Admiration in the Absence--Mk 3:1-6

(copyright:  bigstockphoto)

I'm just so glad it wasn't me.  I couldn't have not done what Jesus didn't do.  Especially if I had heaven powers behind me.  Here's the scene:

Jesus heals a man with a shriveled hand.  Therefore the Pharisees plotted to kill him.

Seriously?  Kill him for...healing someone?  Even Jesus was angry and deeply distressed.  They cared more that it happened on the Sabbath than for the man who had an incapacitating, mocking magnet deformity.  No telling what I would have done.

And that's why we have to admire Jesus.  For what he didn't do.

1)  He didn't call down 10,000 angels and strike them with lightning, sending them straight to hell without passing go.

2)  He didn't pass judgment against the Pharisees that went something along the lines of "Pharisees are always ________" or "Pharisees never _________".

3)  He didn't vow never to return to a synagogue because they were "so full of hypocrites" even though almost every synagogue was full of hypocrites.

4)  He didn't get discouraged in the ministry or develop a hard heart even though the church leaders wanted to kill him for preaching love and truth.

Instead he let the Pharisees live, he continued to minister to other Pharisees, he intentionally went to more synagogues every week and he didn't lose heart in his mission, even if he did lose his life.

Admirable.

Totally admirable.

No one will ever be ashamed to follow a man/God like this.  Praise Jesus.

Jesus, The Caregiver

One of my Middle Eastern friends tells the story of when his sister was being courted by a suitor.  The older brother in typical culture gathered his 4 younger brothers to meet with the young man.  They came looking tough and intimidating.  They would meet with him 5 times to find out if he was good enough for their sister.  They would also try to add an intimidation factor.  If at the 3rd visit they liked the guy, they would begin by offering him tea as a sign they were warming up to him.  After 5 visits they would give their blessing.  If after they married and the husband was harmful to their sister, they would investigate.  If they found their sister in the wrong, they would let him deal with it.  If they found he was wrong, they would deal with him.

In Middle Eastern culture (and many African cultures) the responsibility of the family falls on to the oldest brother.  He is to protect the family name and make sure the family is protected.  An older brother is also oftentimes expected to financially send the young siblings to school.   It's double the honor, double the responsibility.

Jesus is Middle Eastern.  And he is the oldest brother.  He had the responsibility of caring for his family, especially his mother and the other siblings.  (According to tradition his father died young.)  At one point his brothers thought he had gone crazy so they tried to pull the "mom-card" to get him to stop (Mk 3:30-34).  Didn't work.  Jesus knew what they were up to.  "Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."

But on the cross it was different.  Jesus had a responsibility to his mother.    And it wasn't pretty as Michaelangelo so shockingly reminds us in his painting--Jesus was naked.  They gambled away his under garments.  And the Romans wanted the greatest possible shame.  There was a reason that "All those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things" (Lk 23:49).

But it was different with family.  Jesus' mother was there.  It was her son.  And the disciple Jesus loved.  And in the moment of his greatest agony as he became the sin of the world, he still was focused on the one in front of him--his mother.

"When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother."  From that time on, this disciple took her into his home" (Jn 19:26-27).

It wasn't his brothers or even his sisters but it was the man who came to the horror of the cross to look after his mother.  To this man he handed over the care giving responsibilities.  Ironically it was this man who would live the longest.

Jesus was indeed a caregiver.  Not in her sickness but in his crucifixion.  This tells us much about the kind of man we follow.

The Gospel--Galatians 2

Jesus preached the gospel (Mk 8:35).  But he didn't preach his death, burial and resurrection.  In fact he often silenced the disciples about these things as well as about his identity.  It wasn't time.   The gospel was also announced to Abraham, and that was a few years before Jesus' death, burial and resurrection (Gal 3:8)

So if he preached the gospel then what gospel did he preach?

Paul spells it out to us.

⁶ So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”^[a]

⁷ Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. ⁸ Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”^{[b] 9} So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

This is the gospel:  Man is justified by faith [through grace enacted by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ).

Justification by faith.

For those before the Christ, it was a looking towards Him.
For those of us after Christ, it is the looking back.

Christ made it possible for us to be justified by faith.

Not works.
Not laws.
Not following good principles.

Just faith in Jesus for our salvation.

He's saved us.  We didn't.
He redeemed us.  We couldn't.

That's the good news.

Sleepy Faith--Psalms 3-4, Mark 4, Acts 12

Sometimes faith shows itself at its greatest when one just goes to sleep.  I remember the story of a missionary who was stranded somewhere in a dangerous part of Africa.  They knew there were violent thieves around and they feared for their life, but they could do nothing about it.  As the man was praying, the Lord spoke to him the Scripture in Psalm 4:8--"In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety."  So with that Word, he shared with those with him and they decided the best thing they could do was lie down and sleep.

Sleep throughout Scripture has often been a fruit of faith.  Consider David when pursued by Saul and his whole army (Ps 3). 

Lord, how many are my foes!
    How many rise up against me! 
 Many are saying of me,
    “God will not deliver him.”

  But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
    my glory, the One who lifts my head high. 

 I call out to the Lord,
    and he answers me from his holy mountain.

 I lie down and sleep;
    I wake again, because the Lord sustains me. 

 I will not fear though tens of thousands
    assail me on every side

Surrounded by tens of thousands who were pursuing him to his death.  And David goes to sleep.  It was the sleep of faith.  And it wasn't the first time (Ps 4).

We see it again in the New Testament.  Jesus and his disciples, some of who had grown up on the waters of the Galilee, were convinced they were going to drown in a storm.  And where was Jesus?  Sleeping.  Soundly.  They woke him up, he rebuked the wind, rebuked the disciples, and in my estimation, went back to sleep.  (Lk 8:22-25; Mk 4:35-41).

And another time in the life of the disciples.  King Herod had just arrested and beheaded James.  Seeing this pleased the Jews, he seized Peter also.  The church was earnestly praying and what was Peter doing?  Sleeping.  Soundly.  So soundly the angel of the Lord had to slap him on the side to wake him up (Acts 12).  It was the hour that he might have joined James in getting beheaded, but there he was in the cell, sleeping between two soldiers.

How can you sleep when the world is spiraling out of control?  How can you sleep when people are crying for death outside your window?  It's only possible by faith.  The same faith, like Daniel's friends when told to worship or die:

"If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue from your hand, O King.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (Dan 3:17-18).
 And I think with every act of faith in this form, the forces of darkness shudder.  Shudder at our snoring.







 

His hands

I like hands.  They say a lot about a person.  Are they smooth or calloused?  Perfectly painted or chipped from work?  Are they wrinkled and tanned or smooth and white?

So I looked at hands in Scripture.  In particular the hands of Jesus.  Perhaps in his earlier days the hands of Jesus were rough and calloused from hard labor.  We tend to think of Jesus as a carpenter but from what I understand, the word can also be translated "stone-worker" (just google it if you have any doubt).    When you go to Israel, you notice that there are stones everywhere and for every building.  Carpentry work was for the rich people.  We know for sure Jesus wasn't from a rich family.   They couldn't even afford the obligatory lamb sacrifice for when Jesus was born.  Instead they had to go with the two young pigeons or a pair of doves, a concession for poor people (Lev 12:8).  So for me  I'm quite sure it wasn't trees Jesus was working with in his job.  Rather he was blue collar factory worker that did the grinding work of stones.  So his hands.  Calloused and rough.  And strong.  Very strong.

At 30 his hands changed.  Because at 30 the first thing we read about his hands is that they were washed.  Washed in the waters of baptism.  From there he would begin his life of ministry and I'm sure his hands began to heal from their callouses.  Not totally but they would be growing smooth again.

But now his hands took on a different role.  Instead of receiving the smashing and scraping and bruising from hard work, his hands would now be the conduit of healing for the smashed and scraped and bruised bodies and hearts and lives of others.  Because now Jesus began to touch people.  Holy touch.  Life-giving touch.

Lepers.  You kept your distance.  You made sure you drove those people-turned monsters  away and made them shout "unclean" so you could keep your distance.  You drove them away when they came near.  Jesus went to them.  He touched them.  And the people recoiled in horror.  Luke 5:13

Dead people.  They are cold.  They are stiff.  They stink.  And they are unclean.  A widow whose only hope was her son had just lost him, perhaps in a tragic accident.  It was her death sentence as well as his.  The funeral was in place when Jesus met them.  Keep your distance and let the people grieve, they said.  Jesus aproached the funeral procession.  Then the coffin.  Then he reached out his hands and touched it.  And the people recoiled.  But the young man was brought to life.  Luke 7:4

God's Presence.  For all people who seek it they forget that it is scary.  Very scary.  Peter, James and John saw their rabbi transfigured before them.  Then Moses and Elijah appeared.  Then the Lord spoke to them telling them the Father loved his son and they were to listen to him.  A bright cloud enveloped them. They fell facedown to the ground, terrified.  But Jesus.  He came and touched them.  He knelt down, touched his friends and told the to not be afraid.  He touched them.  Mt 16:7

Jesus touched eyes and they were healed (Mt 20:34).  He actually put his fingers in someone's ears to heal them (Mk 7:33).  He even spit and touched a man's tongue ((Mk 7:33).   Something about touch made broken people whole, lonely people loved, and rejected people and even more ostracized.  Somehow people didn't it when hurting people were helped.

Out of Jesus' hands come life, healing, deliverance, acceptance and love.   Bold hands that were not afraid of anything.

Then I look at my hands.  Hands that have not always been holy.  It's interesting that the holiness of the heart is connected to the hands (Ps 24:4).

But then there's one other thing I remember about Jesus hands.  I am there. 

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands" (Is 49:6).  

 Engraved..  On the palms.  The most painful part.  Permanent. Bloody.  And forever his.

Triumphal Entry In all Four Gospels

Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:28-38; and John 12:12-18

Summary: 

1.   Jesus had been the day before with Martha and Lazarus at Bethany where Mary broke the bottle of perfume and it put it on his feet.  Judas was upset.  Many Jews were there to see Jesus and also to Lazarus who had been risen from the dead.  The chief priests were plotting to kill Lazarus because on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. 
2.  After Jesus told the parable of the 10 Minas, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.
3. Jesus & his disciples approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage (Mk; Lk adds “and Bethany”) on the hill called Mt of Olives
4. Jesus sent 2 disciples to the village ahead of him
5. They would find a donkey and a colt, untie them, tell them the Lord needs them and he will send them right away.  Mk, Lk add a “colt that has never been ridden.”
6.  Mk:   “Went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway.” 
7.  Mk:  As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What you doing, untying that colt?"
8.   Lk:  The owners asked them why they were untying the colt 
9. They told them what Jesus said and the people let them go.
10. This fulfilled Zech 9:9—“Say to the Daughter of Zion, Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion, See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding/seated on a donkey, on a colt/young donkey, the foal of a donkey. 
11. At first his disciples did not understand all this.  Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.
12. The disciples brought the donkey, placed their cloaks on them and Jesus sat on them 
13.  Threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 
14. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word.  Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him.  So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere.  Look how the whole world has gone after him!” 
15. The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.  They took palm branches and went out to meet him 
16. A very large crowd [Mk—“many people”] spread their cloaks on the road as he went alone
17.  Others cut branches [Mk:  “cut in the fields.] from the trees and spread them on the road 
18. When he came near the place where the road goes down to the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen.  
19.  The crowds that went ahead of him and those that following him.

20. They shouted, “Hosanna!  Blessed is he/the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.  Blessed is the King of Israel! Hosanna in the highest!”

21. Some of the Pharisees in the crows said to Jesus, “Teach, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replided, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

22. 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.”

23. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred.

24. They (?) asked “Who is this?”

25.  The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galiliee.”

26.  Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. 

27. Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there.  He overturned the tables of the money changes and the benches of those selling doves.  “It is written,” he said to them,” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”

28. The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

29. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.  “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “’From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”

30. And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

He looked at everything but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

31. Every day he was teaching at the temple.  But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.  Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people on his words.”
  
 Triumphal Entry in Short:

Jesus has been staying at Lazarus' house.  Word had gotten out locally and even to Jerusalem about the resurrection.

Jesus goes to the hill of the Mt. of Olives and sends the two to get the donkey& colt.  They return and lay their cloaks on the donkey and on the road.

Meanwhile back in Jerusalem people hear Jesus is coming and run out to the field and cut palm branches and spread them on the road along with more cloaks.

As Jesus was descending the hill of the Mount of Olives there was exceeding joy of the disciples.  

But as Jesus began to draw near to Jerusalem he began to weep, not for the cross he would face but for the lostness of this beloved people.

Upon entering the temple he saw all the money-changers and over-turned their tables.  Joy and praise at Mt of Olives, turned to sorrow and sadness upon entering Jerusalem,  changed to temple chaos and anger at business being set up in the temple..  A wild day.

Jews were turning to the faith and the chief priests and Pharisees were jealous and with violent intent.

Jesus returns to Bethany for the night with the Twelve.