perhaps that phrase reminded John of the man the disciples had seen who was casting out demons in Jesus' name. So John, and apparently some of the other disciples, had ordered the man to stop because he wasn't one of the Twelve.

This is a typically human reaction, even among Christians. It is the spirit of sectarianism, of division, of schism. "Well, he can't be good because he didn't go to our seminary;" or, "He doesn't belong to our denomination," or, "He doesn't adhere to our doctrinal position on this or that theological fine point." So we shut him down.

Perhaps John was troubled by the success this man was having. He wasn't one of the Twelve, yet he was casting out demons. It was not a phony ministry. The man was performing as advertised, and he was accomplishing all this in the name of Jesus. Yet John had never heard of the man. So his success seemed to rankle John. And this is so typical of human nature. A rival is all the more intolerable if he is a successful rival.

Perhaps John is asking Jesus, "Did we do the right thing in stopping this man?" Or perhaps John is announcing this action, expecting to receive a commendation from Jesus. If that is the case, then John is disappointed, because the Lord's answer is, "Oh, no! Don't forbid him. For anyone who does a mighty work in my name will not soon afterward be able to speak evil of me. If he's not opposing us, treat him as one of us." What does Jesus mean by that?

Jesus is saying that if this man was casting out demons in the Lord's name, then obviously there was some faith in the man's heart. God does not respond to anything but faith. And though no one knew much about this man and what he believed--and there may have been considerable error in what he taught--the

fact that demons were being cast out in the Lord's name indicated something real and authentic about the man's ministry and faith. When you see a spark of genuineness, said Jesus, don't quench it; encourage it. Don't reject people because they don't get every theological detail right. They are still on the way, they are still learning, but they are moving toward the same destination you are. So encourage them.

I recall with sadness how many churches, at the height of the Jesus Movement of the 1970s, turned their backs on the earnest, seeking young people who came to their doors. Those churches missed a beautiful opportunity for ministry because they could not look beyond the strange clothing the Jesus People wore, their long hair, their strings of beads, their tie-dyed shirts, their bare feet. The staid, respectable church people said, "We don't want this kind among us," and they failed to note the signs of true faith among these young people. How it must have broken the Lord's heart to see His church turning His children away.

I once saw an announcement of a meeting of the Gay People's Union at Stanford University. Two prominent speakers were featured, a lesbian professor at San Francisco State University and a homosexual young man ordained to the ministry in a liberal denomination. They spoke about homosexuality in the church. So I took one of the interns of our church with me, and we went to the meeting. We found about a hundred young people there, plus a few older persons, and the numbers were evenly divided between men and women. The lesbian professor spoke first, and she was angry and vitriolic. She bitterly denounced the church and called for its destruction, because she saw the Christian church as the enemy of human liberty and freedom.

The young man was gentler in his approach. He told of his desire to find a place within the church even as he had struggled for years with his sexual identity. He recounted having been mistreated by people in the church after going public with his homosexuality. I knew that much of what he said about the unloving and hurtful attitudes he had encountered in the church was tragically true.

But I noticed one thing in particular as he spoke. Several times, he referred to Jesus and His ministry with people. He spoke of Jesus with reverence and affection. And I found it was true, exactly as our Lord said to John in this passage, that no one who uses His name will soon after be able to speak evil of Him. Whenever this young man spoke of Jesus, it was with respect and admiration for His ministry among despised and outcast people.

Near the end of this meeting, I felt it was time to say something for the church. So I stood, identified myself, and said, "I can agree with much that has been said about the church, but I don't think you have come to grips with the real issue--the stance of Christianity toward homosexuality. The nearest you came was when this young man spoke of Jesus and the woman at the well." He had referred to the fact that Jesus had not castigated or scorned the woman, although she had lived an immoral life. I continued, "Nevertheless Jesus did speak to her about her condition--having lived with five husbands and now living with a man who was not her husband. He then offered her release, a way out of a pattern of living that was hurtful to herself and others. That, I believe, is the true Christian position. Homosexuality is very injurious; it destroys lives and families. Jesus understands that, but He doesn't want to denounce people or drive them away. He wants to offer to them compassion, love, and a way out."

As I looked around that room, I didn't see perverts or degenerates, as some people in the church have unfortunately labeled homosexuals. I saw hurting, fragmented, confused lives—souls Jesus died to save, souls in search of the secret of life. Paul's words in Romans came to my mind: his statement about homosexuals "receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error" (Romans 1:27 NASB). I thought of that passage, and I hurt for the people in that room.

The stance of the church toward those who are involved in a tragic, sinful, self-destructive pattern of living--whether homosexual sin or heterosexual sin, whether alcoholism or drug abuse or gambling addiction or whatever else it might be--should not be a stance of stigma, rejection, and disgust. Rather, we are to love others as Jesus loved. We are to accept with open arms but also with an honest evaluation of sin. Like Jesus, we must show grace and speak the truth. Grace and truth together are the only ways the church can help people find authentic release and recovery.

This is what Jesus is saying to His disciples. The mark of greatness is that you look not at a person's outward appearance or at the outward characteristics he or she manifests, or even at the things the person stands for. Instead, you must see in every, person a human being, made in God's image, a soul groping after truth and life. And if the name of Jesus is respected, do not quench that spark but encourage it.

Lesson 2

The second lesson that Jesus teaches the disciples, using a child as an illustration of truth, is found in the next passage.

"I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.

"And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. " (Mark 9:41-42)

Remember that Jesus speaks these words with His arms still wrapped around the little child. The mark of true greatness in the kingdom of God, He says, is that you take humanity seriously, you care for human need, and you long to see every human being grow to his or her full, God-given potential. The slightest act of service and ministry in Jesus' name will be rewarded by God.

But the flip side of the Lord's word contains a severe warning. Any moral damage or spiritual injury done to a young believer is more serious than murder. "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin," says Jesus, "it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck."

I once read a short story by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), which told of a little girl whose mother had died. When the father would come home from work, he would fix their meal, then sit down with his paper and pipe, put his feet up on the hearth, and read. The little girl would come and say, "Father, would you play with me?" And he would say, "No, I'm too tired, I'm too busy. Go out in the street and play."

This went on for so long that finally the little girl grew up on the streets and became what is called a streetwalker (a prostitute). Eventually she died, and her soul approached the gates of heaven. Seeing her, Peter said to Jesus, "Here's a prostitute. Shall we send her to hell?" Jesus said, "No, let her in. But go find the man who failed to love this child, the man who told her to go out into the streets--send him to hell."

Here in Mark's gospel, Jesus is saying that neglect is sometimes the greatest injury done to a child and to young believers. The least of these, the children, are to be loved and nurtured in the name of the Lord.

Lesson 3

The third lesson of a child follows immediately in Mark's account, and Jesus' words are shocking to our ears.

"If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where

"'their worm does not die,

and the fire is not quenched.'

Everyone will be salted with fire." (Mark 9:43-49)

Remember, these words are also are spoken as Jesus has His arms around the child. The third mark of greatness, then, is that all judgment starts with ourselves. If we are to take seriously the issue of spiritual growth, then we must deal drastically with ourselves. These words about cutting off the hand and foot and eye are but an intensified, dramatic way of saying what Jesus said on another occasion: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3-4).

The analogy Jesus draws is clear and is taken from life. If you have an infected arm that develops gangrene, and it is threatening your life, and the doctors cannot do any more for you, then there is only one thing left to do: amputate. If you keep the arm, you will lose your life. We must deal drastically with bitterness, hate, pride, envy, backbiting, gossip, lust, and other sins. If we do not, these things will drag us down into hell.

The word Jesus uses for "hell" is gehenna. Gehenna, or Gehinnom, was the name of a valley outside Jerusalem. It was the place where some of the wicked kings of Israel had offered their children to the god Moloch to be burned with fire. It was a defiled place, and it became the garbage dump of Jerusalem. Fires smoldered there continuously; repulsive worms ate at the garbage. The garbage dump of Gehenna became a symbol to the Jews of the eternal waste of life.

It may surprise you to know that Jesus spoke of hell more than any other person in the New Testament. So when we read these words of Jesus about hell, we must understand that when they are applied to an unbeliever who has resisted and rejected the good news of Jesus Christ, it means that the person's whole life is like something tossed on a burning garbage dump--a waste, a total loss. There is nothing salvageable about it. An unbeliever may have won the approval of other people, may have lived comfortably, but at the end of life ends up on the trash heap for eternity.

Here, however, Jesus is not addressing unbelievers but His disciples. When these words apply to believers, as they do here, Jesus is speaking of partial loss. Some of our life is wasted, squandered, lost. It has been misused. The way to avoid such a loss is to, as Jesus vividly puts it, salt ourselves with fire, that is, to judge ourselves. We should deal drastically with ourselves so that we can avoid a worse loss in eternity.

We should start, Jesus says, with the hand. To "cut off the hand" refers to eliminating the act that is wrong, the evil deed. If you have a dirty mind or a filthy mouth, then stop thinking evil thoughts and stop using obscene or profane speech. If you are engaged in sexual sin, then end it and forsake it. If you are dishonest in business or prone to gossip or guilty of some other sin, then you must repent, fully and completely. If your attitude toward another person is bitter and resentful, then forgive and seek forgiveness. If you don't cut off the hand of sin, you will waste your life.

If that is not enough, the foot must be amputated. The foot symbolizes the steps along the path to evil. You may have to change where you go and what you spend your time doing, because you are confronted with temptation that is too strong for you to handle. You may have to cancel your cable television, turn off your Internet connection, stop going to certain places, stop hanging out with certain friends. If these things expose you to temptation and pressure that is too much for you to handle, cut them off without mercy! Otherwise you will waste your life and your soul.

Or it may be that the eye, which symbolizes our inner vision, our imagination and fantasies, our memories and dreams, must be plucked out. Jesus is saying that we must deal drastically with these issues, we must judge ourselves severely, or these diseased parts of our life will take over and infect our souls, causing us to waste away. Jesus concludes with these words:

"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other." (Mark 9:50)

Salt--the salt of self-judgment, the salt of the chemical fire that purifies and cleanses--is good. So judge yourself, look at yourself and evaluate what you are doing, and learn to control yourself. But remember, your life before God must be real; it cannot be phony. Salt that has lost its saltiness is worth nothing. It must be real, genuine salt. So have salt in yourselves, judge yourselves, be honest with yourselves about your sin. And if you do that in all humility, then you will surely live at peace with one another.

Remember how this account opens? The disciples were arguing as to who was going to be greatest. They were engaged in a clash of competing egos. Jesus says that the remedy for such contention, dissension, and discord between Christian brothers and sisters is for us to have salt in ourselves, to judge ourselves, to deal first with our weaknesses and sins, not those of others.

For the marks of greatness in the kingdom of God are these: to treat everyone the same; to take life and humanity seriously; to be concerned for the best interests of others; to build others up, not harm them or tear them down; to judge our hearts rather than focusing on the supposed flaws and faults of others. A person who does these things may not be great in the eyes of the world, but he or she will rise in stature and greatness in the eyes of God.

And it is His opinion of us--His and His alone--that matters.

Eighteen

What About Divorce?

äMark 10:1-12

The English Shakespearean actress Dame Sybil Thorndike enjoyed a long marriage to fellow actor Sir Lewis Casson. They often toured and performed together. Although they were known to have their occasional disagreements and even quarrels, they generally considered their marriage a happy and successful one. After Sir Lewis passed away, a friend asked Dame Sybil if she and her husband ever considered divorce.

"Divorce!" she replied, laughing. "Oh, no, never! But murder? Often!"

If you have been married any length of time, you may identify with Dame Sybil. What do you think of divorce? Your attitude toward divorce speaks volumes about your attitude toward marriage. In Mark 10, we come to Jesus' teaching about divorce, and as we discover His attitude toward divorce, we will learn much about God's plan for marriage.

Two Schools of Thought

In this passage we have the account of a new journey our Lord took with His disciples, leaving Galilee for the last time. The first verse sets the scene:

Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them. (Mark 10: 1)

This verse summarizes an extensive ministry our Lord had after He left Galilee. It took Him into Samaria and northern Judea. During that journey, He sent out seventy disciples, as earlier He had sent out the Twelve, to go into all the villages and preach the gospel. Also, as we discover in John 10, Jesus made a quick trip to Jerusalem in the dead of winter and appeared at the feast of Dedication. Having spoken at that feast, He left Jerusalem and came with His disciples into the area on the eastern side of the Jordan River. There, in the region called Perea, He was ministering, and great crowds gathered to hear His teaching. During this time, He was approached by a group of Pharisees.

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" (Mark 10:2)

Mark is careful to point out the motive that brought them. They have come to test Him, that is, to probe Him, trip Him up, discredit Him, and catch Him in an error. Their hostility is more intense than ever, and they are determined to put Him to death. So they select a controversial question: the issue of divorce.

These Pharisees are masters of manipulation. They have devised the perfect trap. Their plan is to maneuver Jesus into a position where He must choose between two widely held schools of thought regarding divorce. That way, no matter which view He chooses, those who hold the opposite view are sure to be offended.

One school of thought was that of the great rabbi Hillel. Moses, in Deuteronomy 24, had said that a man could divorce his wife if he found any indecency in her. Hillel interpreted that to mean anything that displeased the husband. If the wife made bad coffee, he could divorce her. If she did not keep the house clean, he could divorce her. If she had one hair out of place when she woke up in the morning, he could divorce her. This was the easy-divorce school of thought. It made men the absolute masters in their homes and made life miserable for a lot of Jewish wives.

Opposed to Hillel's view was the school of Shammai, another great Hebrew rabbi, who taught that divorce was to be strictly limited. According to this school of thought, divorce could be granted under only the most extreme and narrowly defined conditions.

Of course, we have the same split in modern North American culture. Throughout the Christian church, modified versions of these two viewpoints continue to battle each other. Particularly in this age of rampant divorce and the disintegrating respect for marriage, how should we view divorce? Should divorces be granted readily and easily, on the basis of simple incompatibility? Or is marriage so sacred that it should be dissolved only under severely limited conditions? That is the question with which the Pharisees confront Jesus and attempt to trap Him.

Jesus Avoids the Trap

In His answer to the Pharisees, Jesus develops two important arguments. First, He takes them back to Moses and discusses divorce as Moses handled it. Next He goes back even further, to Genesis and creation. Let us look first at what He says about Moses.

"What did Moses command you?" he replied.

They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. "

"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. (Mark 10:3-5)

Notice that Jesus did not answer the Pharisees on the basis of His authority or opinion. He referred them to Moses. In other words, He upheld the authority of Scripture. Jesus always referred to the Old Testament as a book of answers, as the authority on all questions pertaining to life. He never superseded that word. Again and again, He said, "It is written." Even in the Sermon on the Mount, He said that He came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it, and He warned against anyone who attempted to destroy or change what the Bible says. This is why He sent these Pharisees back to Moses for the answer.

But Jesus did not stop there. He went on to clarify the law. He interpreted the word of Moses for them and revealed to us something that the law does not tell us. He gave us the ultimate reason Moses permitted divorce. It was because men's hearts were hardened that Moses allowed divorce. What does that mean?

Jesus is saying that divorce reveals in public what has been going on in the privacy of a marriage: hardness of heart. That is what the law always does. As Paul writes, "Through the law we become conscious of sin" (Romans 3:20). So it is in line with his role as lawgiver that Moses should also give laws concerning divorce, in order to make visible what is going on in a family. And what was going on in Israel whenever a divorce took place? Hardness of heart.

What is a hardened heart? God created the human heart to be full of love, generosity, patience, tolerance, compassion, forgiveness, gentleness, and openness. Sin replaces these beautiful, soft qualities with hardness, that is, with hatred, selfishness, impatience, narrowmindedness, indifference, vengefulness, hostility, and deceitfulness.

The term "hardness of heart" is used many times in Scripture. We are often warned against hardening our hearts. There is the Old Testament story of Moses going before Pharaoh, again and again, to deliver the message of God: "Let my people go." Each time Pharaoh heard that word from God, he hardened his heart (see Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34; 10:1). Pharaoh determined that he would handle it his way, according to his stubborn will. Having heard what God was telling him, Pharaoh willfully decided to ignore it and go his own way. Whenever you know what God desires for you to do and you willfully choose to disobey, you are hardening your heart. And that, says Jesus, is what was going on in the marriages in Israel.

Moses looked at the issue of divorce from the standpoint of the husband and said that if the husband saw something displeasing in his wife (and Moses did not specify what it must be), then divorce was to be permitted. Why? To make the husband's attitude publicly, openly clear.

What would the divorce law of Moses reveal about the husband's attitude? It would reveal that this husband is following his natural, sinful inclination. Rather than showing love, patience, and forgiveness, he chooses to be critical and demanding, even shutting his wife out of the home if she does not meet all of his exacting standards. The divorce law in Israel showed that some husbands were exhibiting contemptuous and contemptible behavior and attitudes toward their wives.

In that culture, the value of women was heavily discounted. Wives were viewed almost as property and were sometimes mistreated. To make these conditions clear and visible, Moses granted permission for divorce. It released women from what was often a hell on earth.

But the New Testament gives us a more complete revelation about how a husband is to treat his wife. For example, Peter writes,

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. (1 Peter 3:7)

In other words, a husband should not merely react in annoyance when his wife does something that displeases him. He should treat her with love, compassion, and thoughtfulness. He should seek to understand why she said what she said or did what she did. Christian husbands should love and honor their wives, sharing all things with them and remaining faithfully committed to them. This is what a marriage is for--to provide a safe place where difficulties and problems can be worked out and resolved in an atmosphere of accepting love and complete forgiveness.

But Moses granted divorce, Jesus said, to expose the hardness of heart in many of the marriages in Israel. The law of divorce was not God's ideal choice for Israel. It was God's reluctant accommodation to the reality of so many hardened and sinful hearts.

The Jangling Alarm of Divorce

How do you soften a hardened heart? A heart is always soft when it recognizes its inability to handle a situation and relies on the wisdom and power of God. An attitude of obedience to God keeps the heart tender, loving, malleable, and reasonable. That is what the atmosphere in a marriage is supposed to be, but in Israel in those days (as in America in our day), there was hardness and harshness instead of wisdom and love.

Even in our time, divorce has a way of opening eyes and clarifying issues. Many times people come to me for counseling after a divorce and say, "I never understood what I was doing to my mate until after the divorce. Somehow this opened my eyes, and I began to see that the problem wasn't my spouse; it was me." Through the tragic pain of divorce, people often learn something about themselves. When they go on to a later marriage or restore their broken marriage, they often do so on a different basis, with a changed attitude.

We are living in an age, as you well know, when half of all marriages end in divorce. This breakdown of the family should frighten us and trouble us, because it marks the deterioration of our society. It is a jangling alarm, warning us that something is terribly wrong in our communities. It should drive us to acknowledge that we have failed to live out God's plan for marriage. Men do not know how to act as men, and women do not know how to act as women. Something is precipitating this enormous breakdown. Our skyrocketing divorce rates did not happen in a vacuum.

It is not enough to say, "Well, divorce is a massive social problem. What can one person do?" We should not throw up our hands in despair and apathy. Before divorce can become a social issue, it first becomes a personal issue between two people. When a marriage breaks down, it is always the result of the hardness of one or both human hearts. To solve this problem, each of us must look within, to the hardened condition of our hearts. And we must repent.

The purpose of the law of divorce is to unveil our sin and drive us to grace. Law can never heal the problem; it simply points it out. And the law of Moses, by permitting divorce, unfolded a private problem and made it a public predicament, so that everyone became aware of the issue. This is why God permitted divorce.

But we as individuals do not need to tolerate divorce. We can choose a soft heart, full of love, patience, and forgiveness, pliable and obedient to God. A whole family or a broken family? Each of us has the power to make that choice, in reliance on God's grace.

No longer Two but One

After showing why Moses allowed divorce, Jesus gave God's plan for a healthy marriage, drawn from the creation story in Genesis. Mark records these words of Jesus:

"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Mark 10:6-9)

You recognize those words. They are quoted at many weddings, and all too often, they are tragically ignored thereafter. Here Jesus goes back before Moses and the law, taking us to the dawn of creation, the beginning of the human race. He points out that the problem began there, long before Moses gave the law regarding divorce. The law came only to reveal the problem that already existed. The real problem is not divorce but marriage. Why should we bother to maintain it? What is our motivation for keeping a marriage together? That is the question answered by the Lord's quotation from Genesis.

In quoting this passage, Jesus forces us to focus on three important factors: the actions of God, the plan of God, and the warning of God. This three-point outline will help us to understand God's plan for marriage, as explained in our Lord's discourse on marriage and divorce.

First, Jesus points us to the actions of God. "At the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'" God made human beings to consist of two distinct and different sexes. This was no afterthought. The whole creative process, beginning with the first day of creation, was aimed at that one great fact. Everything God did, from the first verse of Genesis through that whole creative sequence until human beings appeared on the scene, was aimed at that one great event. This is how important the sexual nature of humanity is to God. He made human beings to be biologically and psychologically different from each other so that they could complement and complete one another. This was His plan.

People are creatures of three dimensions: body, soul, and spirit. In body, men and women are different, visibly and notably so. In the soul, the psyche, they are different as well, although the modern feminist movement seeks to deny it.

In decades past, the feminist movement has helped to correct a number of social ills, including unequal pay between men and women and the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace. But in attempting to correct some longstanding social ills, the feminist movement has perpetrated some terrible new ones. The so-called right to abortion is an example of a flagrant injustice that feminism has foisted on society. Feminists want to be sexually promiscuous without consequences, just like men. It is unfair, they claim, that women are subject to pregnancy while men are not, so they try to equalize men and women by giving women an unrestricted right to "terminate a pregnancy." This obsession with biological inequality is the result of twisted thinking about humanity. It is the result of denying the fact that God made us male and female and that men and women are psychologically and biologically different. Not unequal, but different. It is a difference we should celebrate, not obliterate.

While men and women are physically and psychologically different, we should never forget that on another level men and women are absolutely identical. I am speaking of the spiritual level. In a spiritual sense, men and women are the same; there is no difference. And because of this fact, men and women are equal before God. That is why Paul writes:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Here is the source of true, godly feminism--not a feminism that demands the right to take life but a feminism that is free to experience an equality of life alongside men in the family of faith. Whatever our distinctions and differences, as Christians we are one in the Spirit, we are one in Jesus Christ the Lord.

God made us male and female. That was His design for humanity, and the result is the wonderful richness and balance of maleness and femaleness in human society. When we live out our sexuality as God intended, the result is beautiful, harmonious completeness in Christ.

What God Had in Mind for Marriage

We move from the actions of God to the plan of God, the second point in the Lord's discourse on marriage and divorce. "'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one." Notice that phrase "for this reason." For what reason? For the reason that human beings are made male and female. They were made male and female so that they might leave father and mother, join to each other, and become one. That was God's plan in making us male and female.

There are many implications in that simple statement. For one thing, it disallows such current notions as homosexual marriage. Two people of the same sex cannot be married. That is a distortion and a violation of God's plan. It takes a man and a woman to make a marriage.

This statement also disallows practices such as polygamy. Notice that Jesus does not say that God made them males and females. He uses the singular, not the plural, because marriage is intended by God to be one man joined for life with one woman.

Our Lord also makes it clear that this relationship is the highest relationship possible in life. It takes priority over all others. The marriage relationship is even closer than a blood relationship in the mind and heart of God. Jesus does not say that the two will become a partnership or a union or a team or a corporation. He says "the two will become one flesh." There is no more intense relationship than that. That is the plan God had in mind from the beginning, when He made the first man and the first woman.

What, then, was God's purpose for marriage? That the two become one. Two distinct and different individuals, with different personalities and different gifts, blend their lives so completely that they become one flesh. That does not happen instantaneously when you get married. The wedding service does not make you one. The first act of sex after marriage does not make you one. It begins the process, but it does not complete it. It takes the whole marriage to accomplish this. Marriage is the process of two people becoming one over a lifetime together.

So God did not intend the man and the woman to live together as roommates. Marriage is not a matter of living separate lives, having separate careers, and sharing a house and a bed. Nor is a couple to split up over every problem or difficulty that arises between them, for that is a matter of hardness of heart. God intended that two soft-hearted, loving, forgiving, patient people would come together within the safe enclosure of a committed, covenant relationship, and there they would work out their differences and problems together as one flesh.

The goal of a husband and wife is to merge their lives in Christ. They must not act as rivals but become full partners. A successful marriage therefore is not without problems; it is a place where a husband and wife cooperate to solve their problems. In a successful marriage, neither partner says, "This is too hard. I'm quitting." Both partners have made a covenant to stick together, face their problems squarely, and rely on God to soften any hardness of heart between them.

A successful marriage is not a product but a process. It is a journey, not a destination. Just as a divorce--a failed marriage--reveals to the world a hardness of heart, a successful Christian marriage is a witness to the world of the love, acceptance, and forgiveness that two people can express to each other under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Sex and Marriage

The third and final point of our Lord's discourse on marriage and divorce is a word of warning. Mark records:

"Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." (Mark 10:9-12)

Notice that Jesus lifts the whole matter far beyond the prevailing Jewish view of marriage. The Jewish view, as reflected in the law, was that only the husband could divorce his wife. But our Lord places the husband and wife on an equal basis. Not only can a wife be held accountable for committing adultery, but also a husband can be held equally accountable. Jesus makes both parties equally responsible for maintaining purity and faithfulness in the marriage.

He says that adultery, that is, sexual infidelity, destroys God's work of building oneness in a marriage. The phrase "what God has joined together" does not refer to a wedding ceremony. It refers to the mystical union that takes place within marriage. God blends two people into one flesh, sometimes with great pain and mutual exasperation. The marriage union is His work. He uses every aspect of this relationship, including the trials and conflicts the couple have gone through, to shape their souls, to reveal the hard places in their hearts, and to break down and soften those hard places. It is all part of His process of producing Christlike character in marriage partners.

Every newlywed couple, when they move into their first apartment or home, ought to put up a sign: Caution! God at work! That is what is taking place in that newly formed relationship. He is building a oneness, creating an ecstasy, artistically shaping a thing of exquisite beauty.

That is why sex is such a crucial component of a marriage. Sex is the visible picture of what a marriage ought to be, and that is why God reserves sex for marriage. What He is saying, in a beautifully metaphoric way, is that every marriage ought to follow the natural course of the act of sexual union. It begins with the separation and polarity of two individuals, one male and one female; it proceeds through a time of increasing closeness, enjoyment, and response; it rises to an ecstatic sense of climax and oneness; and it concludes with a lingering sense of contentment and peace.

Every act of marital sex is a picture of this miracle of God, in which He makes one where there were two. And that is why the act of adultery, of sexual infidelity, damages and destroys the work of God.

I know that among the readers of this book there will be many who have gone through the pain of divorce. It will include many who have experienced adultery, either as an innocent victim of a spouse's betrayal or as a partner in sin. I do not intend to inflict a sense of condemnation on any reader. But I do want to make clear what Jesus said. And He is unequivocal in stating that divorce is sin. Divorce is a violation of God's intention for marriage. Every time a divorce takes place, sin is involved.

This is not to say that divorce is never necessary. When one spouse threatens to harm the other spouse or the children--undoubtedly the ultimate form of a hardened heart--then there is no marriage worth saving. No one should remain in a violent relationship, and children must always be protected from the threat of harm. Such an extreme situation only underscores the point that divorce always involves some form of sin.

But thank God, even though the law condemns the sin that produces divorce, God offers us His grace and leads us to the place of forgiveness. There is the possibility of restoration, of healing, and a new beginning. God's way of restoration is the way of repentance. Repentance means that if you receive a second chance at marriage, either by remarrying your first spouse or by marrying anew, then you approach this marriage with a new and godly attitude of absolute commitment. This time when you say "till death do us part," you mean it.

I am troubled by people in the church who trivialize this issue that God treats so seriously. I have heard Christians say, "If you can't get along with your mate, if you don't like him, if you're not compatible with her, if you find someone you like better, get a divorce and get married again. Even if it's wrong, God will forgive you." Scripture never teaches that grace is that cheap, that forgiveness is dispensed like tap water to people who are insincere and unrepentant.

The Scriptures teach that forgiveness is given only to those who repent. Repentance means that you understand and acknowledge the awfulness and hurt your sin has caused, you feel shame and horror over what you have done, and you turn your back on that sin and walk with God in a new direction. Anything less is not true repentance and is unworthy of God's forgiveness. So don't think that an insincere "Oops, sorry, God! Excuse me while I sin!" will cover your willful, unrepentant, premeditated offenses. All you will ever accomplish in that way is to demonstrate to God that you truly have a hardened heart.

Jesus calls us to soften the hard places of our hearts. He calls us to the joy of discovering the ecstatic, exciting miracle of oneness in a genuine Christian marriage. He calls us to experience what it means for God to join two separate lives together into a beautiful artwork of oneness--a testimony to the whole world of the grace and love of God and of His power to change human lives.

God is in the business of softening hearts and building up families as safe havens of love, acceptance, and forgiveness. That's His plan for every marriage, including yours.

Nineteen

The Plight of the Overprivileged

äMark 10:13-31

William Henry Vanderbilt was a rich young ruler in nineteenth-century America. The son of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, William multiplied his inherited wealth many times over in the railroad business. By the time of his death, his fortune was estimated at more than $200 million, which made him the Bill Gates of his day. Shortly before his death, he lamented, "I have received no more gratification or enjoyment from my wealth than my neighbor on the next block who is worth only half a million."

It seems that "wealthy" is truly a relative term, is it not?

In this study, we will be introduced to a wealthy young man of Jesus' day, a man who no doubt inherited his wealth as William Vanderbilt did, a man who was powerful, young, rich, and too attached to his wealth for his soul's good.

Jesus Loves the Little Children

Before we meet the rich young ruler, Mark first brings us the story of Jesus' blessing of the children. As you will see, Mark links these stories and ties them with a single thread. When preachers preach on this portion of Mark, they tend to treat these stories as two separate, unrelated incidences. That, I believe, is a mistake. There is a clear linkage between these two stories that is crucial to observe. Let's see how Mark begins this account.

People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:13-16)

Artists love to paint this scene: Jesus gathering the children around Him, one wriggly little boy on His lap, a little girl standing demurely at His side looking up into His eyes, others clustering around, eager for His attention. This scene has proven to be a source of tremendous blessing to millions of children around the world. It is the inspiration for such beloved children's songs as "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know" and "Jesus Loves the Little Children."

I want to touch on only two major points in this account, because I want to link it to the story that follows, the story of the rich young ruler. The first point is Jesus' rebuke of the disciples. Mark indicates that the disciples were trying to protect Jesus by preventing parents from bringing their children to Him. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. The Greek shows that He took a severe tone in reprimanding the disciples.

The disciples meant well, but they had missed the point that Jesus had been making about the true worth of a child. These disciples thought that Jesus needed protection from bothersome children. But Jesus points out that the children need protection from bumbling adults. This is significant, because it shows that children were made for God, and it shows how God views children.

The children in this story were drawn to Jesus. They loved Him immediately and wanted to be in His presence. Notice that Jesus uses this occasion as yet another object lesson for the training of His disciples. He shows them that it is easy to come to Jesus when you are a child. He is the one children need and want, above all else. So adults need to get out of the way and let the children come to Jesus. Children are always being told, "These are grownup matters. You don't need to know these things. You are just in the way. Go someplace and play. Don't bother the grownups." Jesus says, "Don't push the children to the side. Bring them here to me. 'Grownup business' can wait. The children are my business."

The second significant point Jesus makes is that children exemplify the qualities we all need to enter the kingdom of God: "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." He does not elaborate what these qualities are. He leaves it up to us to discover them in the eyes of a child, for these are qualities that every child represents, regardless of background, culture, or language. Bible commentators have offered many guesses as to what those childlike qualities might be, but Jesus leaves it to us to discover them.

As a card-carrying grandfather, I have conducted extensive research into the subject, observing my little grandchildren in an attempt to discover what qualities Jesus has in mind. Here are the findings of my exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) research.

The first and most obvious quality about children is that they have a simple, uncomplicated approach to life. They go right to the heart of things. This is why children ask such frank questions. If you lift a child in your arms, he is likely to look at you and say, "How come you have such a big nose?" All your adult friends have avoided the subject of your nose for years, but a child will ask. Children are forthright and unpretentious.

The uncomplicated nature of children holds true in every area of their lives. When their bodily needs are demanding, they want that need satisfied now. They want to eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, sleep when sleepy, and when nature calls--look out! They are direct and immediate when they need affection. They will come to you, throw their arms around you, and hug you for all they're worth. When they're curious, they will ask direct, uncomplicated questions and expect direct, uncomplicated answers. In the realm of the spirit, they continually express that sense of wonder, excitement, and awe that we so commonly associate with childhood.

I once saw a mother dragging a little girl down the street. The child saw some mica flashing in a stone and stopped to pick it up. "Oh, Mother, look!" said the girl. "There's stars in the stone!" I was saddened when the mother pulled the child's arm in annoyance and said, "Come on! We haven't time for that now!" That mother missed a beautiful opportunity to share the world of her child.

Children have a marvelous sense of the wonder and mystery of our world, of the glories of nature and the glories of the realm of God and the spirit. How tragic that we, as adults, so easily lose that, and worse, that we often wring all of the wonder and enthusiasm out of our children.

A second aspect of childlikeness that Jesus wants us to grasp is this: a child is wonderfully teachable. Every child wants to learn and is ready to be led. Children recognize their basic need for help and instruction, and they are open and malleable. As someone once observed, children are wet cement. This is one of the beautiful characteristics of children, and one that Jesus wants us to emulate.

Are you and I teachable? Are we open to new ideas, new concepts, and new ways of looking at the world? Are we receptive to the new things God wants to teach us and the fresh and exciting work He wants to do in our lives? Or are we rigidly, permanently set in our ways, our ideas, and our opinions? Jesus said, "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."

Third, every child is by nature obedient. If you are a parent, I know you are already taking exception to that. But think about it. Children are by nature responsive. They respond to what they are taught. They are trusting. They hear what they are told, and they will later parrot it as truth. They respond immediately to what they are told. They do not say, "Let me think about this for a while," as adults will. If you tell them something, they will act on it without delay.

These, I believe, are the characteristics Jesus had in mind. They are essential, He says, in order to enter the kingdom of God. When you listen to the teaching of Jesus and you understand what He says, when you respond directly and simply and wholeheartedly, when you are teachable and obedient to His loving commands, then the door to the kingdom of God is wide open to you. As you enter that door with childlike wonder, trust, and faith, you enter a realm--God's realm--where you can grow, develop, and become strong and spiritually healthy.

That is what Jesus underscores for us as the children gather lovingly around Him, hugging Him, laughing with Him, crawling into His lap. "Let the little children come to me," He says, "and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these."

The Young Aristocrat

Next Mark introduces a new incident, but as we shall soon see, this incident is closely related to the scene we have just explored.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher;" he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone." (Mark 10:17-18)

This is the well-known story of the rich young ruler. The accounts in Luke and Matthew tell us that this young man was very wealthy and that he was a ruler, a member of the aristocracy.

This is an amazing scene. A wealthy, powerful, young aristocrat comes and kneels at the feet of an itinerant peasant teacher from Galilee. To whom might we compare this young ruler? We might liken him to the young John F. Kennedy, before he was elected president. When JFK was running for his party's nomination in 1960, he visited a West Virginia coal mine. He shook hands with one of the miners, a grimy, sweaty man whose skin was black with coal soot. As the miner's rough hand gripped Kennedy's soft hand, the miner asked, "Is it true that you were born to money, and everything you ever wanted was handed to you by your rich daddy?"

"I suppose so," said Kennedy.

"And is it true you've never done a hard day's work in your entire life?"

Uncomfortably Kennedy admitted, "Yes, it's true."

"Well," said the coal miner, "you haven't missed a thing."

The man who knelt at the feet of Jesus was in the same class. No doubt born to wealth and power, the rich young ruler had lived a privileged life and hadn't missed a thing. Yet he was empty inside. His life was meaningless. Despite his wealth and privilege, he knew that he didn't have this thing called eternal life that Jesus, the traveling, homeless preacher from Nazareth, had been talking about. So this was the young man's question: "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

This young man had heard Jesus preach. He was almost certainly present when Jesus answered the Pharisees' question on divorce. He had seen Jesus blessing the children and rebuking the disciples, telling them they must become like little children in order enter the kingdom of God. Something stirred in this young man's heart as he listened, a sense of his need, a yearning for truth and the reality of life. So, his soul bursting with questions, the young man runs to Jesus, kneels before Him as a sign of respect and humility, and asks Jesus for the secret of eternal life.

This young man possessed at least the first of the childlike qualities Jesus said you must have: simple directness. His inner yearning for spiritual reality and meaning had been stirred. He wanted the truth, and he wanted it now. So he asked, "What must I do?"

The initial reply of Jesus has puzzled many Bible scholars over the centuries. Jesus says, "Why do you call me good? No one is good--except God alone." Liberal commentators have seized on this reply as a statement in which Jesus denies that He is God. Their argument is that when the young man calls Jesus good, Jesus answers as if to say, "Don't call me good. I'm not good. Only God is good, and I'm not God."

The problem with this view is that in many other passages Jesus does identify Himself with God the Father. In John 10:30, for example, Jesus says plainly and definitively, "I and the Father are one." In fact, the reason He was crucified is that He clearly and definitely claimed to be God, as this exchange between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, shortly before the crucifixion, shows:

The high priest said to him, "I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God."

"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?"

"He is worthy of death," they answered. (Matthew 26:63-66)

Jesus claimed to be God, and that claim was used against Him by the priests and scribes who wanted Him dead. So Jesus cannot be denying either His goodness or His godhood in this dialogue with the rich young ruler. Here is what Jesus is truly saying to the young man: "Why do you call me good? What do you mean by 'good'? If you understand what 'good' means, then you know that only God is good. Therefore, if you call me good, you are saying that I am God." Particularly in view of what Jesus says about Himself elsewhere in Scripture, the only valid interpretation is that Jesus is forcing this young man to recognize and confess who He is: the Son of God, the Messiah, God in human form.

It is apparent that Jesus is probing this young man, searching to see if he is willing to investigate and learn about Him. In short, Jesus wants to know if this direct and uncomplicated young man is also as teachable as a child. Jesus is asking, "Are you teachable? Are you willing to investigate and think through your questions in order to discover spiritual reality? Are you willing to open your mind to the awesome reality of who I am?"

Next Jesus tests the young aristocrat on the third quality of childlikeness, probing him with this question in mind: "Are you obedient?" Mark records that Jesus says to him:

"You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'" (Mark 10:19)

In other words, "What has God said to you? Have you obeyed the commands of God? Are you obedient?" Again the young man responds eagerly, instantly, without hesitation:

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

Jesus looked at him and loved him. (Mark 10:20-21)

Jesus believes the young man. He never suggests that this young aristocrat is lying or even self-deceived. He is satisfied with the young man's reply. No wonder Mark goes on to say, "Jesus looked at him and loved him." Here is an openhearted, moral, excellent young man. Jesus sees in him the childlike qualities that would enable him to enter the kingdom. But Jesus has one thing more to ask of this young man.

"One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. "

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:21-22)

Jesus is saying, "You have the qualities it takes to enter the kingdom. You are simple and direct, you are teachable, and you have been obedient--up to this moment. Just one more thing: How obedient are you now? How willing are you to act on what you know to be true? You lack only one thing. Go and sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me. If you do that, all the treasure you could possibly want or need is yours, stored up for you in heaven."

There is a supreme irony in what happens next. "At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth." If you had great wealth, would you be sad? This man was rich and sad, and he was sad because of his riches. Why? Because it was suddenly clear to him that he could not serve two masters. Jesus had pierced to the core of this young man's life. He had shown the rich young ruler that his life was owned by another god. Yes, the young man wanted to live a moral and obedient life before God; yes, he wanted to experience eternal life. But he also wanted to be rich. He did not want to let go of the power, influence, status, and material pleasures that his wealth gave him. Jesus made it clear to him that he could not serve Almighty God and the almighty dollar. He had to choose one or the other. He chose to cling to his meaningless wealth and let go of eternal life.

As I pointed out earlier, I do not believe that this is the end of the story for this wealthy young aristocrat. I believe, based on various clues in Scripture, that this rich young man was none other than Mark. We know that Mark's mother was a wealthy woman of influence named Mary, who owned a large house in Jerusalem. And I think it is noteworthy that only Mark's account of this encounter includes the intimate detail found in verse 21: "Jesus looked at him and loved him." How could Mark have known this fact unless he learned it from Jesus?

I offer this, however, as nothing more than an interesting speculation.

The Trap of Wealth

The disciples have been gathered around, watching this drama between Jesus and the young aristocrat. So the Lord seizes on this opportunity to give them a lesson on wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. "

The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, "Who then can be saved?"

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." (Mark 10:23-27)

This is a remarkable statement. Jesus highlights two facts. First, He underscores the terrible danger of affluence. People are easily ensnared by the things money can buy. Most of us are envious of rich people, secretly if not openly. We all wish we had money. Yet, if we understood what Jesus is saying, we would not feel that way. We would feel sorry for the rich. We tend to think of wealthy people as overprivileged; Jesus says they are underprivileged. They are deprived people. The things they have rob them of so much. Jesus points out the terrible danger of affluence. "How hard it is," He says, "for the rich to enter the kingdom of God." And so important is the point that He repeats it for emphasis: "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!"

Then Jesus employs a vivid metaphor: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." I am aware that some Bible commentators have attempted to soften this metaphor by explaining that "the eye of a needle" referred to a tiny gate, about four feet high, located in the wall of Jerusalem. The reasoning goes that if a camel's burdens are removed (in the same way that Jesus told the rich man to unburden himself by giving his wealth to the poor), then that camel could, by squirming and wriggling, barely squeeze through that tiny gate.

I do not see much evidence to support that view. I am convinced that when Jesus says "the eye of a needle," He is referring to a literal sewing needle. Could a camel--no matter how much you lighten its load--manage to squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle? Absolutely not, and that is the image the disciples pictured when they heard Jesus speak those words. They interpreted Him correctly. Jesus was saying to them, "It's impossible."

At that point, the disciples were baffled. The rich were held in the highest esteem. "A rich man," they thought, "with his ability to make great donations to God's treasury, should be able to buy his way into the kingdom of God. But if it's impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom, then what hope is there for the rest of us?"

And Jesus affirmed their impression of His words. "With man," He said, "this is impossible."

Why is it impossible? What do riches have to do with our spiritual vitality and salvation? It is clear from the context that riches tend to destroy the qualities you must have in order to enter the kingdom of God. They destroy the childlikeness of life, and you can see why. Affluence creates a concern for secondary values. Rich people are not worried about where their next meal is coming from; they worry about what it will taste like and what the setting will be. Rich people are not concerned about whether they will have shelter and clothing to wear; they are taken up with fashion and style and decor and whether they are in the right mode or not. They are not concerned about whether they worship God rightly or not, but whether they are in a beautiful building that pleases them aesthetically. The possession of riches shifts a person's concern from the elementary, necessary things to the complex, secondary things.

Furthermore, riches hinder teachability. Wealth has a tendency to produce pride and arrogance in those who possess it. You may have noticed how some wealthy people seem to enjoy exercising power and even bullying others because they are rich and powerful. They can get other others to fear them, agree with them, and bow and scrape before them because of their wealth. If you took away their riches, would anyone be intimidated by them? Would anyone kowtow to them? Hardly. Stripped of their riches, these arrogant people would appear as simpletons, almost fools. But because people jump at their slightest whim, the rich often think themselves wise and powerful when they are not.

I am not attacking all rich people. I know a number of godly, wise, wealthy people--people who, by the grace of God, have escaped the snare that riches often set for people. I am stating a general principle: riches can easily destroy a teachable spirit by creating a false sense of power and authority. People who have power because of their money begin to feel that they ought to be the teachers. They do not need to learn; they already know everything! The result, as I have seen many times, is arrogance, insensitivity to the feelings of others, and a tendency to talk instead of listening, boss others around instead of serving others, and demand their way instead of seeking God's way.

As Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) once observed, for every hundred men who can withstand adversity, only one can withstand prosperity. Wealth is a trap for the unwary and unwise. It is a dry rot that eats away at the simplicity of life and the sensitivity of the heart. It removes people from the realities of life. It fills the human heart with pride and arrogance.

Finally, affluence gradually enslaves those who become attached to it. It builds an increasing dependence on comfort and the good life, until it is impossible to let go. Like the rich young ruler, the wealthy gradually become owned by their possessions, even though clinging to those possessions leaves them sad and empty. That is why Jesus said it is impossible for rich people to enter the kingdom of God.

But note this! Jesus says, "With man this is impossible." With man--but not with God. Here Jesus gives us a note of grace, a ray of hope. Humanly speaking, the enslavement of riches is inevitable, and all who possess riches are doomed to be possessed by their riches. But by the grace of God, the enslavement of riches can sometimes be broken.

A pastor once told me, "I have a number of wealthy people in my congregation, and they trouble me, because they dabble with Christianity." That is often true. Of the many wealthy Christians I know, I find it rare to find one who is truly, radically committed to obeying the Word of God. Most go along only to a point. Thank God for those few whose hearts have been kept safe from the snare of material possessions, whose hearts truly belong to God and God alone.

I don't know how God preserves a wealthy person from becoming possessed by wealth, but I do know that only God can do it. He can break through, and He sometimes does. He sometimes creates in a wealthy man or woman a tremendous distaste for material things; He makes that person so aware of an emptiness and spiritual hunger that he or she loses all interest in the ups and downs of the stock market, finding tax loopholes, acquiring property and possessions, and the like. They see the hollow mockery of material things and, like the rich young ruler, they begin to search for the realities of life. Sometimes a person has to suffer catastrophe--almost lose family or business or health--before gaining that godly perspective.

But however God chooses to work His miracle and draw the overprivileged to Himself, one thing is sure. The rich person comes to Christ in precisely the same way as does the homeless person on skid row. In the words of the hymn, "Nothing in my hand I bring / Simply to thy cross I cling." We all come to the throne of grace as guilty sinners, powerless to save ourselves. Rich man, poor man--every man and every woman must come to Christ acknowledging moral bankruptcy and spiritual poverty.

The First and the Last

Next our Lord draws a contrast and sets forth what happens to those who serve Him.

Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first." (Mark 10:28-31)

The key to this passage is the last sentence: "But many who are first will be last, and the last first." People often ask, "What is Jesus teaching here? Is He telling us that if we have money and wealth, we must give it all away, as He required this rich young ruler to do? Must I take a vow of poverty in order to be a true Christian?" Some people have interpreted this passage to mean exactly that.

For hundreds of years in the Christian church, almost from the end of the first century, men and women have understood it this way. They took a vow of poverty, gave away everything, and became monks and nuns, ascetics and hermits. Some gave up everything and went around as beggars. But did this mean they were truly obedient and fulfilling this passage?

"No," Jesus says, "many who are first, apparently, in giving up things, turn out to be last." You see, He is not talking about external things. There is plenty of testimony from the history of the church to prove that He is not commanding all Christians to impoverish themselves. These self-impoverishing practices provide no guarantee of true spirituality. He is talking, rather, about the attitude you have toward material things. That is the key: an attitude that recognizes that everything is a gift of God, and the gifts of God are to be shared, not hoarded or selfishly squandered.

Money exists to be spent on the needs of one's family and invested in God's work. God is the Lord of the harvest, the source of our income. We do not own our possessions and money. We are stewards of things that God has entrusted to us. A day is coming in which every one of us must give an account of how we used all that God has entrusted to us. It is not wrong to use a certain amount of what God has given you for enjoyment and pleasure. As the apostle Paul writes, God "richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment" (1 Timothy 6:17). So enjoy! But be responsible, be a good steward or caretaker of everything you have received from God.

If you have the attitude that the things God has given you belong to Him and not to you, then adversity is no great hardship for you. If God takes away some of your material things, so what? You remember that they were not yours to begin with. You know that what matters is that you have your salvation. That is the attitude Jesus wants us to have, regardless of whether we are rich or poor or somewhere in between.

Once this is your outlook on your life and your possessions, you begin to realize that you can never give up anything to God except what you have already received from Him. It was all His to begin with. What's more, as Jesus tells Peter, you realize that you can never give up anything that God does not restore to you a hundredfold. Jesus said, "No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age." Notice, Jesus does not say a hundred percent, but a hundred times as much.

How will this come to you? That's always a surprise! But the promises of the Lord never fail. I have found that if you are willing to hold things lightly rather than tightly, you will find that people will open doors to you, Christian brothers and sisters will have things that you can use, and you won't have to pay taxes or rent on them. You will have homes and families and boats and pleasure outings offered to you for God's sake, through the friendship and love of other Christians.

Of course, Jesus promises persecution too. He makes that promise in the midst of this passage, almost as if He is offering persecution as one of the advantages of the Christian life. In a way, it is. If you are a Christian, you will have enemies. But you should feel complimented to be hated by such people. Your enemies are a credit to your character, a testimony to your faithfulness to God. You will be glad that you have such enemies and that they are persecuting you, because you will be in good company: the company of the Lord Jesus Christ and all His saints.

What a difference it makes once we learn to hold things lightly for His sake. What a difference it makes to live to please Him and not just ourselves. If we sacrifice for His sake, we help to advance His cause, and we will be surprised to discover how God rewards those who have given up much for His sake. We will be surprised to discover that "many who are first will be last, and the last first."

In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul made a statement that stands as a powerful commentary on our Lord's words in Mark 10:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Whether rich or poor in the things of the world, the Christian who learns to have this attitude toward earthly possessions can be assured of great riches in eternity with Jesus.

Twenty

The Ambitious Heart

äMark 10:32-52

Julius Hickerson was a brilliant young doctor. His friends and family had no doubt that he was poised for a successful career and a comfortable life as a physician in the United States. But Dr. Hickerson felt God calling him to serve as a missionary doctor in the South American nation of Colombia. When he announced his plans, his friends thought he was crazy. "Just look at the career you'll be throwing away!" they said. "Think of all the money you could make in the States! If you go to Colombia, you'll just be wasting your life!"

For a long time after Dr. Hickerson arrived in Colombia, it looked as if his friends were right. He worked long hours in remote South American villages, treating patients and sharing the gospel. The people, however, were resistant to the gospel. At the end of two years' work, he didn't have a single convert to show for all his labor.

One day he was in a small mission plane, flying supplies to a remote village, but he never arrived. The plane crashed in the forest outside the village, and Julius Hickerson was killed. Just as his friends had predicted--a wasted life. Dr. Hickerson had died for nothing.

A couple of years passed, and the missionary organization that had sent Dr. Hickerson to Colombia, the Southern Baptists, decided to send another missionary to Colombia. The plan was for this missionary to resume the work that was interrupted with the death of Julius Hickerson. The missionary traveled into the region where the doctor had met his death and was astonished to find that all of the local tribesmen were Christians.

The more the missionary explored, the more Christians he found. There were thriving churches throughout the region. Somehow, during the time following Dr. Hickerson's death, that whole area had been Christianized.

The missionary asked the tribesmen, "How did this happen? Where did you learn about Jesus Christ?"

"From this book," they answered, and they showed him a well-worn Bible that had been translated into their language. After the plane crash, the tribesmen had gone through the wreckage, looking for food and other items they could use. They found the Bible and began to read it. They passed it around to other members of the tribe, who also read it. As they read, the tribesmen began, one by one, to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ. They formed churches, and they sent out people to nearby villages, spreading the good news throughout the region.

After hearing this incredible story, the missionary opened the Bible and saw a name written on the flyleaf: Julius Hickerson.

A wasted life? No life is ever wasted when that life is committed to following Jesus Christ.

At this juncture in our study of Mark's gospel, we find Jesus on His way to Jerusalem. His footsteps take Him inexorably closer and closer to the cross, to the end of His mortal life. His disciples hear Him predicting His end. Some wonder, "Is He crazy? Is He throwing away His mission and His ministry as the Messiah? Is He really going to Jerusalem just to die? What a waste!"

But, as we shall see, a life that is ended is not necessarily a life that is wasted. As the drama of the cross begins to unfold, astonishing events lie ahead for Jesus and His disciples and for you and me.

Jesus Is Resolved to Go

This account shows that Jesus foresaw the cross and all that it would involve, yet He resolutely kept His footsteps pointed toward Calvary. It also shows how blind the disciples were and how they continued to ignore and deny the revelation Jesus gave them. Mark writes:

They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise." (Mark 10:32-34)

This is the third time we have seen Jesus make this special announcement to His disciples. Each time He informs them, in increasing detail, what the cross will involve. And each time He includes the promise of the resurrection, which they never seem to hear. The atmosphere is tense among the disciples as they walk along the road. Notice carefully how Mark sets the scene.

He says that Jesus went first, all alone, at the head of the procession. Behind Jesus came the Twelve, who, says Mark, were amazed. Behind them came the crowd, waiting on His words, but as Mark ominously observes, "those who followed were afraid." There was a strange sense of impending doom, of approaching crisis. The disciples were aware of this, and even the crowd felt the tension.

What astonished the disciples and made the crowd fearful was Jesus' attitude. The Greek suggests that Jesus had a tough, resolute determination to go to Jerusalem. He was adamant, and no one could dissuade Him. The people had seen the hostility of the Jewish religious leaders, and everyone around Jesus knew He was going into danger.

Jesus' third announcement of His impending death is the most detailed yet. He knows what He is heading into. He may not know the exact timing, but that will unfold as He goes on. What He does know, He states with remarkable precision and accuracy. He will be betrayed into the hands of the priests and the scribes. They will hand Him over to the Romans (the Gentiles), and He will be condemned to death. Then Jesus adds three details that were not included in any previous announcement: the Romans will mock Him, spit on Him, and scourge Him.

How did Jesus know these things? He learned them from the Scriptures. Every one of these events is predicted by the Old Testament prophets. Luke tells us that at this time, Jesus said to His disciples, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled" (Luke 18:31). Our Lord did not require any supernatural insight to know what was about to happen. What He predicted to His followers was what He had learned by studying Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and other Old Testament passages that predicted these events.

Contrasting Goals

Contrast the goal of Jesus with the goal of the disciples. Jesus has His face set toward Jerusalem and the cross. But, as Mark shows, the disciples are looking toward a different goal. They believe they are on a pathway to personal glory.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:35-37)

Matthew tells us that the mother of James and John asked this of Jesus, suggesting that the brothers had talked her into asking. Mark shows us that whatever role their mother may have played, these two disciples were ambitious on their own behalf. Jesus knew the request had come from them, so He answered them. Many interpreters have misconstrued this story, thinking the disciples were wrong in making this request. But that is not true. They were asking for something Jesus had given them every reason to ask for, a few days earlier.

Matthew records that Jesus had promised them that when He came into His glory, they would sit on twelve thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what they had on their minds as they walked to Jerusalem. In their thinking, they have twelve thrones waiting for them there. So these two disciples, James and John, asked for three specific things.

First, they asked for preeminence. They wanted to sit on the thrones and have the honor and exaltation that a throne represents. This is nothing more than what Jesus had promised them.

Second, they wanted proximity. Once the disciples knew that twelve thrones were waiting for them, it is easy to understand why they would discuss where those thrones would be placed in relationship to Jesus. James and John, talking this over with their mother, decided there was no good reason why they could not belong to the inner circle, with one on the right hand and one on the left. So they came with a request. They wanted to be close to Jesus. It is not wrong to want to be close to Jesus. They knew they are going to sit with Him, and they thought it reasonable to ask for positions nearest Him.

Third, they wanted power. That, of course, is what a throne represents. In some sense, they had already experienced the gift of power from Jesus. They had been sent out and given power to raise the dead and heal the sick and cast out demons. So they are asking for what had already been promised. There is nothing wrong with that.

When our Lord replied, He did not rebuke them. He did not say, "What a bunch of swelled heads you have! How arrogant can you be?" He did not rebuff their ambition to be near Him, to have preeminence, or to have power. Instead, He told them they were going about it the wrong way and with a lack of understanding of what they were asking for.

The Cup and the Baptism

Jesus did not want His disciples to ask in ignorance for something they did not understand. So He alerted them to the fact that there would be a heavy price to pay in fulfilling their ambition. Mark writes:

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"

"We can," they answered.

Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared." (Mark 10:38-40)

Jesus is saying, "You are not asking for the wrong thing. You are asking for the right thing but without any understanding of what is involved or what it will cost you." He implies that He is on the same path as the one they desire to follow. He is on the path to glory, but that path leads through the horrors of the cross. He is ready to pay the price. They haven't looked at the price tag.

"Can you drink the cup I drink," He asks, "or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" Here Jesus employs two metaphors to help us understand what He faced: a cup and a baptism. What does the cup mean? We all know the words of the psalmist: "My cup runneth over" (Psalm 23:5 KJV). What does that imagery mean? The cup symbolizes the realm of your experience, the circumstances into which you are placed, circumstances that, we all hope, will result in a life of joy, peace, and serenity.

In the Old Testament, however, the cup is also used of things that are not so joyful. Jeremiah speaks of Israel having to drink the cup of the fury of the Lord at His hand. In that instance, the cup represented something that had to be drunk, even against your will. So a cup is also a metaphor of what life hands to you, a circumstance in which you have no choice. It may produce either joy or despair, but a cup speaks of something you must drink.

What, then, is the cup that Jesus says He must drink? He speaks of the cross. He sees it as a cup given to Him by His Father. Later, in the Garden of Gethsemene, He will pray, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). He is speaking of the whole spectrum of events surrounding the cross: the rejection, the torture, the mocking, the flogging, the spitting, the nails, the tearing of the flesh, the dislocation of the bones, the slow draining of the blood, the laboring for breath. But most of all, His cup was the burden of the sin of the world, the lonely separation from the Father, and the darkness of death. All of this is the Father's choice for Him, the cup that the Father has handed Him to drink.

When Jesus uses the metaphor of baptism, He again employs imagery that is common in the Scriptures, in the Old and New Testaments. To baptize means to dip or submerge a person or thing in a liquid. Paul writes that the Israelites who fled Egypt by passing through the middle of the Red Sea "were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (l Corinthians 10:2). A way was opened for them, so that they were surrounded by water, even though they walked on dry land. Thus they were "baptized into Moses."

Baptism, then, is an image of an event that Jesus must pass through and that will engulf Him. He will be immersed in it so that no part of Him will remain untouched. The cross would seek Him out at every level of His being, and the horror and loneliness of the cross would overwhelm Him. It is as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 42:7: "Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." Jesus would be saturated by the baptism of the cross.

So, with this insight into the meaning of the cup and the baptism, we now have a sense of what He is saying to James and John: "This is the price of glory, and it is a very high price. Are you willing to pay it?" And look at the self-confidence these disciples exude. They respond, "Sure, Lord! Just bring it on! We can take it!"

And notice the reply of Jesus. He doesn't try to explain it all to them. They will find out soon enough as events unfold. He takes them at their word. "All right," He says, "if you want to drink of my cup and be baptized with my baptism, you shall."

Did these disciples know what they were asking for? They didn't have a clue! And sometimes we don't either, when we ask of God. But God often grants it anyway. I'm sure that if these disciples had known what it meant, they would never have asked. Dr. A. B. Bruce once put it this way: "If crosses would leave us alone, we would leave them alone too." But crosses, cups, and baptisms do not leave us alone. They are handed to us. We cannot escape them. We are called to suffer along with Jesus. We too are called to bear reproach, shame, anguish, suffering, and death.

As it turned out, this is what happened in the lives of these disciples. James was the first of the apostles to die, as recorded in Acts 22. He was arrested and beheaded by Herod. James was the first martyr, and John was the last to be martyred. These two brothers formed a kind of parenthesis of martyrdom, within which all the apostles were put to death, each in turn, for the sake of Jesus. We are not told how John died, although some writings of the early church fathers suggest that he was boiled in oil. Others say that he died a natural death. Although the mode of his death is uncertain, we do know he was exiled to the island of Patmos for the testimony of Jesus, and he underwent much suffering for the Lord's sake. So Jesus granted them their request.

But one thing He could not grant them. "To sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared." This is an illuminating statement. Jesus implies that the Father chooses people for this honor. He chooses the person, then prepares that person by a series of circumstances, by the cups and the baptisms, that He leads that person through.

God always starts with people, not events. His goal is the shaping and molding of lives, and He fits the events to fulfill that purpose.

The Indignant Ten

One disciple will sit at Jesus' right hand and another at His left hand. God is going to mold those two and prepare them for those honored places. And what of the other ten? Mark turns our attention to them.

When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:41-45)

Picture again the scene. Jesus and His disciples are walking on the road to Jerusalem. Jesus looks ahead and sees a cross waiting for Him. James and John look ahead and see two thrones waiting for them. And what do the other ten see? They see James and John. They are angry and upset because these two got to Jesus first. They wanted the same things that James and John wanted, and they are angry because James and John beat them to it. This is often a cause for anger. We are upset because someone else beat us to a good idea.

Jesus sets aside their envy and politicking and maneuvering for special favors. He acknowledges that this is the way the world works (and it works the same way even now), but this is not how the kingdom of God operates. In the kingdom--in the church, if you will--there is not to be struggling and striving for position and honor. Paul writes a powerful exposition of this truth in 1 Corinthians 12, where he compares the members of the church with members of a human body, eye, hand, foot, and so forth. All parts of the human body are necessary and worthy of honor. The same is true of the body of Christ, the church. All competition is eliminated from the church by these terms.

Notice the patience of our Lord as He explains these principles to them. He says, "Now, fellows, sit down. I want to clarify something for you. You've seen the Gentile nonbelievers, and you see how they exercise authority, always bossing others around. They measure their power and influence by how many people they give orders to. That is the mark of their authority."

I do not think our Lord is saying that organizational structures are wrong. He recognizes that this is how it is done, and this is also how people judge their worth and success. If you sit in the corner office and boss others around, you are successful. So says the world. But what is the result? Rivalries, cutthroat competition, back stabbing, boot licking, maneuvering, manipulation, anything to get ahead. You can't blame people for operating that way because that is all they know.

But Jesus introduces a radical new concept. We find the key to this new concept in the words "not so with you." Or as the Revised Standard Version puts it, "But it shall not be so among you." The church is not to be that way. It is not to operate as a hierarchy of power. There is no chain of command in the church of Jesus Christ. Jesus had already said to these disciples, "You have only one Master and you are all brothers" (Matthew 23:8). As Paul tells the Corinthians, "Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy" (2 Corinthians 1:24). No one is ever to boss, bully, or command others in the church. Only the Lord commands.

The institutional church, Catholic and Protestant, has failed to live out this precept of the Lord and of the Scriptures. The Protestant and evangelical churches have rightly rejected the Catholic notion of the prelacy or papacy, the office of a human head over the church. But what have the Protestant and evangelical churches put in place of a pope over all churches? A lot of little popes in every church! This is just as bad, or worse. I submit to you, as a pastor, no less, that there is no authority in being a pastor. A pastor is a brother who is given certain gifts in order to help people understand what they are doing and where they are going. Pastors have no authority over the brothers and sisters in the congregation, for we are all jointly brothers and sisters in the Lord. There are bosses in the unbelieving world, but Jesus says, "It shall not be so among you."

Matthew records that Jesus tells us where true authority lies: "Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave" (Matthew 20:26-27). Jesus has said this before, but He underscores it again for us. True authority arises out of servitude, out of meeting someone else's need. Jesus says that when you are willing to give yourself to meet another person's need, something remarkable happens. You establish a mystical kind of authority in that person's life. They want to respond to you. Their attitude toward you changes. They want to do something in return. They do not have to; they want to.

This, Jesus said, is a principle in the kingdom of God. This is the way authority arises. Those who have authority are those whom people have learned to respect and honor because they have been served by them. And Jesus offers Himself as the ultimate example of this principle:

"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:45)

Here is absolute servanthood in human form. Here is the one who had every right to authority, yet He lovingly relinquishes everything in order to meet our needs. This is how we are to function in the kingdom of God.

A strange, fallacious teaching has infected the church. It claims that Jesus died in order that we who believe in Him might never have to suffer, become sick, experience trials, or face death. That is not what the Scriptures remotely imply, much less say. The Bible teaches that Jesus died in order that He might go with us through death and bring us out onto the other side. He does not eliminate death; that final enemy awaits all of us. But we do not face it alone. We face it in the company of one who has passed through death and emerged into a beautiful resurrection.

The Blind Beggar of Jericho

Next Mark records a remarkable incident that occurs as Jesus and the disciples are leaving the city of Jericho.

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and said, "Call him."

So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."

"Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:46-52)

This incident has no noticeable connection to what has gone before, so it seems that Mark abruptly changes the subject at this point. Or does he? Was it just by chance that as Jesus was leaving Jericho, a blind man named Bartimaeus was sitting by the road? Or was this incident prearranged by God?

A closer inspection of this account reveals some surprising ties with what has gone before. First, there is an unusual repetition involved when Mark gives us the name of this man. He is Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus. The name Bartimaeus means "son of Timaeus." It is redundant to say "Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus," because they mean the same thing. So it seems that Mark underscores this name for some reason. There must be something about this name that Mark wants us to notice. When you look up the Greek meaning of Timaeus, Mark's purpose becomes clear. Timaeus means "honor." This beggar was named "the son of honor." And what had James and John asked Jesus for? Honor. "Let one of us sit at your right," they said, "and the other at your left in your glory:" Coincidence?

Notice too that Mark skips over a number of events that are recorded in other gospel accounts. For example, he does not refer to the story of Zacchaeus, which is recorded in great detail in Luke 19, although that incident occurred at this time in Jericho. Mark goes directly to the time that they left the city in order to emphasize a connection between the discussion about honor and Jesus' encounter with the blind son of honor.

Notice also the question Jesus poses to Bartimaeus: "What do you want me to do for you?" That is word for word the question Jesus put to James and John when they came to Him with a request for honor. Look at that passage again:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. "Teacher," they said, "we want you to do for us whatever we ask."

"What do you want me to do for you?" he asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory." (Mark 10:35-37)

Again I ask: coincidence?

What was the trouble with these disciples? They were blind. They could not see what was involved, what they were so eagerly committing themselves to. They could not see the cup, the baptism, the suffering, the shame, the cross. They were spiritually blind. And what was the trouble with Bartimaeus? He was physically blind. Jesus asked, in both cases, "What do you want me to do for you?"

The significance of this story, I believe, lies in what Bartimaeus did. That is the reason Mark placed it here. Here was a blind man who was conscious of his blindness, whereas the disciples were not conscious of theirs. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, he became excited and began to demand his attention. "Jesus, Son of David," he shouted, "have mercy on me!" When people tried to silence him, he shouted louder: "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

When our Lord stopped to serve this man and meet his needs, He asked, "What do you want me to do for you?" Doesn't that seem like a silly question to ask a blind man? Jesus has the power to restore the man's sight. Jesus knows it. Bartimaeus knows it. What else could the man want? Yet Jesus asks the question anyway: Bartimaeus provides the obvious answer: "Rabbi, I want to see." Immediately Jesus said, "Go, your faith has healed you." And Bartimaeus saw the world for the first time in his life.

Why did Mark put this account in this place? Because this healing is intended to instruct the disciples and to instruct us. Jesus is saying, "When you come asking for good things from God, ask also to be able to see what they involve. Ask to have your sight given to you, so that you see yourself accurately: Ask for the sight to see the true implications of all that you ask in prayer." Jesus is teaching His disciples and us that we need to pray this prayer of David:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

This is what Jesus wanted His disciples to pray: How blind they were! How foolish and ignorant and self-confident they were, not knowing what was in them and what God would have to do to remove it.

And what of you and me? What foolish blindness lurks in our souls, clouding our prayer life, causing us to ask God to give us things we do not understand? May our ambitious hearts learn the lesson that eluded the disciples as they accompanied Jesus on the way to Jerusalem, on the road to the cross.

Twenty-one

The King Is Coming

äMark 11:1-25

I have seen audiences moved to tears of joy by Bill and Gloria Gaither's gospel anthem "The King Is Coming." Although it was written as a song of anticipation of the Lord's triumphant return, the sheer power of the music would make a fitting soundtrack for the subject of this study in Mark. For now we come to the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In this account, we shall see a city that has been shaken to its foundation by the news that the King is coming.

As we pick up the narrative from the end of Mark 10, we see that the Lord and His disciples have left Jericho and are approaching Jerusalem. They are moving inexorably toward the climactic events of the Lord's final week, the week that is destined to result in His death and resurrection.

The Fulfillment of Prophecy

We are about to examine the event that has come to be known as Palm Sunday. Mark sets the scene for us:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'"

They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. (Mark 11:1-6)

It seems obvious that Jesus had made advance arrangements for this day: He knew He was coming into the city to fulfill the ancient biblical prophecies, so He made arrangements to fulfill the prophecy concerning this colt. Thus we do not need to see the availability of this colt as a miraculous occurrence. The colt was tied where it was because Jesus had arranged for it to be there. When the word was given that the Lord had need of it, that was all the owner required.

John 10 tells us that Jesus had made a quick trip to Jerusalem in what would have been our month of January, and there He appeared at the Feast of Dedication. This was about three months before the events we are studying. So it is likely He made arrangements for the colt then. Jesus knew the day and the hour He was coming into Jerusalem, and He knew what would be required of that moment, because it was foretold by the prophet Zechariah:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!

Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!

See, your King comes to you,

righteous and having salvation,

gentle and riding on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

Jesus knew that He would be coming into the city on a colt. He also knew exactly what day this event would occur, because the Old Testament book of Daniel tells us that almost five hundred years earlier, an angel had appeared to the prophet Daniel and had told him that a certain amount of time had been marked out by God. That time would bring about the fulfillment of dramatic events concerning the people of Israel.

This period of time began when the Persian king Artaxerxes issued an edict for the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. You will find that edict recorded in Nehemiah 2. When this heathen king issued the edict, he unknowingly set in motion God's timetable for the Jewish nation and for the appearance of the Messiah. Daniel was told that 490 years must run their course before all of God's events would be fulfilled. The passage of 483 of those years would be marked off by the triumphant arrival in Jerusalem of the Messiah.

This timetable was discovered by a nineteenth-century lawyer and detective, Sir Robert Anderson. For many years, he served as director of England's famed Scotland Yard. Not only was he a brilliant logician, but also he was an avid Bible student. By analyzing the book of Daniel and determining precisely when the decree of Artaxerxes was issued (March 28, 445 B.C.), Anderson was able to calculate forward, correcting for calendar errors, and determined the precise date that Jesus rode into Jerusalem: April 6, A.D. 32, exactly 483 years after the decree of Artaxerxes.

If a nineteenth-century Englishman could examine these Scriptures and calculate the precise date on which Messiah would come to Jerusalem, then the Son of God would know. Jesus had not only studied the book of Daniel, but also, as the preexistent Son of God, He had inspired the writing of the book. So it is a reasonable inference that He made the appropriate arrangements to enter the city, to ride down the slopes of the Mount of Olives on a colt on which no one had ever sat, in precise fulfillment of the predictions of Zechariah and Daniel.

All three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) tell us that this was a young donkey, an animal on which no one had ever sat. When I was growing up in Montana, my friends and I would break horses for amusement. Some of the full-grown ones were a little too much for us to handle, so we concentrated on the yearling colts on which no one had ever sat. I can testify that these animals do not welcome the experience. Even when they're a year old, they are capable of sending you base over apex.

Yet Jesus selects an animal that no one has ever sat on, and this animal is docile, responsive, and obedient. In contradiction to its nature and instincts, the lowly animal carries Jesus through the streets of the city: Although the procurement of the animal may not have been supernatural, the behavior of that colt was not natural. But it should be remembered that the rider of the colt was also the one who had commanded the wind and waves.

"Well," you might say, "if Jesus arranged all of these details, how can you call it a fulfillment of prophecy? Jesus engineered everything so that it would appear that prophecy was being fulfilled."

The answer is that Jesus arranged a few things, but He could not have arranged everything. He could not have arranged the response of the crowd as He entered the city or the attitude of the rulers. These factors were beyond His control, yet they too had been predicted in the Old Testament.

A Tragic Pronouncement

The Messiah is about to enter Jerusalem. This event has been prophesied for almost five hundred years, yet the city is strangely unaware of the momentous thing that is about to happen. Mark's narrative continues:

When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

"Hosanna! "

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"

"Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"

"Hosanna in the highest!" (Mark 11:7-10)

From other accounts, we know these people were not so much citizens of Jerusalem as people from around Galilee who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. Many of them were children. Historians tell us that the population of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus was about 80,000 people, but during the great religious feasts, the number of people in the city would swell to as much as 250,000. There was no room to house so many pilgrims and strangers within the city, so they would spend the night sleeping in the hills around the city, then stream through the city gates throughout the morning. So it was probably a crowd of religious pilgrims and their children, not citizens of Jerusalem, who greeted Jesus as He approached Jerusalem.

Where, then, were the citizens of Jerusalem? They were in the city, conducting their business, going about their lives, oblivious to the fact that the long-awaited Messiah was just outside the city walls! So it was up to these strangers and visitors, these Galilean tourists, to cry out the words that fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 118. You cannot read this account without seeing that these words must have been much in the Lord's mind as He rode into the city that day:

The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone; . . .

This is the day the Lord has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it. . . .

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. (PSALM 118:22, 24, 26)

These were the words that the people cried out as Jesus rode through the streets. Luke adds an interesting dimension in his account of this same event:

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." (Luke 19:41-44)

The Lord's sad prophecy was fulfilled to the letter forty years later, when the Roman general Titus brought his armies and laid a prolonged siege against Jerusalem. Eventually the Romans battered their way into the city. In violation of the general's orders, the temple was burned. The gold of the temple treasury melted and ran into the cracks of the stones. In their efforts to get at the gold, the soldiers pried apart the stones. When they had finished, there was literally no stone left standing on another.

As He rode down the mountain, Jesus knew all that was coming, and He wept because Jerusalem did not recognize the time of God's coming. That is one of the most tragic pronouncements in the Bible. God had sent out invitations to this great event five hundred years before. He had told when it would happen, had given an exact time schedule, and had told the people how to recognize the King. But when Messiah came, nobody in the city knew who He was. The only ones who recognized Him as Messiah were some itinerant Galilean peasants and their children who were there to celebrate Passover. What an ironic twist! Yet that is often the case. We ignore the signs the God gives us, and we don't even recognize Him when He is suddenly in our midst.

An Official Visit from the King

After the death of Jordan's beloved King Hussein, many of the Jordanian people wondered if the king's successor, his son Abdullah, would be as compassionate and dedicated to the welfare of his people as Hussein had been. After ascending to the throne, King Abdullah adopted a bold and daring strategy that would have surprised even his father. Abdullah sometimes disguised himself as a laborer, such as a taxi driver or a hospital orderly. Then he went out among the people to see how they lived and what they needed from their government. For example, he would appear at a government hospital and observe how some of the doctors mistreated their patients. Or he would walk the streets and talk to the common people about their concerns and problems. Then the young king would go back to his palace in Amman and issue laws and decrees that would punish wrongdoers and improve the lives of the common people. There are some things a king in disguise can discover that a king on a throne cannot.

In the next passage in Mark 11, we see that Jesus does something similar. He enters the city, a King in disguise, to find out what is going on within His kingdom. Mark records:

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:11)

At first glance, it doesn't seem that Jesus does anything significant here. But looking carefully at this narrative, we can discover His purpose in these actions. This was an official visit of the King of Israel. He was making an inspection tour of the heart of the nation. He went to the temple, the throbbing heart of the nation of Israel, the focus of all Jewish worship. There He looked at everything. And we know what He saw. The crass commercialism of the moneychangers. The exploitation of the people by corrupt religious leaders. The filth and squalor, the injustice and hypocrisy, the arrogance and extortion. He saw that religious ceremonies were being carried on without any meaning or spiritual significance.

"He looked around at everything," says Mark, but He did not say a word. Nobody paid any attention to Him, because He had been there many times before. The priests and moneychangers did not know that this was an official tour of inspection by the King.

God often comes into our lives that way, doesn't He? Wouldn't it be wonderful if God looked at us only when we came to church on Sunday morning, when we are scrubbed and presentable, when our hearts are turned to thoughts of God, when His Word is open on our laps and we are thinking sweet, spiritual thoughts? But God doesn't inspect us only on Sunday mornings. He also knows when we are arguing in the kitchen, when we are cutting ethical corners at the office, when we are behaving rudely in the car. He knows us when we are saying what we shouldn't say, thinking what is unclean to think, doing what we should be ashamed to do, and viewing what is foul to view.

He comes into our lives. He looks around. And He does not say a word.

But that is just the inspection. Mark next shows us the result of that inspection. In Mark 11, that result takes place on the following day: It begins with a symbolic action.

The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it. (Mark 11:12-14)

A surprise awaits the disciples. On the following day, as we will soon see, the disciples will pass the fig tree again, and they will find that it has withered to the roots. Many people have been troubled by this miracle. It seems so vindictive and destructive, so unlike Jesus. It is the only miracle in Jesus' ministry in which He pronounces judgment and destruction on anything. Another troubling aspect is that Jesus seems to be irrationally angry with the tree. He curses this tree for not having figs, yet the passage clearly states, "it was not the season for figs." Why would He curse the tree for not bearing fruit when it is unreasonable to expect fruit on the tree? Is Jesus that arbitrary and capricious?

I had read this story many times and puzzled over it for years before I finally decided to conduct some research into the nature of fig trees. When I moved to California, I planted a fig tree to see what it would do. I wanted to learn from it, and as I watched it grow, I learned a great deal. From the fig tree in my yard, I discovered the answer to the riddle of this passage.

The first spring I watched with interest as the barren limbs of that tree began to swell, the buds began to fill out, and the leaves appeared. To my astonishment, tiny figs appeared right along with the leaves. With most fruit trees, the fruit sets on long after the leaves appear, so the appearance of these tiny figs along with the leaves was surprising. Day by day, I watched these tiny figs grow and turn from green to yellow. Soon they began to appear ripe, so I picked one and sampled it. I was disappointed to find that instead of being full of juice and pulp as a normal fig would be, it was dry and withered inside, with no juice. I waited a few more days and checked the other figs, and they were the same. I thought, My fig tree is a lemon!

Time passed, and more figs appeared on the tree; they swelled and ripened. I opened one of these later figs, assuming it would be dry and withered like the first ones, but it was a sweet, rich, juicy, pulpy fig. And that tree has borne a great crop of figs ever since. So I learned something from my fig tree. It produces two kinds of figs: the early figs (I call them pre-figs) that look like figs but are not true figs, and the later, true figs, which are sweet and tasty. I have since learned that if a fig tree does not produce the early figs, it will not produce the later, true figs.

I am convinced that this explains what Jesus did. He came at a time when figs were out of season, but He knew what to look for in a fruitful tree. He looked at the tree and found none of the early figs that would promise a later harvest of true, juicy figs. He knew that this tree would never have figs but would produce nothing but leaves. The life of the tree had been spent producing luxuriant foliage, so that it looked like a healthy tree, but it was not productive. He cursed it, and the next day it was withered to the roots.

That tree was a symbol of the nation Israel, as we will see. And what Jesus does next is a vivid, even violent, representation of what He did symbolically with the cursing of the fig tree. The symbolic message of the cursing of the fig tree is identical to the message of the cleansing of the temple.

The Cleansing of the Temple

Before showing us the fate of the fig tree, Mark takes us back to Jerusalem for this powerful scene.

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry [a vessel] through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, "Is it not written:

"'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations' ?

But you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Mark 11: 15-17)

Jesus took two significant actions that are tantamount to the cursing of the nation of Israel, just as He had cursed the fig tree when He found it with nothing but leaves. First, He cleansed it from all the false manifestations that had crept in. He cleaned out the commercialism of the temple. This was the second time He had done this. According to John's gospel, He had entered the temple three years before, at the beginning of His ministry, and had swept out the moneychangers in a similar fashion.

In the course of this second cleansing, Jesus refused to allow anyone to commercialize the sacrificial offerings. Merchants were selling animals as a so-called service to the people. And because they would accept only the official temple currency, moneychangers had set up shop (another service) so people could exchange normal Roman currency (defiled with the graven image of Caesar) into temple currency: The moneychangers and traders were making an excessive profit at this business, and Jesus stormed in and swept out the whole mess.

But then comes the second significant action of Jesus. Mark says that Jesus "would not allow anyone to carry [a vessel] through the temple courts." I have inserted the phrase "a vessel" in that statement because that is what the text literally says. The New International Version uses the term "merchandise," which is not what the Greek text says. The New International Version is a very good translation in general, but it erred when it inserted the word "merchandise" here, because Mark is not talking about the merchandise of the traders and moneychangers at this point. The King James Version accurately states that Jesus would not allow anyone to "carry any vessel through the temple." The word "vessel" refers to a utensil of worship. Mark expresses something highly significant. Jesus shut down not only the commerce of the temple; He shut down the religious rituals as well.

Why is this significant? If you will refer to the Old Testament books of Leviticus and Numbers, you will see that God had instituted rituals for the temple at Jerusalem that required the priests to carry many things through it. They had to bring the animals into the temple, bind them on the altar, and slay them. They had to catch the blood of these animals and carry it in basins into the holy place to sprinkle it on the altar of incense. They had to take the bodies of the sacrifices, after they were burned, and carry them back out again. So there was a continual procession of priests through the temple all day, carrying out the system of rituals that God had given to the nation of Israel.

But on this day, when Jesus came into the temple, He halted the temple's religious activity. Why? Because Jesus refused to acknowledge the temple worship as having any meaning or value any longer. Although the Jewish priests, moneychangers, and traders went back to their former activity as soon as Jesus left, and although these practices would continue for forty more years until the Romans destroyed the temple, God no longer accepted those sacrifices. They rituals of the temple were meaningless and worthless.

The temple was the heart of the nation of Israel, and Jesus cursed the heart of Israel by rejecting its worship. This was what the cursing of the fig tree represented. Israel, like that tree, no longer bore fruit. It produced nothing but leaves. It appeared to have life and value, but in reality it did not. It appeared to offer hope to the men and women of the nations of earth, because people came from all over the world to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. They came hoping to find an answer to the emptiness of their hearts, but they found no help, because the rituals of the temple had become empty and meaningless, corrupted by greed and exploitation.

So Jesus cursed the nation, just as He had cursed the fig tree.

The Withering of the Nation

The cleansing of the temple draws an immediate and fateful response from the religious leaders in Jerusalem. Mark records:

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

When evening came, they went out of the city. (Mark 11:18-19)

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard that Jesus had shut down all activity in the temple, overturning the tables of the traders and moneychangers and stopping all the religious rituals of the temple. This was too much for them. They were filled with fury. In the past, Jesus' words had angered and confounded them, and they had met together to discuss what ought to be done about Him. But their hostility suddenly turned a corner at this point. There was no longer any question what to do with Jesus. He had to be destroyed. The only question remaining was how to accomplish the deed.

That was the point of no return for the nation of Israel. This act of Jesus--shutting down the ritualistic worship in the temple--resulted in His death the following Friday. The teachers of the law and the priests would no longer put up with anything Jesus did or said from that moment on. His actions in clearing the temple almost certainly sealed His death.

But the religious leaders' hostile and murderous response also sealed their destiny. They thought they were getting rid of Him. But it was He, as the King in all His majesty, who had pronounced sentence on them and had sealed their doom. Just as the fig tree had been cursed and would soon be found withered beside the road, so the withering of the life of the nation of Israel had already begun.

"Have Faith in God"

The meaning of these events is wrapped up in the next three verses, although that meaning is easy to miss if we don't read carefully.

In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!"

"Have faith in God," Jesus answered. (Mark 11:20-22)

Does Jesus' answer seem strange to you? Many people have read this passage and, neglecting to read it in its context, have taken this to be a formula for working miracles. It is as if Jesus is saying, "You too can curse fig trees and make them wither if you have faith in God." But that is not even remotely what Jesus is saying. If you read His words in connection with all the events of this passage, the meaning becomes clear. It is significant that the story of the cursed tree wraps around and encloses the story of the cleansing of the temple. That is deliberate, for they are one story, not two.

Jesus is not telling us the secret of how to curse fig trees; He is telling us the secret of how to live so that we will not be cursed. This nation was cursed because it had lost faith in God. It had substituted empty rituals and meaningless performance for a true, loving, obedient relationship with God. Israel's religion was one that went through the motions. It was an outward religious show, but inwardly it was unreal and hypocritical. The corrupt priests were in collusion with the moneychangers and merchants, bilking the people out of their money in the name of God. True faith in God was dead, so the life of God that had once made the nation green and fruitful was now dried up and withered.

This is what Jesus is telling us: "Have faith in God! If you truly want to live, have faith in God! If you don't want to be cursed and withered and dead, have faith in God! If you want a life that is full and rich and meaningful, have faith in God! Trust that the living God knows what He is doing in your life. Believe what He says and obey what He commands! Open your life to Him and let Him flow through you and make you fruitful! Have faith in God!"

This is the answer. When a nation begins to dry up and wither, when it ceases to become fruitful, the only answer is to have faith in God. Whether that nation is Israel in the first century or the United States of America in the twenty-first century, the only answer is to have faith in God. And what is true of a nation is true of an individual. If you feel dried up, wasted, withered, and dead inside, have faith in God. Trust Him. Obey Him. Seek Him. Let Him make your life fruitful once more.

How to Move Mountains

Jesus next says something that many people have found perplexing and troubling.

"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him." (Mark 11:23)

If we wrench these words out of context and treat them as a magic formula for doing amazing things, we will miss the truth that Jesus wants to teach us. Imagine going around and commanding mountains to lift themselves up and cast themselves into the sea! Many preachers claim that the secret to mountain moving is to believe that it's going to happen and it will happen. But in all the years that preachers have been preaching that twist on Jesus' words, I have never heard of a single mountain that ever got up and flew into the sea.

So there is some deeper and more profound truth that Jesus is trying to communicate. Jesus is saying that to have faith in God at times is difficult to do. He knows that. There are mountains that stand in the way of faith and make believing difficult. There are obstacles to faith.

Israel had experienced powerful, formidable obstacles. One such obstacle was the Roman enslavement of Israel. Another was the apparent silence of God for several hundred years. All the circumstances that aroused doubt and fear in their lives were like a mountain that stood in the way of their faith. Jesus says, "I tell you, if you ask in faith, that mountain will be removed." And then He explains how.

"I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins." (Mark 11:24-25)

Whatever you do, don't remove those words from their context. Jesus is saying, "The great hindrance to having faith in God is pride, a pride that refuses to forgive. Pride is like a mountain that fills up your life. All you can see is that big mountain looming before you, blocking the life of God in your life. You have the power to remove that mountain of pride if, when you stand and pray, you will forgive those who have offended you. Because the only thing that stops you from forgiving is pride."

Most of us wrestle with forgiveness in one way or another. We feel justified in wanting others to forgive us, but when others hurt us, we feel entitled to exact a price for the hurt they have caused us. So, in subtle ways or direct, we insist on being avenged. "Okay," we say, "I'll forgive--as soon as I've seen him crawl or heard her beg for forgiveness." That kind of forgiveness is not forgiveness. It's another form of vindictiveness and vengefulness.

"And that," says Jesus, "is a great mountain that needs to be removed, for it is blocking the flow of the life of God to your faith." God has forgiven you; now you need to let His forgiveness flow through you to others, to the ones who have hurt you.

The basis of all forgiveness is the fact that God, through Christ, has forgiven us. Another has paid the price. Another has assumed our debt. Another has borne the hurt, so that we might be free. We have received from Him freely, without doing anything to earn or deserve it. How much more, then, should we extend that same mercy and love to all who have offended us? If we do not forgive, then we do not have faith, and we will wither as surely as that unfruitful fig tree. But if we have faith to obey God and forgive, then our prayers will be answered and our mountains will move.

Have faith in God!

Twenty-two

By What Authority?

äMark 11:27-12:27

Before sunup on the morning of May 10,1775, a small band of American revolutionaries crept out of the woods and approached Fort Ticonderoga, New York, a supposedly impregnable British garrison. The Americans, led by Colonel Ethan Allen, were heavily outnumbered. But Allen's famed Green Mountain Boys were supremely confident in their cause and in their commander.

In the predawn darkness, Allen's men surprised and quickly overpowered the sentries who guarded the perimeter of the fort. One of the frightened guards was brought to Colonel Allen, who presented the sentry with a choice: "Take me to the quarters of Captain Delaplace--or would you prefer to die?" The sentry chose life, and he led Colonel Allen through the front gate, across the parade grounds to the officers' quarters, up the steps, along the second-story balcony, and to the door of the commander of the British fort, Captain William Delaplace.

Allen drew his sword and banged the hilt loudly against the door. "Captain!" shouted Ethan Allen. "Come out here and surrender, or I'll kill every Englishman in Fort Ticonderoga!" A few moments later, the door opened, and there stood the astonished Captain Delaplace, freshly rousted out of bed and undressed, holding his breeches in front of him to protect his modesty. Allen suppressed a chuckle, then repeated his demand: "Sir, I order you to surrender!"

"By what authority?" asked the British commander.

Ethan Allen's reply: "In the name of the great Lord Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

Captain Delaplace surrendered.

In much the same way, the Lord Jesus has come to Jerusalem and presented His demands to the religious rulers of that city: He has gone into the fortress of Israel's religious life, the temple, and He has overturned the corrupt religious practices of that place. Now those religious leaders confront Jesus with a question, the same question Captain Delaplace put to Colonel Ethan Allen: "By what authority?" They ask Him, "Who gave you the authority to overturn these tables and stop the religious rituals in the temple? By what authority are you doing these things?"

The priests and teachers of the law consider themselves the absolute authority over the religious life of Israel. But they are about to discover that there is an even higher authority in Israel.

As we examine our Lord's final visit to Jerusalem during that last, climactic week of His life, we see Him in unremitting conflict with these Jewish authorities. In these confrontations, He addresses the central issue of life: what is the final authority over humanity? This question breaks down into an array of subquestions on the issue of authority. Should I obey the state, or should I obey my conscience? Which is preeminent, the church or the government? Should I walk by reason or by faith? Should I subscribe to the authority of science or of the Bible? These are questions we all face, and in this account, Jesus gives us guidance for everyday living.

Of God or Men?

In our previous study, we saw our Lord in the midst of His second cleansing of the temple. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, swept out all the commercialized traffic, and did something shocking, something that only Mark's gospel records: Jesus halted the offerings and sacrifices of the Mosaic system. He prevented the priests from carrying out the normal duties associated with the temple sacrifices. Now Mark records the hostile reaction of the religious authorities in Jerusalem.

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?" (Mark 11:27-28)

You can hear it in their words: the voices of the temple authorities drip with loathing and rage. Furious that Jesus has challenged their authority, they confront Him and demand, "By what authority are you doing these things?"

When you refine any issue down to its essentials, what you have left is the issue of authority in life. Why do you act the way you do? How do you justify what you say and do? No one ever is his or her own ultimate authority: Presidents can be impeached; kings can be deposed. We all defer to an authority beyond ourselves, something that sets boundaries for our actions, something that governs our decisions. When we confront the question of authority, we are dealing with that which is fundamental to all human behavior.

Who were these Jewish religious authorities? By comparing this account with the other gospels, we know that this was an imposing delegation. It included Caiaphas, the high priest, and his venerated father-in-law, Annas; the scribes, who interpreted the law of Moses; and the elders, those officially appointed to serve in the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the nation. These were the Jewish heads of state, and they answered only to the overarching rule of Rome.

The answer that Jesus gave these powerful men is one of the most amazing statements in Scripture. This is riveting drama, and it is fascinating to watch our Lord handle Himself so coolly and confidently under pressure. First He turns the tables on His interrogators by demanding their credentials.

Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism--was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me!" (Mark 11:29-30)

Notice His directness. The Jewish rulers think they have Jesus on the spot, but with one response, He puts them on the defensive. Mark shows us the confusion this creates among them.

They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' But if we say, 'From men' . . . ." (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."

Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things." (Mark 11:31-33)

Don't you love that answer! The Lord has conceived a remarkable test. He asks them their view of the baptism of John: is it merely a human baptism, or is it of God? The baptism of John was something new and startling in Israel. The priests had many ritual washings under the Levitical system, but those were performed in the temple according to strict rules. But John's baptism was different. John was not a priest, yet he baptized. He baptized not in the temple but in rivers and streams, wherever he could find enough water. Because it was unprecedented, John's baptism was controversial, and feelings ran high on both sides of the question.

So when the Jewish leaders asked Jesus, "By what authority do you shut down the ritual worship in the temple?" the Lord responded by asking, "What do you think of John's baptism? By what authority did John bring this new baptism to Israel? Was it mere human authority, or God's?" All authority is either of God or humankind; there are no other authorities. We are trying either to obey God or to please people.

Jesus had brilliantly impaled these leaders on the horns of a dilemma. In the game of chess, this is called placing your opponent in a fork. No matter what move he makes next, he will lose one of his pieces. These Jewish leaders knew that whatever they said next, they were going to lose something. If they said, "John's baptism was from God," Jesus would respond, "Then why didn't you accept John?" And if they said, "John's baptism was from men," they knew the multitude standing around them would be displeased, because the martyred John was popular among the people.

Unable to give Jesus the answer He demanded, they offered an answer so lame and cowardly it could not have improved their standing with the people. They said, "We don't know." That answer, of course, took Jesus off the hook. "All right, then," said Jesus, "I won't answer your question either. I will not tell you by what authority I do these things."

A Bold and Dangerous Parable

But Jesus did not let the matter rest there. He went on to expose their dishonesty. By their weaseling answer, the Jewish leaders showed they didn't care about the truth. They didn't care about God's authority; they cared only about their power and self-interest. So our Lord proceeded to expose their evil and corruption by telling a parable. With this story, Jesus went on the offensive, attacking these crooked men and predicting their ultimate downfall.

He then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey." (Mark 12:1)

As Jesus began talking, the scribes and Pharisees and chief priests immediately recognized the story: Jesus was borrowing almost the exact words of Isaiah 5, where the nation of Israel is described as a vineyard brought out of Egypt and planted in a choice land. There was no doubt in these Jewish leaders' minds where they fit into this parable. Jesus continued:

"At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

"He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

"But the tenants said to one another, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.' So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. " (Mark 12:2-8)

This is a bold and dangerous parable. Jesus has told a tale of men who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to get what they want, and He tosses the tale into the faces of the murderous men He has exposed. He describes to them who they are and what they are doing--and indirectly He answers their question, "By what authority are you doing these things?" He says, "Here is my authority. I am the owner of the vineyard. I am the rightful heir to it. I am the beloved Son whom the Father has sent. You've beaten, stoned, and killed God's prophets. Now I am here. I am the Son."

And He tells these men what they planned to do. They will beat Jesus, kill Him, and cast Him out of the vineyard. Jesus is under no delusions as to what is going to happen to Him. But God, the owner of the vineyard, will have the final word. Jesus predicts the ultimate end of these corrupt leaders:

"What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. " (Mark 12:9)

In Mark's account it looks as though Jesus answers His own question, but Matthew makes it clear that Jesus asks the question and the scribes and the chief priests give the answer. Jesus tells the story and says, "Now, in that story, what would the owner of the vineyard do?" Matthew records that the scribes and chief priests said, "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time" (Matthew 21:41). As Mark records, Jesus continues:

"Haven't you read this scripture:

"'The stone the builders rejected

has become the capstone;

the Lord has done this,

and it is marvelous in our eyes'?"

Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away. (Mark 12:10-12)

Jesus has exposed the falseness and corruption of their religious authority: God had not given these evil men authority over the religious life of Israel; they had usurped what was never rightfully theirs. Jesus makes this clear. But He adds, "That is not the end of the story. When human authorities act in evil and corrupt ways, you can be sure that God is not through with them."

And what Jesus predicted later took place. On the day of resurrection, the one whom the builders rejected became the capstone of God's eternal edifice. Later, when the resurrected Lord stood with His disciples, He declared, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me" (Matthew 28:18). The risen Christ is Lord of all, the Ruler of history, the sovereign Monarch of human affairs.

Forty years after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, Roman armies surrounded the city of Jerusalem, invaded it, sacked it, and led the chief priests, scribes, and elders away in chains to be dispersed among the nations. God did what He said He would do in this parable.

This is a lesson to us and to all who read this account. Human authority is always limited and subject to the judgment of God's authority. Evil people may sit on the throne of the unrighteous, wielding their unjust power for a limited period of time, but invariably they are swept out of office and into the dustbin of history. As J. B. Phillips once observed, "Remember that the powers-that-be will soon be the powers-that-were." The prophet Ezekiel tells us that God's process throughout history is declared in these words: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him" (Ezekiel 21:27 KJV). God is at work in history to overthrow corrupt authorities and to replace one power with another. Human power may flourish for a time, but it always comes to an end.

Our Responsibility to the Government

As Mark continues his account, we see that the Jewish leaders shift to a new strategy. They send a different group of religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Herodians, to attack Jesus in an even more underhanded and fraudulent way.

Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth." (Mark 12: 13-14)

What oily scoundrels these were, coming with such saccharine words. Yet this delegation was made up of two groups that bitterly hated each other, the Pharisees and the Herodians. They considered Jesus such a threat to their vested interests that these bitter enemies were willing to join forces. They came to Jesus with a sly question:

"Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?" (Mark 12:14-15)

This is a question people in the United States wrestle with every April 15. Should we pay taxes to the government when we know that the government will use that money in immoral and unethical ways? Is it right to pay your hard-earned money to a government that wastes it or spends it to further a cause you oppose, such as abortion on demand or an unjust war? Although the question was posed as a trap for Jesus, it is a valid moral question. Mark records the Lord's response:

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why are you trying to trap me?" he asked. "Bring me a denarius and let me look at it." They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

And they were amazed at him. (Mark 12:15-17)

I once read about a brilliant young lawyer, reared by atheist parents, who had grown up with disregard for Christianity. Someone had given him a New Testament, and he had decided to read it through to find all the logical flaws in the Christian Scriptures. But when he came to Mark, he read this section with intense interest, for he had recently been involved in a court case involving the ethics of taxation. He was so eager to see what Jesus would say, he could hardly read fast enough. When the full impact of the actions of Jesus hit this man, he was astonished. "That is the most amazing wisdom I've ever encountered!" he said.

What was it about the Lord's response that so amazed this young lawyer? It was the way Jesus easily avoided their trap while He wisely answered their question. They asked Him a yes/no, either/or question, but Jesus rejected the premise of the question and showed that He knew their motives. "Why are you trying to trap me?" He asked. Then Jesus called for a coin (He had to borrow one, for He had no money), and He held it up. "Whose picture is on this coin?" asked Jesus. They said, "Caesar's." And He told them, "All right, then it must be Caesar's money. Give to Caesar whatever belongs to Caesar, but give to God whatever belongs to God. And, because God has His stamp on your life, that means you should give everything you are to God."

Secular government is ordained by God. The apostle Paul tells us that plainly, and so does the apostle Peter:

Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right….Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king. (1 Peter 2:13-14, 17)

We may be tempted to say, "When Peter wrote those words, he didn't know how corrupt our government would become." Oh? We must remember that the king Peter referred to was Nero, one of the most wretched moral degenerates who ever held a position of power. Nero was the epitome of corruption, yet Peter says, "Honor the king."

Human government has only limited authority over us. It has certain powers over our freedoms, our actions, our speech. It can regulate our conduct to some degree and has the right to influence and regulate our society. But secular power cannot legislate how we worship or whom, nor can it dictate our conscience. Jesus acknowledges, as does all of Scripture, that God is ultimately sovereign over all government, even bad government, and no government exists except by His permission. Certain things belong to Caesar; the rest belongs to God. So give to Caesar only what is his, and give everything else that you are and have to the one who truly owns you.

The Attack of the Rationalists

In the concluding incident in this passage, Jesus is confronted by still another form of human authority, rationalism, the scientific mind, the authority or power of human logic and thought. This authority is very much a part of our world. Mark writes:

Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"

Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?" (Mark 12:18-24)

This question is not intended to elicit a serious answer about the resurrection; it is intended only to mock Jesus. Mark makes this clear at the outset, when he tells us that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They were rationalists, materialists, secular humanists. They did not believe in the supernatural, in angels or spirits or life after death. Yet they come to Jesus inquiring into a subject that they consider nonsense: "What's going to happen in the resurrection?"

The question drips with malicious contempt. Their hypothetical scenario is an absurd, contrived story, concocted to trap Jesus. I suspect Jesus was tempted to dismiss it, as it deserved. For example, He could have answered, "When a woman has seven husbands in a row and they keep dying, you might want to find out what she's been putting in their coffee." But Jesus proceeds to answer their question on its own absurd terms.

Jesus replied, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising--have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!" (Mark 12:24-27)

Jesus is blunt. "You are wrong," He tells them. "Your view of life has skewed your thinking. You're so sure you're right. You have narrowed life down to a limited horizon, and you say that's all there is. Looking at life from your narrow perspective, you cannot see the reality that lies beyond. You're wrong because you fail to recognize two great facts. First, God has knowledge that human beings lack, and that is why we have the Scriptures. You don't know the Scriptures, obviously, for that is where God's knowledge is revealed. Second, God has power that infinitely exceeds the power of human beings. You have limited your lives to what human beings can know and what human beings can do--to human knowledge and human power. You've exalted yourselves to the place where you think you know all that can be known, and that nothing is beyond your power. And that is why you are so wrong."

I remember reading this passage as a young Christian, and I was intrigued by Jesus' words, "Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?" Over the years, I have tested this statement, and I have always found it to be true. Whether in business, science, religion, politics, psychology, or family life, every error of human thinking can be attributed to one of those two things. Either you don't know the Scriptures, or you don't know the power of God.

Here too we find the fatal weakness of a great deal of scientific thinking. I am not attacking science or scientists. I have known a number of Christian scientists, and they have all shown great wisdom and insight into the nature of reality. Within its purview, science is helpful. I support and appreciate the value of science, but we must also recognize the truth that Blaise Pascal so wisely stated: "The ultimate purpose of reason is to bring us to the place where we see that there is a limit to reason."

I am not opposed to science per se, but I must confront those who have proclaimed themselves scientific rationalists. These are the scientists who have excluded the supernatural from their thinking. They say, "In the scientific realm there is no room for speculation about life after death. Nobody can prove it, or verify it; nobody who has been there has ever come back. Therefore it is an irrelevant fact that has no meaning to life." They dismiss the subject of God, soul, spirit, and life after death by ruling it to be undiscoverable by means of the scientific method.

But Jesus says, "You're wrong, because you do not see the total scope of reality." True, such matters as life after death and the reality of the soul cannot be tested in a particle accelerator or examined under a microscope, but that does not mean they don't exist. A scientist is more than just a scientist; he or she is also a human being. As a human being, a scientist cannot escape the great spiritual questions because they don't conform to the scientific method. If God is real, if the soul is real, if the resurrection is real, but the scientific method cannot detect them, it means only that the scientific method is limited in what it can measure.

If, as a scientist and a rationalist, you push spiritual reality away and refuse to examine it, you will one day find yourself haunted by fears you cannot resolve and guilt you cannot dispel. Your thinking and attitudes will become distorted, and you will make wrong decisions, because you will be operating without an understanding of the fundamental nature of reality. Even your scientific judgment will be colored and distorted because, as a human being, you refuse to recognize the facts about your life and your soul. You are mistaken if you believe that science is the ultimate authority on all reality. It is partial and incomplete. It deals only with time. It cannot measure eternity.

In contrast to the authority of science and reason, God's authority is eternal and absolute. It encompasses all of time, all of reality. It never changes. It is the same in the age of space probes and the Internet as it was in the age of Noah, Abraham, and Moses. God's authority is sovereign over every aspect of our humanity. It touches our body, soul, and spirit. God's authority reaches beyond time through all the limitless ages of eternity, beyond the visible and into the realm of the invisible. It touches the great realities that determine our eternal fate but that cannot be sensed by human eye or hand or detected by manufactured instruments. There is not a subatomic particle anywhere in the universe over which God is not absolutely sovereign.

And He is absolutely sovereign over you and me.

This is why Jesus once said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). It is not that Jesus wants us to see God as a terrible and frightening judge. After all, it was our loving, sovereign Father who sent His Son to redeem us. But Jesus wants us to recognize that nothing we can ever do can overrule God's power. Human beings cannot overthrow God.

When that is our perspective on life, when we recognize that God is the absolute authority over all knowledge and all reality, then all the puzzle pieces of reality begin to fit together. Those who seek to be truly rational in their approach to life must begin with obedience to the final authority on life, our loving and sovereign God.

Twenty-three

Top Priority

äMark 12:28-44

A medical miracle took place on December 1, 1982. On that day, a sixty-one-year-old dentist from Washington State, Dr. Barney Clark, was wheeled into an operating room at the University of Utah Medical Center. There, a device called the Jarvik-7, a mechanical heart, was implanted in his chest. The artificial heart would ultimately extend his life by 112 days, or roughly a third of a year.

When Dr. Clark awoke from surgery, he found his wife at his side. She bent over him and asked, "Do you still love me?"

Drowsily he replied, "Yes, of course I do."

A look of relief spread across her face.

"Why would you ask a thing like that?" Clark wondered aloud. "After they put that mechanical heart in your chest," she replied, "I just wanted to be sure that you could still love me with all your heart."

In the next section of Mark, Jesus teaches us about the top priority of believers and followers of Christ. Whether your chest throbs with a heart of flesh or a heart of metal and plastic, your top priority in life is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

The Greatest Commandment

Let's begin by recalling the context of this passage. We are examining the final week of the Lord's life. Jesus is in Jerusalem; He has cleansed the temple, cast out the moneychangers, and halted the rituals of temple worship. He has been confronted by the scribes, chief priests, Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees as they have attempted and failed to trap Him in His words. In the midst of that great discourse, He addresses matters that are of direct and eternal importance in your life and mine. Mark writes:

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31)

Here was an insightful scribe who asked an honest and thoughtful question; apparently at least one man who served in the temple was not corrupt. This scribe asked Jesus, "What are the priorities of life? Of all of God's commandments, which one ranks as the top priority?" The Lord answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."

In other words, your top priority is to begin with God. When you are troubled, when you do not know what to do first, when you lack the resources to handle life, when you are baffled, wounded, and reeling from hurt and disappointment, then start with God. Love Him with all your heart, all your being.

Let's be honest. We have to admit that when we are dealing with the struggles and hurts of life, we seldom start by loving God. We usually obsess over the problem. We focus on it, we are haunted by it, we torture ourselves over it. We are so wrapped up with the struggle that confronts us that we can't get our minds off the problem and onto God.

But Jesus says the place to start is by loving God. When you start with God, you start with the one who sees the problem in its totality. He sees it in all its dimensions at once. Whatever the solution to our problem might be, God knows it because He sees it with perfect clarity. So if we want the right perspective on our problems, we must seek God's perspective. We must start by loving God.

When Jesus tells the scribe that our top priority is loving God, He is quoting the command of Moses found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, a command that Jews everywhere know to this day as Shema Yisrael, from the Hebrew words for "Hear, O Israel." It has been called the Jewish pledge of allegiance, the Jew's testimony of faith and faithfulness to the one true God. Religious Jews desire to have the Shema as the last words on their lips before they die, a parting affirmation of their love for God.

Yet I know some people find this command troubling. "How can I love God on the basis of a command?" they say. "If love doesn't flow freely and spontaneously from the heart, is it really love?" This objection, however, is based on a misunderstanding of our relationship to God. The mental image this question suggests is that God plunks us down and yells, "I command you to love me!" Nothing could be further from the truth.

The image we should have in our minds when we think of our love for God is that of a little child's trusting love for a parent. God is, after all, our heavenly Father, the One who brought us into the world, who gave us life, who nurtured us and provided for us, who believed in us and affirmed us, who taught us and gave us His loving blessing. It is only natural for a child to respond to such a parent with a warm, affectionate, trusting love.

It is easy to love someone who has loved us first. The reason the Bible commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength is that we so easily forget what God has done for us and the love with which He has loved us. If we would live in a continual awareness of His love for us, then our love for Him would be a natural, spontaneous response. As 1 John 4:19 tells us, we love God because He first loved us.

God's love reaches out to us from every conceivable direction. It pours down out of the sky in the form of rain and sunshine. It springs from the ground as fruit and wheat and beautiful flowers. It surrounds us in the love of friends, family, Christian brothers and sisters. It even comes from within, in the form of insights, emotions, pleasures, and joys that God gives to us. All the things that come to us, all the things we need in order to live and enjoy life, come from the hand of God. And the infinite grace of our salvation, paid for at an infinite cost on the cross, came directly from the heart of God. Only a truly ungrateful and thoughtless person could look at all that God lovingly provides for us and then respond with anything less than a love that consumes the heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Not a Feeling but an Action

Next, notice that Jesus tells how to love God. To most of us, the word "love" suggests an emotion or a feeling: "I love my wife," or "I love my children," or "I love my dog." Sometimes the word is used to express something as trivial as a preference: "I love pepperoni pizza."

But in the Bible, the word "love" is a powerful and meaningful word. When the Bible speaks of love, it refers to a logical choice, a specific action. The key to understanding this active, logical form of love can be found in these words of Jesus. When He quotes Deuteronomy 6:4-5, He shows us that authentic biblical love consists of four dimensions. The parallel passage in Luke 10:27 lists these four dimensions of love in a slightly different order, so it appears that the particular order of the four dimensions of love is not important. What is important is that we understand what this four-dimensional love is all about and that we put it into practice. The four dimensions of biblical love are:

Love God with all your heart.

Love God with all your soul.

Love God with all your mind.

Love God with all your strength.

Let's look at each of these dimensions in turn. First, what does it mean to love God with all your heart? When the Bible speaks of the heart, it usually refers to the human will. In some passages, "heart" refers to the emotions, but in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, it clearly speaks of the will. There are a number of passages where we find the will referred to as "the heart." For example, Genesis 8:21 speaks of "every inclination of his heart," meaning every deliberate and willful intention. And the Bible also speaks of a "hardened heart," a human will that has stubbornly chosen to disobey God. The heart is the seat of decision making; it is where we make moral and spiritual choices. The heart can reject God or receive Him. As Paul writes in Romans 10:10, "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." So when you love God with all your heart, it means that you make a choice, a decision of the will, to cling to God in love.

Next, what does it mean to love God with all your soul? The Greek word for soul is psuche, from which we get the term "psychology," describing the study of human mental and emotional health. The soul then is our innermost being, the seat of our emotions and feelings. To love God with all your soul means that you go to God with all your emotions--your hurts, your fears, and your joys. During happy moments, when we experience joy, elation, or a blessed serenity, then with the psalmist we can say, "To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; . . . As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God" (Psalm 25:1; 42:1). And when we feel fearful, sad, or troubled, we can bring those feelings to Him just as the psalmist did: "When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul" (Psalm 94:19). God created us as emotional beings, and He wants us to respond to Him with our emotions. So when you love God with all your soul, you go to Him with your joys and sorrows, you crawl into His lap with a childlike affection, and you receive from Him a warm and healing hug.

Then what does it mean to love God with your mind? The mind is the place from which we observe the world, record information and experiences, and sift truth from error. With the mind, we read God's Word and perceive the truth about God. And it is with the mind that we think about all that God has done for us. That mental understanding of God's loving presence in our lives enables us to respond to God in love through the heart, or our will, and the soul, or our emotions. Again and again the Bible affirms the importance of the mind and thoughts in our relationship with God.

Isaiah 26:3 tells us that the one whose mind is focused on God experiences trust in God and a perfect peace from God. Romans 8:6 reminds us that when our minds are controlled by the Spirit of God, we experience life and peace. Philippians 4:8-9 tells us to focus our minds on things that are true, noble, right, pure, and so forth. Isaiah 1:18 underscores the importance of a meeting of the minds between God and ourselves: "'Come now, let us reason together,' says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.'" God, who created our minds, wants us to meet Him in the quiet sanctuary of our thoughts, to have fellowship and loving communion with Him.

Once the heart, or our will, has been moved to reach out to God, once the soul, or our emotional being, has been lifted up toward God, once the mind, or our thinking, perceptive, rational being, has been focused on God, then we must love Him with all our strength. What does it mean to love God with all your strength? It means that you obey God in all that He says. You apply your daily efforts and energies to fulfilling His will for your life. You demonstrate your love for God by daily living out His loving commands.

Love Is for the Unloving and Unlovely

After stating the top priority, the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, Jesus stated the second most important priority: "The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" So this is the order Jesus gives. First we love God by responding to the love with which He first loved us. Then and only then can we truly love our neighbor as ourselves. That is how we put the two great commands in their proper order.

One of the ways we show love for others, for our neighbors, is by resolving problems in our relationships with them. And Jesus gives us the key to solving relational problems. We begin with our top priority; we begin by responding to God's love. When you start with God's love, then you are ready to turn to your particular problem--the argument with your spouse, the disobedience of your children, the squabble with your neighbor, the insensitive actions of your friend, the obnoxious behavior of your boss--and you become free to love that person as you love yourself. You are able to love and forgive that person because you remember how graciously God has forgiven you. Because God's love reached down from heaven and invaded your heart, you can now reach from your heart to those around you.

You can love as you have been loved. You can forgive as you have been forgiven. You can initiate reconciliation just as God took the initiative and sent Christ to die for you while you were in rebellion against Him. You must start with God's love. If you start with your neighbor, you get the process out of order, and it doesn't work. If you try to love your neighbor without first loving God, then you will begin with a focus on all the hurts, difficulties, and friction in that relationship rather than a focus on the healing, forgiveness, and love you have received from God. So the order must never be reversed. It is love God, then love your neighbor. If you don't begin with God, you cannot love your neighbor.

A young man once came to me because of a problem with his adult sister. She had become angry with the family over some perceived offense. So she came to the house and staged a loud, hostile confrontation. She verbally attacked this young man and their parents. The scene became even uglier when this young man responded by shouting back at her. Before it was over, they had threatened each other, insulted each other, and had practically blown the roof off the house. Finally the sister stamped out of the house, slammed the front door, and roared off in her car.

After the young man finished telling me what had happened, I put my arm around him and said, "You know, a few years ago a young man came to our church. He had the most miserable and hateful scowl on his face. He was hostile and upset. He snarled and snapped at anyone who tried to talk with him. But you know, I have been watching that young man the past few years, and he has been changing. He smiles at everyone now, and he is always cheerful and eager to help others. What do you suppose made the change in that young man?"

He grinned sheepishly, because he knew I was talking about him. He knew the answer I was seeking, but he didn't want to admit it. So he shrugged.

I said, "You didn't change because people treated you the same way you treated them, did you? It was love that changed you. Somebody loved you in spite of the way you acted. Somebody reached out to you, showed interest in you, encouraged you, and hugged you. That is what made the change, wasn't it?"

He hung his head for a moment. "Yes," he admitted, "that's right. And now I know what my sister needs." From there, he went to his sister's apartment. He responded to her with love, and the family rift was soon healed.

Love is not just a word to write on a plaque and put on your wall. Love is how you are to respond to those who irritate you, who are hostile to you, who mistreat you, who are unfair to you. Love is the goodness and kindness you show to someone when your emotions and feelings are urging you to lash out and strike back. Love is the lovely act you do for someone who is unlovely or unloving.

And love starts with God. Remember His love to you; then show the same love to the one who has hurt you. Remember His forgiving spirit, how He wiped every trace of your sin from His memory; then do the same to the one who needs your forgiveness. Loving God is your top priority. Do that, and love for your neighbor will naturally flow out of you like cool, clear water flowing from a bubbling spring.

The purpose of life is to lead us to the ultimate truth that God is the One who loves us and who can satisfy our need for love. His love meets the deepest needs of our life. That is why we must start with God.

No More Questions

The wise teacher of the law who questioned Jesus about the greatest command has heard the Lord's answer, and he approves of what he hears. Mark's account continues:

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. " (Mark 12:32-33)

This wise scribe, unknown and unnamed, understood a great truth. He saw that God is not interested in the rituals and outward performances of our life. Contrary to what most people think, God is not primarily concerned with religion. He is concerned with our relationships. He is concerned with our lives. He is concerned with our love for Him and for each other. This teacher of the law understood it well, and Jesus affirmed the man for his understanding.

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions. (Mark 12:34)

Our Lord commends this scribe, but He points out that the man is still not laying hold of the kingdom of God. He is close. He is seeing truth that is vitally important--that God is concerned about the inner attitude and not the outward performance of life--but the scribe doesn't grasp the whole truth. He is still not able, in other words, to love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. Why? Because he is still missing something. Jesus goes on to explain what this missing thing is.

Unfortunately the linkage between the preceding paragraph and the next paragraph is lost in our English translation. In the Greek text, it is obvious that these two paragraphs are linked together. Here is how the New International Version renders the next paragraph:

While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David?" (Mark 12:35)

But here is how a more literal translation of that verse ought to read, so that the connection with the previous paragraph becomes clear:

Jesus answered as he taught in the temple courts, and he asked, "How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David?" (Mark 12:35, Stedman Translation)

Notice the words I supplied, which come from the Greek text: "Jesus answered." Answered whom? The wise teacher of the law, who, Jesus said, was "not far from the kingdom of God." Answered what questions? The obvious questions that were in the scribe's heart: "You say that I am very close to the kingdom of God. What do I lack? What more must I do to lay hold of the kingdom?" So Jesus answered by putting a question to the scribes:

"How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared:

"'The Lord said to my Lord:

"Sit at my right hand

until I put your enemies

under your feet.'"

"David himself calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his

son?"

The large crowd listened to him with delight. (Mark 12:35-37)

According to Mark's record, no one answered that question. But Jesus is driving home a key point to these teachers of the law. He quotes David's words from Psalm 110:1 and says that David's words were inspired by the Holy Spirit. And what David said was this: "The Lord [Jehovah] said to my Lord [the Messiah], sit at my right hand." The teachers of the law would have agreed with what Jesus said. They understood that David, in Psalm 110:1, was speaking of the Lord God Jehovah and the Messiah. So building on that verse, Jesus poses a question to them: How can David call the Messiah "Lord" if the Messiah is David's son? The answer is the mystery of Jesus' identity. Jesus was descended from David according to the flesh, the Messiah according to prophecy and promise, and the Lord of glory according to the Spirit.

Jesus' identity is the central issue of this passage, and it is the central issue of life. Who is Jesus to you? Is He Lord? The whole issue of how to enter the kingdom and how to live in the kingdom of God hangs on that point. Is Jesus the Lord? Is He God?

That wise teacher of the law was not far from the kingdom of God. If that teacher of the law knew and acknowledged that Jesus is Lord, then he would not be close. He would have arrived.

Paul tells us that the whole of creation is moving toward that final day when the question will be answered, when the long, tragic record of human conflict and human evil is ended. Then God will have completed His plan for human life and history. It will culminate in a great scene described by Paul in his letter to the Philippians: "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:9-11).

Jesus is the issue. Is He Lord of your life? His lordship releases the kingdom of God in our lives. All the greatness and glory of God comes pouring into us when He is truly Lord of our lives. As Paul writes, "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Colossians 3:17).

True Godliness Versus Self-righteousness

Mark concludes this account with the vivid contrast that Jesus draws between proud, self-righteous teachers of the law and a poor but godly widow.

As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely." (Mark 12:38-40)

We all know that it is easy to pretend to be godly. It is easy to go to church and put on a false show of being a Christian. At one time or another, almost all of us have surely succumbed to that temptation. We love to be honored and well thought of. We want others to know how saintly we are, how long and fervently we can pray. We like to impress each other with our God-talk, our church attendance and involvement. We want other people to know that we are good people. And when we make such an outward show of being godly, as these self-righteous teachers of the law did, we are nothing but hypocrites. Jesus contrasts such phony religiosity with true, godly, humble faith, as exemplified by a poor widow.

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything--all she had to live on. " (Mark 12:41-44)

The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the religious exhibitionism among the scribes and Pharisees had reached such an absurd level that some of the Pharisees hired a trumpeter to go before them as they made their way to the great temple collection box. They would make sure they had an audience before depositing a bag of gold in the temple treasury.

But Jesus draws our attention to someone who is likely to be overlooked, an anonymous widow, a woman of neither affluence nor influence. She comes to the collection box; she quietly drops in two tiny coins that added together are worth less than a penny. It was not the change she found behind the sofa cushions. It was her last cent. Yet she gave it to the temple of the Lord, because she was a woman who loved the Lord her God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. "This poor widow," said Jesus, "has put more into the treasury than all the others." Why? Because she gave it with love for God, not for show.

Many Christian people are involved in very public forms of Christian service. There are evangelists. There are pastors of large churches. There are Christian authors, radio teachers, television preachers, conference speakers, university presidents, seminary presidents, theologians, and recording artists. All such people serve God in public ways, and some become nationally and internationally known. But the truth is that there are people that you've never heard of and never will hear of who may be doing more to advance the kingdom in their anonymous way than many of the most famous Christian leaders or performers you could name.

It is easy for Christian pastors and authors and evangelists to think, I'll bet God is impressed with the impact I've been making for Him through my public ministry! What a foolish thing to think. God looks at the heart, not the performance. He is much more interested to see if we live as genuine Christians when no one is watching than when we stand behind a microphone. He is much more interested in our love for others than our love for the spotlight.

That fact is discouraging and encouraging. It is discouraging for those, like myself, who are in a public ministry. But it is encouraging for all other believers. Isn't it great to know that God is watching the widow with her few coins? He isn't looking for a grand performance. He is looking for people who will love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and who will love their neighbors as themselves.

Twenty-four

Watch!

äMark 13

The great English mathematician and astronomer, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), held the Lucasian chair of mathematics at Cambridge University. It was Newton, you'll recall, who formulated the law of gravity after being hit on the head by a falling apple, or so legend has it. During the Dutch-English war, Newton strode into the hall at Cambridge's Trinity College and made a startling announcement to his fellow professors. "Less than an hour ago," said Newton, "there was a great naval battle between the Dutch and English navies--and I regret to say that our own English navy got the worst of it."

"Sir Isaac," said one professor, "you can't possibly know such a thing! Cambridge is many miles from the sea. Even a rider on the fastest horse imaginable couldn't possibly have brought you such news in so short a time."

"I never said that anyone brought me news," replied Newton. "But everything I told you is absolutely true. There was a naval battle within the past hour, and our fleet was forced to flee."

"If that is true," said another professor, "then tell us how you know."

"It is really quite simple," said Newton. "Less than an hour ago, I was up in my observatory. The observatory is so high that ordinary street sounds cannot be heard there, yet loud sounds such as cannon fire can be heard from quite a distance away. There, I heard the incessant, repeated sound of cannon fire, such as could only have taken place between two great fleets. The sound not only continued but grew louder, which meant that the ships were moving closer to our own shores. That could only happen if the English ships were retreating toward the coast."

The professors laughed. They were relieved to learn that Newton's battle scenario had been based on the slenderest of evidence: some distant sounds he had heard while he was up in his observatory.

The following day, the news reached Cambridge University. During a battle with the Dutch navy, the English fleet had been routed and forced to flee to the coast in disarray, just as Sir Isaac Newton had said. There is moral to this story from history: If you want to know what is happening in the world, pay attention to the signs.

The Big Question: When?

At this point in our study of Mark, we come to the great prophecy of Jesus dealing with the last days of earth, just before the return of the King in all His power and glory. Jesus tells His disciples that if they want to know what will happen at the end of the age, they must pay attention to the signs.

This passage, Mark 13, is known as the Olivet Discourse because Jesus gave this talk as He was seated on the Mount of Olives, looking out over the city of Jerusalem. It was only a day or two before His crucifixion, and Jesus was answering questions from the disciples--and contemplating the fate of the city.

In the opening verses of Mark 13, we hear the questions that the disciples put to Him.

As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down. "

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?" (Mark 13:1-4)

This strongly suggests that the disciples might have felt embarrassed and upset by Jesus' recent actions. He had cleansed the temple and had rebuked and condemned the Jewish religious leaders. It seems that the disciples felt He had been too harsh, so they are trying to put Him in a more positive frame of mind toward the Jewish religious structure by pointing out some positive aspects of the temple.

After all, the disciples still didn't understand His mission on earth. They saw the Messiah as the one who would sweep away the oppressive Roman occupation of Israel. Why then was He attacking the Jewish religious leaders? Why was He insulting His countrymen? Shouldn't He focus His wrath on the Roman oppressors?

So, to try to influence Him to soften His attacks on the temple leaders, they pointed out the greatness of the temple buildings and the gigantic stones of which they were made. (Josephus records that some of these stones were forty feet long and eighteen feet high.) But Jesus' answer is even more disturbing and perplexing than anything He has said before. He tells His disciples that these stones, as great as they are, will be cast down, and the temple will be destroyed.

Editor's Note: A cover story in Time for Easter 2001 included this significant statement: "When the unnamed disciple remarked on the size of the temple stones, Jesus replied that 'not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.' He was right. After one last rebellion, in A.D. 135, the Romans leveled Jerusalem, leaving only the bald platform behind."

See David Van Biema, "Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus," Time, April 16,200I, 46ff.

The disciples were understandably troubled by the Lord's prediction of the destruction of the temple. One gets the impression that the Twelve selected a delegation of four men to go and talk with Jesus. They chose the two pairs of brothers, Peter and Andrew, and James and John, who were in the inner circle. Finding Jesus seated on the Mount of Olives, they asked Him privately, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"

For twenty centuries, these questions have baffled human minds. For twenty centuries, men and women have anticipated the events Jesus talks about in this prophecy and expected its fulfillment in their lifetime. We must honestly face this fact. Every generation has thought Jesus was coming back in their time, because of signs they saw or thought they saw in the events of their day.

But I think it is clear, as you read this account, that the disciples have asked the wrong question, and so have we. To ask w hen is to ask the wrong question. Jesus makes it clear that if you focus on when, you will be misled. History records that this has happened again and again, as various leaders and teachers have thought they had the answer. So they led their followers to a mountaintop somewhere to await the second coming, which would occur on a schedule that they had carefully calculated. Time passed. Nothing happened. And these leaders and teachers end up looking like fools.

Jesus does not ignore the question of when these things will happen. He answers it, in His own fashion, but He leaves it to the end. So let's work our way through Mark 13 and examine what Jesus says. In the course of this study, we will discover His surprising answer.

A Warning: "Watch Out!"

Four sections of Jesus' message relate to the question of the disciples in Mark 13:4: "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?" Let's examine these four sections in the order Jesus gives them. As we go along, remember that if we want the full account of what He said to the disciples, we must also read the parallel passages in Matthew 24 and 25 and Luke 21. We need all of these passages in order to see the full picture. Each of the gospel writers selects certain things he wants to emphasize. Matthew focuses on what is to happen to Israel. Luke is the only one who tells us of the fall of Jerusalem, the subsequent captivity of the Jews, and the domination of the city by the Gentiles. But Mark emphasizes the danger to faith that is going to arise in the age that follows the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord.

Jesus begins His discourse with a word of warning.

Jesus said to them: "Watch out that no one deceives you." (Mark 13:5)

This is the keynote of everything Jesus is about to reveal. As we will see, He begins and ends with this same emphasis: "Watch out!" or "Watch!" In Mark 13:5, the Greek word for the phrase "watch out" is blepo, which conveys a sense of "Look out! Beware! Open your eyes to a dangerous situation!" His closing words in Mark 13:37 are, "What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'" The Greek word for "watch" in this verse is gregoreuo, which conveys a sense of "Wake up! Don't fall asleep! A calamity is coming!" This urgent warning brackets everything Jesus says in His prophecy of the coming time. So, during the course of the age, He wants us to be watchful and wakeful and aware, for it is a dangerous time.

Section 1: The Nonsigns

In the first section of Jesus' message (Mark 13:6-13), He talks about certain events that many people have mistaken as signs of the end of the age. By failing to read His words with care, they have been deceived into seeing signs where there were no signs. You have probably heard sermons or read books based on these so-called signs of the times, but if you read with care, you see that Jesus tells us these events are not the signs. In fact, I like to call the events Jesus describes nonsigns because they are events people have mistaken as signs but are not signs.

The first nonsign in this passage is the coming of various religious pretenders or false Christs. Jesus says:

"Many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am he,' and will deceive many." (Mark 13:6)

It is important to understand that literally dozens of false messiahs came before, during, and after Jesus, fulfilling His prophecy that many would come claiming, "I am He; I am the Messiah." Acts 5:36-37 mentions two: Theudas, who said he would miraculously part the Jordan River but ultimately led four hundred followers to their deaths; and Judah the Galilean, an anti-Roman radical who founded the Zealot movement. (One of the Twelve, Simon the Zealot, was a member of this movement.)

A century after Jesus died and rose again, another would-be messiah, Simon Bar-Kochba, began a rebellion that lasted for more than three years and cost hundreds of lives. Proclaimed the long-awaited Messiah by Rabbi Akiva in Jerusalem, Bar-Kochba gained control of the Jewish population in Palestine. He was fanatically convinced of his messianic calling and ruled with an iron fist. He demanded that Christians deny Christ, and he brutally tortured and killed any Christian men, women, or children who remained faithful to their Lord. In the end, the Romans put an end to Simon Bar-Kochba and his followers, killing thousands and sending many more into captivity and slavery. Bar-Kochba's patron, Rabbi Akiva, survived but was discredited and disgraced.

Other supposed messiahs included Moses of Crete, who promised to part the Mediterranean and lead his followers across dry land from the island of Crete to the Holy Land. Many jumped off a cliff at his command and were drowned. There was Moses AI-Dar'I, who commanded his Jewish Moroccan followers to rid themselves of their possessions because Messiah was coming at Passover in 1127; Passover came and went, and his people were left destitute. In the late 1200s, a Sicilian mystic named Abraham ben Samuel proclaimed himself the Son of God and led a failed attempt to resettle Jews in Palestine.

Shabbetai Tsevi of Smyrna burst on the scene in 1666, claiming to have heard God's voice declaring him to be the Messiah. He led a procession of followers into Constantinople, where he was promptly arrested and imprisoned by the Turkish sultan. When the sultan ordered Shabbetai Tsevi either to prove himself the Messiah or be executed, the would-be messiah responded by converting to Islam.

In our era, we have seen many would-be messiahs parade across the stage, often leading their followers to some horrible end such as mass suicide. These messiahs possess charming and charismatic personalities, and they attract hundreds or even thousands of followers. They often mingle teaching from the Old Testament prophets, the words of Jesus, and the book of Revelation with New Age mysticism and even UFO cult lore. It is common for these assorted messiahs to take some of the sayings of Jesus out of context, mingle them with Eastern religion and other false doctrines, and sell it to the unwise and unwary as truth.

Jesus predicted it would happen, and it has. Cults and cult messiahs continually arise, claiming to come in the name of Jesus, but what they teach is not what Jesus taught. This, Jesus said, is a deceptive strategy, designed to lead many astray. His word of warning is, "Watch out that no one deceives you." In other words, "Open your eyes and take heed! Be careful that the messiah you follow is the biblical Jesus, the one of whom the apostles give witness. If not, you will be led into error and destruction." His warning has been proven valid through twenty centuries of bloody human history.

But the proliferation of would-be messiahs is not a sign of the end times. It is a nonsign.

"Wars and Rumors of Wars"

Next Jesus lists a number of disasters and calamities that many people have mistaken for signs of the end. Jesus says:

"When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. " (Mark 13:7-8)

Wars, earthquakes, famines, and other cataclysmic events will occur and increase throughout the whole sweep of the age. But Jesus also makes it clear that these are not signs of the end. There is no mistaking His meaning when He says, "but the end is still to come," and they are merely "the beginning of birth pains." Ask any mother, and she will tell you that when the "beginning of birth pains," or early contractions, take place, there is a long process of labor ahead before the baby is born.

Yet down through history and to the present day, people have misunderstood these plain words of Jesus. They have taken these cataclysmic events to be signs of our Lord's return. As a young Christian, I read books that described World War I, an event in which nation rose against nation and kingdom against kingdom, as the sign of the end. "No other war in history fulfilled this prophecy to this extent," the authors claimed. But then World War II came along, and the authors of those books had to explain that. So they said, "World War I fulfilled the part about 'nation shall rise against nation,' and World War II fulfilled 'kingdom against kingdom.'" These books went through successive editions and revisions as their authors scrambled to stay current with changing world events.

But these authors failed to recognize one simple fact. Jesus clearly states that none of these events are the signs. There have been wars and rumors of wars from the beginning. There have been famines and earthquakes around the world for thousands of years, and there will undoubtedly be more to come. As a boy in the 1930s, I read a book about the great San Francisco quake of 1906, and I thought, Wow! That earthquake was so destructive, it must have been a sign that the Lord is coming soon! I expected the Lord to come the day after I finished reading the book. I didn't understand, as I do now, that Jesus was saying that these events were not the signs but merely the beginnings of the sufferings of humanity. The increase of natural disasters does not signify that we are in the end times.

Persecution

Another sign that is often listed as an indicator of the end times is the rising persecution of Christians. Again a close examination of the words of Jesus shows this to be another nonsign.

"You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit." (Mark 13:9-11)

These words began to be fulfilled from the beginning of the Christian era. The book of Acts describes how the apostles and thousands of early Christians were arrested, dragged before governors and kings, flogged, beaten, stoned, and more. Mark's account of Jesus' words links persecution with the preaching of the gospel, for in the midst of this prophecy of persecution comes this statement: "And the gospel must first be preached to all nations." This linkage indicates that when the gospel penetrates a nation, governing authorities scrutinize Christians, whose witness becomes a testimony to that nation. For example, when Paul stood before the emperor Nero in about A.D. 67, it was evident that the gospel had penetrated much of the Roman Empire because of Paul's witness.

"Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial," Jesus said, "do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit." And as we read through the book of Acts and the annals of Christian history, we see that the Lord's counsel has also been fulfilled. As Christians have been brought before governors and kings, God the Holy Spirit has given them His words of testimony to speak. We recall how Paul spoke with supernatural wisdom as he stood before King Agrippa and the Roman governors Felix and Festus.

Centuries later, Martin Luther stood before yet another Roman king. Our family once visited that great cathedral at Worms, Germany, along the Rhine River, where Luther made his stand. I vividly recall my feelings as we walked into that imposing Gothic structure. I imagined the scene, centuries ago, when all the most powerful men of Europe were assembled in that place: Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; the papal delegates; the bishops and archbishops of all the Catholic realms. And they gathered to confront a single man. Luther, on trial for his life and acting in total reliance on the Holy Spirit, was given these words to speak, which have come ringing down the centuries: "My conscience is bound by the Word of God. Unless I am convinced from the sacred Scriptures that I am in error, I cannot and I will not recant. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me." Although he was condemned as a heretic, those words ignited the Reformation, which spread throughout Europe.

History has seen this amazing phenomenon again and again. Martyrs and witnesses who have no special ability as great speakers or deep thinkers have suddenly received supernatural wisdom to speak. In their hour of trial and persecution, the Spirit has given them power to proclaim God's words as a testimony to the nations.

But even the persecution of believers is not a sign of the end, because it has been going on through the course of the age. The persecution of believers is going on now, all around the world, and persecution will characterize this age until it is ended. That is the point Jesus makes.

Jesus underscores that we can expect persecution of such an intense, hostile, and violent nature that it will threaten to destroy our faith. It will be so intense that family members may even betray one another. He says:

"Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Mark 13:12-13)

The "end" Jesus refers to is not the end times but the end of a Christian's life. All Christians are called to be faithful unto death. In the book of Revelation, Jesus addresses seven churches in Asia Minor and says, "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). That is not a word for martyrs only, but for all Christians: "Be faithful until your dying day." Why? "Because he who stands firm to the end will be saved." Jesus is not saying that we earn our salvation by enduring to the end; rather, we prove that our salvation is genuine by the fact that we endure to the end. Only genuine Christians will survive the test of the age.

The apostle John laments the fact that some people seem to be believers for a time, but they do not endure as Christians. He writes, "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us" (l John 2:19). Every age of Christian history has seen this phenomenon. People make a profession of faith, and they seem to be growing, they seem happy and committed--and then their commitment seems to crumble under the pressure of the times. They do not endure to the end. John tells us that the fact that they did not endure shows that they never truly belonged to the body of Christ.

Section 2: The Sign

In the second section of the Lord's Olivet Discourse, we come to His answer to the question of the disciples regarding signs. They asked, "Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?" The Lord puts His answer into a single brief phrase:

"When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong--let the reader understand--then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains." (Mark 13:14)

Note the statement that appears to be inserted into Jesus' words: "let the reader understand." These do not seem to be Jesus' words, for He is talking to hearers, not writing to readers. This appears to be Mark's statement, intended to underscore what Jesus is saying. Mark is telling us that this is an important piece of information, and we need to think about it carefully and understand it. Matthew adds a similar emphasis in his parallel account:

"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel--let the reader understand--" (Matthew 24:15)

Matthew also tells us that Jesus is referring to the book of Daniel. You can read Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11. In those passages, Daniel talks about a sacrilege, a desecration, an "abomination of desolation," which is to be set up in the temple, defiling and profaning the temple. Paul appears to be referring to the same act of sacrilege when he speaks of the "man of lawlessness" who is to appear, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God's temple, proclaiming himself to be God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

This is a reference to the worldwide religion of the last days. Of course, we already see religions abounding that claim that humankind is God, that we do not need any God other than ourselves. This deification of the self will reach its personified apex when a human being, "the man of lawlessness," takes his place in the temple of God, desecrating it with his blasphemy.

This is why Bible students have always watched with great interest the possibility of the reconstruction of the temple in Jerusalem. In A.D. 70, the Roman armies of Titus fulfilled one of Jesus' prophecies by destroying the temple. There has never been a temple in Jerusalem since. But Jesus speaks of a desolating sacrilege that will be set up in the temple, which means that the temple must be rebuilt in Jerusalem. Having predicted the temple's destruction, Jesus implies that it will be reconstructed. And as we approach the time when a temple can be constructed, we are seeing the possibility of the fulfillment of this event in our day.

Editor's Note: News reports from Israel confirm the increasing likelihood of the reconstruction of the temple in our time. A report in The (London) Daily Telegraph states that Orthodox Jews are laying plans to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and are even training young boys to serve in the restored priesthood; they would assume priestly duties at the age of thirteen. The Orthodox group has "meticulously reconstructed the plan of the temple, made replicas of the holy vessels in gold and woven the cotton garments the high priest wore at rituals to specifications listed in the Book of Deuteronomy."

In 1995, the Jerusalem Post reported a major archaeological find that brings the reconstruction of the temple a few steps closer. Archaeologists had uncovered an exact replica of the Jerusalem temple atop Mount Gerazim, overlooking the city of Nablus. This find, said the Post, "could provide the first historical indication of what the temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. [Christian era], looked like. It itself was a reconstruction of the temple built by King Solomon in 960 B.C." Archaeologists located the replica through clues in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus.

The biggest obstacle to rebuilding the temple is the fact that the site is now claimed as a Muslim holy place. "Two of Islam's holiest mosques," reports The Daily Telegraph, "stand in East Jerusalem at the traditional site of King Solomon's temple, destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. In recent years, the hilltop compound has become the focus of contention and sometimes bloody clashes between Muslims and Jews."

See "Orthodox Plan to Raise Boys as Temple Priests," The Daily Telegraph, March 2, 1998; and Associated Press, "Archaeologists Uncover Replica of Second Temple," Jerusalem Post, April 17, 1995.

The Outbreak of the Tribulation

Jesus says that when the "abomination that causes desolation" appears, there will be three immediate and terrible results. First, there will be an immediate and sudden peril to believers who are in Jerusalem and the surrounding area (tourists to the Holy Land, take note).

"When you see 'the abomination that causes desolation' standing where it does not belong--let the reader understand--then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out. Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! Pray that this will not take place in winter." (Mark 13:14-18)

It will be a time of such imminent danger that people will have no time to go home and pack. They must flee the city or be trapped. The second result is the outbreak of worldwide tribulation.

"Because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now and never to be equaled again. If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them." (Mark 13:19-20)

This will be a time of unprecedented global cataclysm. If you want the vivid details, they are found Revelation, in the passages that deal with the pouring out of the vials of God's wrath, the opening of the seven seals, and the sounding of the seven trumpets. It will be a time of economic totalitarianism, when all commerce is controlled by a central authority. Everyone will be issued a number by which to do business, an economic system that is undoubtedly presaged by the current computerized credit and electronic currency system.

The third result will be:

"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'Look, there he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect--if that were possible. So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time." (Mark 13:21-23)

This will be a time of worldwide religious deception. I believe that these false Christs and false prophets mentioned here will be agents of the single, supreme Antichrist who will rule in that day. There will be people all over the world whose task it is to bring men and women into submission to the new global religion whose creed is "humankind is God." What a threat to faith that is! We can see the advance of this secular religion in our time. And we must remember that there have been such trends in the past.

But when all the signs appear as Jesus prophesied, we must be watchful that we are not deceived during this coming time of worldwide deception.

The Climax of History

Finally, says Jesus, there comes the climax of history. The picture Jesus paints is a terrifying one, although it will be a glorious time for those who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ.

"But in those days, following that distress,

"'the sun will be darkened,

and the moon will not give its light;

the stars will fall from the sky,

and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'

"At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens." (Mark 13:24-27)

The appearing of Jesus Christ as Lord is the climax of history. (I hasten to add that this passage does not deal with what is called the rapture, the departure of the church; that is dealt with in other passages.) Here we have the appearance again of Jesus Christ in great power and glory. It is preceded, as all the prophets have predicted, by terrible signs in the heavens. Evidently some tremendous cataclysm upsets the whole solar system, of which we are a part. Astronomers are continually discovering previously unknown objects and forces at work in the heavens, from asteroids and comets that make frighteningly close approaches to the earth to mysterious black holes with such immense gravitational pull that even light cannot escape from them. These objects and forces, or others yet to be discovered, could have some influence on the terrifying events that are described.

From other prophetic passages of Scripture, we know that this disruption of heavenly bodies will have an effect on the earth, causing volcanoes to erupt and tidal waves to arise. Then the Son of Man appears, and all His mighty angels with Him. He sends those angels out to gather Israel back into the land. This gathering of the elect, I am sure, is the fulfillment of the predictions of the prophets that there will come a time when Israel will be gathered from the four corners of the earth, not by natural migration but by supernatural means. There, in the land God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the kingdom of God will be visibly, wonderfully established on the earth.

Our Lord then draws this analogy from nature:

"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Mark 13:28-31)

This is an easy analogy to follow and understand. When you see the trees in the spring putting forth leaves, you know two things. First, summer is near. It will not be long until the days are warm and the cold weather is over. Second, it is certain that nothing will stop it. When the leaves appear on the trees, summer is certain to come.

Jesus says we can draw the same conclusions from seeing the events He has outlined for the future. He says, "Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door." What does He mean, "these things"? I do not think He means the signs in the heavens, for they are not the beginning of the events. Rather, He is talking about the sign on earth, that is, the appearance of the "abomination that causes desolation" in the temple in Jerusalem. When you see things beginning to move in this direction, things that begin to make this event possible, then you know that the return of the Lord is drawing near. At that point, says Jesus, His return is so near that "this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." In other words, once this process begins, the generation that sees it begin will not pass away before these events have run their course. In biblical terms, a generation is about twenty-seven years.

Jesus also assures the disciples and us that these events are certain to happen. How certain? "Heaven and earth will pass away," He says, "but my words will never pass away." Those words are given to us to strengthen our faith in a time of testing. Jesus knew that future generations of Christians would have their faith tested. There would be times when it might seem that the Bible is wrong, that world events appear to be taking a route different from the one predicted in Scripture. But in those times when biblical prophecies seem unreal, untrustworthy, and unrelated to the world of events, remember these words of Jesus: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." This prophecy is certain. History is going to end just as Jesus said.

Jesus Returns to the Question

In the last section of Mark 13, Jesus returns to the question that began this discourse: "Tell us, when will these things happen?" Jesus says:

"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32)

If anyone claims to have a revelation as to when this event is going to take place, that person is either lying or deluded. Even the angels do not know. In fact--and this is one of the most startling statements Jesus ever spoke--even the Son does not know. This statement marks the humanity of our Lord. In coming to earth as a man, Jesus has set aside the exercise of His deity. He never exercised it while He was here among us. He was a man like us, limited to the knowledge that God had made known to Him. And because God had not told Him the day or the hour, even He did not know.

Remember that even after His resurrection, Jesus told His disciples, "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7). So quit trying to figure it out! When is not important, because it cannot be determined. There is no way that you can know the time or date.

As we read on, we see that even our Lord did not know how long it would be before He came back. All these disciples thought it would take place within their lifetime, and Jesus seems to speak as though that were the case: "When you see. . . When you hear . . . Be on your guard." He is addressing the disciples as if He thinks it is possible that they will be present to witness those events, but it did not happen in their lifetimes. It has been almost two thousand years since Jesus spoke those words, and still no one knows when He will come again.

The important thing Jesus wants us to know, however, is not when but watch. We must always be watchful, always aware, always awake, because these events might happen at any time. So Jesus concludes:

"Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'" (Mark 13:33-37)

Here Jesus gathers up all the intervening time between His first and second comings, and He divides it into four watches--one long night of the world's sin. He says to us, "You don't know," and I think He implies that He does not know, "whether my return will be early, or in the middle of that time, or three-quarters of the way through, or at the end. No one knows."

He compares His absence with a man who assigns tasks to his servants before leaving on a journey. The man expects his servants to carry out their assigned duties. He has set a doorkeeper to watch at the door. What is the doorkeeper to watch for? The master's return? That is how this passage is usually interpreted, but that is not what Jesus is saying.

If you look carefully at Jesus' words, you see that the doorkeeper is to begin watching as soon as the master leaves the house. The servants know the master will not return immediately. So what is the doorkeeper watching for? He is to watch lest somebody deceive them and gain entrance to the house. He is to stand guard and prevent robbers from entering and wrecking the master's house. So Jesus says, "Be on guard! Be alert! Watch!" He is warning the disciples, and you and me, that temptations and pressures wait to ambush. Those forces will try to deceive us, try to make us give up and stop living like Christians. We must stand guard against thieves coming in and stealing our faith. And while we are being watchful, we must continue doing the work He has given to us.

We are not to be looking up at the sky, wondering when He will come. That will happen when He is ready. Rather, we are to watch that we are not deceived.

Over the years, I have been troubled and saddened at the number of Christians I have known who have fallen away from the faith. Looking back over decades of ministry, I can picture the faces of people I would have sworn were committed, faithful Christians, yet today they deny the faith they once embraced. On every side, this tragedy increases. Christians fall away into unbelief or immorality. They turn away from the faith, and they no longer walk according to the Word of God. That is what our Lord warns against in the Olivet Discourse.

He says to us, "Wake up! Open your eyes! Don't listen to the secular voices that tell you the world will go on forever as it is now. Don't listen to the voices that tell you there is no God and you can live as you please without fear of judgment. A day of reckoning approaches. If you do not want to be caught up in the wrath that is to come, then cling to the truth of God's Word, and heed My warning."

With one sharp, ringing word of command, Jesus ends His message: "Watch!"

Twenty-five

Love's Extravagance

äMark 14:1-25

A great king was riding in his carriage through the forest. As the carriage passed a humble farm cottage, the king happened to look out and see a beautiful girl. She was obviously one of the poorest commoners in his kingdom. Yet none of that mattered. The king was instantly smitten by her. The moment he saw her, he knew he could never love any other maiden. And yet, how could he tell her of his love for her? The fact that he was a king and she was a humble peasant girl created an enormous gulf between them. If he brought her to the royal palace and presented her with gifts of jewels and purple robes, she would surely consent to marry him.

But would she consent out of love?