On Friday, things couldn’t have been any worse. Jesus Christ, who had been preaching and healing for three years, had been completely abandoned by even his closest friends. One of the twelve people closest to him had betrayed him. One of his three closest friends had cursed, saying that he didn’t have anything to do with Jesus. Not even his family believed. The story was over. Jesus had joined the history heap. He was just one of countless messiahs who came, built up a following, and then flamed out. If the Gospel of Mark ended at chapter 15, then Jesus would have been nothing more than a footnote of history, maybe getting a line or two in some ancient text but nothing more.

But just when things are at their worst, everything changes. In just 8 verses Mark shows us that everything has changed. In these 8 verses we’re going to see that Easter was a surprise; that Easter includes us; and that the Easter story continues.

First: Easter is a surprise.

If you had lived at the time of Jesus, you would have understood that Jesus was just one of many messianic figures who came, and ended up dying disappointing deaths. For instance, Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 AD. He set up an independent Jewish state, and ruled for three years as ruler. But his revolt was eventually crushed, and today his name is hardly known. After the failure of the revolt, rabbinical writers began referring to him by a new name. Instead of calling him Bar Kokhba (“Son of a Star”) they started calling him Bar Kozeba (“Son of the disappointment”). If the story of Jesus ended in Mark 15, this would have been the story of Jesus as well. Disappointment. Failure. End of story.

Now, Jesus had told his disciples over and over again what was going to happen.

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the 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 10:33-34)

Here it is the third day, and absolutely nobody has even considered the possibility that what Jesus said would come true. His disciples are scattered. In verse 1 of this passage, three women come as soon as they can, early in the morning, with spices to anoint the body of Jesus. These spices would be very costly. They were designed to help deal with the stench that a decaying body would create. Nobody is expecting a resurrection. They expect to find a bloodied and decaying body there. Not a single person expected anything other than a dead body. As far as they were concerned, the story was over. Theologically, they didn’t even believe that a resurrection could even take place in this age. That is something that the Jewish people believed would take place at the end of history. They certainly didn’t expect Jesus to be risen from the dead.

Sometimes we make the mistake of reading the Bible and thinking that of course ancient people could accept the story of someone rising from the dead, and now we’re so much more sophisticated. What you need to understand is that nobody back then expected the resurrection of Jesus. They didn’t even have categories for it. When other leaders were killed, nobody thought to make up a story of resurrection.

The people in Mark didn’t get it either, and yet something happened to transform them completely. A group of first-century Jews who were scattered and defeated and had no category for the resurrection were suddenly changed to emboldened witnesses who were prepared to give up their lives speaking about what they’d seen. As Pascal put it, “I [believe] those witnesses that get their throats cut.” Virtually all of the disciples and early Christian leaders gave up their lives testifying to the resurrection of Jesus. Something happened on Easter morning that nobody had expected that changed everything.

If you’re here this morning and you have a hard time believing the resurrection, join the club. There’s not a person in the Gospel of Mark who expected it to happen. But something happened that changed everything – and is still changing everything today. Easter is a surprise.

But then, secondly, we see:

Easter includes us.

Mark 16:1 says, “When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.”

It’s easy to miss how shocking this is. These women had been witnesses of Jesus’ death. “Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome” (Mark 15:40). Two of them, according to Mark 15:47, witnessed where Jesus was buried. Now these three women are about to become the first witnesses to the empty tomb, and to the message of the angel.

What’s so surprising about this? In Jesus’ day, women were viewed as being unreliable witnesses. Their testimony was not considered admissible evidence. N.T. Wright makes the point that if you were inventing the story of the resurrection, you never would have made the first and best witnesses to be female. It would have been too inconvenient. The only reason you would say that women were the first and best witnesses is because that’s what actually happened. It’s there because it’s true.

But it’s surprising for another reason. The readers of Mark’s Gospel would have understood that one of these three women, at least, was a woman with a past. Mary Magdalene was somebody who had previously been demon possessed. Luke 8:2 calls her “Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out.” At least one of these three women is somebody who has a history.

What does this tell us? Mark is showing us how the gospel turns things upside-down. People who are excluded, who are pushed to the side, are the first and best witnesses of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The least likely people become part of the Easter story. You may be here this morning thinking that you’re the least likely person. The first to be discounted in human society are the first to be included in divine society.

And just in case we get ahead of ourselves, Mark still points out that we won’t get it right away. These women go to the tomb. They enter into a small chamber in the tomb and see a young man sitting there. This young man – an angel – announces the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They’re told to go tell the disciples. All along, Jesus has told people not to tell people about him. Jesus commanded people to silence, and they spoke. Now, they’re compelled to speak, and what do they do? Verse 8 says, “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” Easter is for the least likely people, but even the best of us blow it. The Resurrection changes us. The gospel changes us. But it’s a process. Easter includes people like us, people who are the least likely to be included, people who still blunder in our responses to God and who don’t get it right away.

What about the disciples? The angel told the women, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you’” (Mark 16:7). Before Jesus was betrayed, he told his disciples:

“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:
“‘I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep will be scattered.’

But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” (Mark 14:27-28)

The disciples had completely blown it. Jesus had told them over and over again what was going to happen, and they just couldn’t get it. And when put to the test, they caved and they fled.

And out of all the disciples, no failure was more dramatic than Peter’s. Peter had sworn emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you” (Mark 14:31). But when the moment came, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. Out of all the disciples, except for Judas, Peter knew that he had let Jesus down profoundly.

Yet the message was, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” You see what this means? Jesus hasn’t written Peter and the other disciples off.

Easter includes unlikely people. It includes people who blunder. It even includes people who have completely and utterly failed. Easter includes people just like us.

That’s what Mark has been showing us so far. Easter is a surprise. It caught everyone by surprise. Nobody expected. And Easter includes us – the unlikely ones, the blundering ones, the failures. There’s one more thing Mark shows us:

Finally: the Easter story continues.

You’ll notice this morning that we’ve looked at verses 1 to 8. There’s a reason. The oldest and most reliable manuscripts end at verse 8. Early church fathers don’t seem to know of anything beyond verse 8. It seems like the last verse we have that authentically and originally comes from the pen of Mark is verse 8. Verses 9 to 20 seem to have been added later as a way to smooth out the ending.

I don’t want to get into all the theories this morning about why Mark ends the way it does. Some think Mark meant to end this way. Others think that something happened – Mark wasn’t able to complete his book, or what he originally wrote was lost. In a sense it doesn’t matter. We learn a lot about what happened from the other records. No doctrine is affected no matter what we conclude about the abrupt ending of the Gospel of Mark.

But you have to agree that it’s a strange way to end. Women come to the tomb and find the stone rolled away. They meet an angelic messenger who tells them that Jesus is risen, and he gives them a message to pass on to the disciples. Jesus is alive, and he’s going to reconvene his community. The story continues. And then: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” The end. Amen. Let’s pray.

What a strange way to end the book! You can see why they’d try to neaten the ending and smooth it out.

But let’s think for a minute. Those who first read Mark’s Gospel would have known that this wasn’t the end of the story. They would have heard the stories of Jesus’ resurrection appearances. The very fact that the Gospel of Mark had been written would have been evidence that this wasn’t the end of the story. Easter Sunday had set in motion a series of events that had transformed the disciples. Somebody points out that you have all the raw materials you need: an empty tomb, the young men’s message, Jesus’ indication that he’s not done with his disciples yet. It’s left to us to pull it together and to trace the line from what happened then to where we are today.

No matter how you understand the ending of the Gospel of Mark, it points out that Easter Sunday was not the end of the story. It’s only the beginning. The resurrection of Jesus set in motion a new story that has not yet finished or resolved. It’s a story that includes us today.

In a sense, Mark’s Gospel ends at verse 8. For all we know, there was more, but we don’t know. What we have ends, though at verse 8. But the story that Mark has begun to tell is a story that continues right to the present day. Jesus has been raised from the dead. It’s taken us all by surprise. And Jesus is calling the most unlikely people – people who have let him down – to join his community of followers, and to announce the good news that Jesus is alive and has finished his work. The Gospel of Mark is over, but the story isn’t. The story continues to this very day, and it includes you.

I’m glad that Mark ends with the disciples scattered and the women scared. I’m glad because we know that it doesn’t end there. God transformed them into a group of people who, through the power of the Spirit, turned the world upside-down.


But it gives me hope, because some of us are scattered and afraid today. There’s hope for us too. Easter may be a surprise, but the Easter story includes you in. It pulls you in so you see that Jesus has risen, and is alive, and the story continues. And it’s a story that includes you.

Father, thank you for Easter. We’ve seen that Jesus bore our sins and our shame. But we’ve seen today that this isn’t the end of the story. Jesus also rose to give us new life. You vindicated him, and he now sits at your right hand as King.

But you take us – those who are caught off guard, those of us who don’t matter, who blunder in our responses, who flat-out fail you – and you pull us into the story. You take us and use us to change the world, not because we’re strong, but because Jesus is risen.

So change us. Would you draw some of us even now into this story. We thank you for Jesus, for what he did. We thank you that he lives. And we pray in his name, the name of the risen and reigning King. Amen.

At first glance, the death of Jesus looks like a horrible defeat. In the passage we just read, Jesus is alone and abandoned. Instead of defeating the Romans as the Messiah, he’s killed by the Romans. His own friends abandon him, and he’s surrounded by mockers and strangers. And he dies with a loud cry, and it’s over, and then he’s buried. Why would Christians celebrate this death? Why do we call this Good Friday?

But you’ll notice as you look at this passage that there’s more than meets the eye. Because in this passage Mark tells, first, us that history’s changed. Not only that, Mark tells us that our lives can change as well. Finally, Mark shows us, what took place at the cross is not a defeat; it’s actually something that’s worth celebrating.

First, History’s Changed

Let’s see how Mark shows us that history has changed by what takes place in this passage. In verse 33, right before Jesus died, we read: “At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.”

This detail – the darkness – is so important that it’s mentioned by three of the four gospels. This couldn’t have been an eclipse. Why? For one thing, an eclipse only lasts for a few minutes. Passover – which is when Jesus died – took place during a full moon, and eclipses only take place when it’s a new moon. So this was no eclipse. Some people think it might have been a dust storm, but a dust storm would have been unlikely at this time because it was the wet season.

What Mark is telling us here is more than a weather report. Mark is showing us the significance of what happened. In the Bible, darkness means judgment. In Deuteronomy, God warned Israel:

However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you…At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you. (Deuteronomy 28:15, 29)

One of the Hebrew prophets foretold a day when God would judge the nation of Israel. Amos predicted that God would call his people to account for their injustice. He said:

“In that day,” declares the Sovereign LORD,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.”
(Amos 8:9)

What Mark is saying is significant. We’re going to look at the other events that take place around the cross. You’re going to see that a lot is going on. But for three hours, the focus is not on any human activity, but on unnatural darkness. And it’s not a darkness that goes to midnight. It’s a darkness that ends at the death of Jesus. For three long hours, time passes as the death of Jesus takes place in unnatural darkness. Judgment. Isaac Watts wrote:

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature’s sin.

What’s going on at the cross? This isn’t simply somebody’s death. This is something far more than that. This is divine judgment. At the cross, Jesus bears the full weight of divine judgment for sins that we had done. God finally judges – but instead of judging those who had done wrong, God bears the judgment himself for all that we had done. As one person puts it, “Christianity is the only faith system where God both makes the demands and meets them” (Tullian Tchividjian). That’s what happened at the cross.

But there’s more. Verses 37 to 38 say: “With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

At the very moment that Jesus dies, something unbelievable happens. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There were actually two curtains in the temple. One, the outer curtain, separated the sanctuary from the outer porch. The other was the inner veil that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. Only the high priest could enter in, and only once a year for a moment. The curtain was 60 feet high and 30 feet wide. We don’t know which curtain it was, but Hebrews identifies it as the inner curtain.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body… (Hebrews 10:19-20)

At the cross, Mark is saying, Jesus bore the judgment of God. And something happened at the temple which showed that the death of Jesus changed everything. At the cross, Jesus took the punishment for the sins we had committed. He experienced the judgment that should have been ours. At the death of Jesus, something happened that made the temple system of sacrifices and priests and all that it involved obsolete. This wasn’t just an ordinary death. History changed at the cross.

But it’s not just history that changed. Mark shows us something else in this passage. Here’s the second thing that Mark shows us:

Secondly, Mark says, Our lives can change as well.

Do you notice the motley crew of characters in this passage?

In verse 21, we meet Simon of Cyrene. He’s from north Africa. He stumbles upon the scene, and his family is changed as a result. Mark mentions his sons, Alexander and Rufus, presumably because his sons would have been familiar to the original recipients of Mark’s book. A stranger from Africa stumbles upon the scene, and it evidently transforms his family.

Then there are three big surprises. In verse 39 we read, “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’” The centurion in this passage would have observed the death of many crucified criminals. He’s the last person you would expect to be changed. But something about the way Jesus dies grabs him. He says that Jesus is the Son of God. The Romans called the emperor’s son the son of god. This soldier transfers the title of the most revered figure in the Roman imperial cult to a Jew who’s just been crucified. The first human witness to describe Jesus as the Son of God is not a disciple, not a Jew at all, but a Gentile army officer with no previous connection to Jesus. The disciples don’t get it; the religious leaders don’t get it; this Roman officer gets it. He may not have understood the full significance of what he said, but he gets that this is no ordinary insurrectionist. He understands that something more is going on. This is the true Son of God, who does not die in failure. He dies fulfilling his Father’s will.

Then there are the women. Verses 40-41 say:

Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

What’s surprising about this? In all cultures at that time, women were viewed as inferior. Their testimony was not accepted. Up until this point, women had played a very minor role in the Gospel of Mark. Mark doesn’t mention any female disciples. But here, at the climax of the Gospel, the male disciples have deserted Jesus, and the women are still there, faithful to the last. They are the witnesses of all that takes place. They are the ones that saw Jesus die; they saw his body being laid in the tomb; they are the ones who find the tomb empty. They are the only eyewitnesses of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. God entrusts the message of the resurrection to them. This is one evidence, by the way, of the accuracy of the Gospels. If you were making a story up, you would never invent that women are the first eyewitnesses. You’d only write that if it were true.

Do you see what Mark is showing us? The death of Jesus is turning everything upside-down. It’s changing families of a random person walking by; a Roman soldier becomes the first to grasp something of who Jesus is at the cross; women who are normally excluded are brought into the very center, and become eyewitnesses of the greatest event in redemptive history.

There’s one more person who’s changed in this passage. We read in verses 43: “Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.” Joseph, Mark says, is a prominent member of the Council, the Sanhedrin – the group that has just condemned Jesus. He has significant social standing in Jerusalem. And yet he risks his life here by going to Pilate and asking for the body of Jesus. Romans usually left bodies hanging on the cross until they decayed as a warning to other would-be rebels and slaves. And yet Joseph puts his reputation and life at risk by asking for Jesus’ body. And even more shockingly, he prepares the body for burial himself. Preparing a crucified corpse for burial would have been an unthinkable task, certainly well below what a man like Joseph would ever do. It was a job that was usually left for those much lower than him.

Do you see what Mark is showing us in this passage? What happened at the cross changed history. At the cross, Jesus bore God’s judgment, and he made a new way for us to approach God. But it didn’t just change history. It changed people. At the cross, the death of Jesus changed the lives of the most unusual people, people who would otherwise have nothing in common. It’s still changing the most unlikely people: people from all different nationalities; people who are religious and people how aren’t; people who are prominent and powerful and people who aren’t. The death of Jesus changes history, and it changes lives as well.

There’s one more thing Mark wants to show us.

The death of Jesus is not a defeat; it’s a victory worth celebrating.

In this passage, Jesus is remarkably silent. Mark records only two times that Jesus says anything. As he dies, Mark says in verse 37, he lets out a loud cry. And in verse 34 he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

What is this about? At first glance it looks like the desparate cry of someone who’s been completely abandoned by God. It is that, but it’s actually much more.

If you study the gospels carefully, you’ll notice that this is the only time that Jesus addresses God as “My God.” Every other time that Jesus refers to God, he calls him Father. Jesus addresses God not in terms of the intimate relationship he enjoyed with God as his Son; he addresses God at a distance. And his cry, “Why have you forsaken me?” gets to the heart of what happened at the cross. On the cross, Jesus is experiencing the immense pain of divine abandonment. Centuries before, the prophet of Isaiah wrote:

Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated
you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.
(Isaiah 59:1-2)

Isaiah says that our sins have separated us from our God. The Bible teaches that God’s eyes “are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing” (Habakkuk 1:13). On the cross, all of our sins were poured on Jesus. When he took on the sins of the world, “he became the most grotesque, most obscene mass of sin in the history of the world” (R.C. Sproul). And at that moment, God turned his back on Jesus. He hung in the cross cut off from the relationship he had enjoyed with his Father throughout eternity. He didn’t just feel forsaken; he was forsaken. Phil Ryken put it this way:

It was as if God had taken a giant bucket and scooped up all the sins of his people – all the jealousy and the lying, all the rebellion and the stealing and the incest, all the hypocrisy and the envy and the swearing – and dumped them all out on Jesus Christ. “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us…” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Once he had done that, God the Father had to forsake all that sin. When Jesus was wearing our sin on the cross, God the Father could not bear to look at the sin or at his Son. He had to avert his gave. He had to shield his eyes. He had to turn his back. He had to condemn and reject and curse and damn that sin…When Jesus Christ picked up our sins, he became a curse for us, and when he became a curse for us, he was accursed by God. God was not forsaking his Son as much as he was forsaking the sin the Son was carrying.

I said this was good news. So far I haven’t told you how this is good news, have I? It’s good news in two ways. First: “The forsaking of the Son of God on the cross is a fearful thing, but it’s good news for sinners who repent” (Phil Ryken). Why is it good news? Jesus was forsaken so that we don’t have to be forsaken. He was rejected so that we can be accepted. At the cross, he was cut off from God so that we could be brought in.

It’s also good news because of where Jesus got this prayer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 22. Psalm 22 is the prayer of someone who is being attacked, someone who feels abandoned by God. When Jews quoted the Hebrew Scriptures back then, quoting one verse would be enough to bring up the whole passage. So many of those hearing Jesus quote Psalm 22:1 would have remembered how Psalm 22 ends: it ends with vindication. It begins like this:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
(Psalm 22:1)

But it ends like this:

For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
(Psalm 22:24)

Jesus is saying that he knows the abandonment is not the end of the story. God will vindicate him. There’s more:

All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him…
(Psalm 22:27)

As Jesus goes to the cross, there’s more than meets the eye. At the cross, history changed. Not only that, but lives were changed. At the cross, Jesus was cut off from God so that we wouldn’t have to be cut off. Because God did not reject him forever, neither will God reject us when he place our faith in Christ and understood what he did for us at the cross.

So help us see beneath the surface, Father. Thank you that on that Friday long ago, history changed. Thank you, though, that it’s not just history that changed. For two thousand years now, you’ve been changing lives because of what Jesus accomplished at the cross. He bore our sins; he was cut off so we wouldn’t have to be.

Help us see the cross. And I pray it would change us today. We pray in the name of the one who was rejected so we could be accepted, in the name of the one who gave his life so that we could live. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

We’re in Mark 15 this morning. Jesus has been tried and condemned, and abandoned by everyone. We are now moments away from his death in this passage.

But before Jesus is killed, we have an interlude. And in this interlude we notice two things. One: that Jesus is mocked. Two: that in the entire time leading up to his death, Jesus does nothing to resist what’s happening. He never raises his voice to defend himself. He willingly endures whatever comes his way as he moves closer to the cross.

As we look at this passage we’re going to see three things. First: we’re going to learn about ourselves. Second: we’re going to learn about Jesus. And then lastly, we’re going to learn about what Jesus accomplished for us not only in his death, but in the hours leading up to his death.

First: let’s learn about ourselves in this passage.

What’s shocking in this passage is the extent to which Jesus is abandoned. Look at this passage and what takes place immediately before:

• In 14:43, Judas – one of the twelve disciples that Jesus had chosen – betrays him with a kiss.
• in 14:51, another one of his followers runs away naked. Some think that this person is Mark himself. Whoever it is, it points to the complete failure of Jesus’ friends to support him when the moment came.
• In 14:65, members of the Sanhedrin – the top religious leaders – spit on Jesus, covered his face, and struck him.
• In 15:13-14, the crowds call out for Jesus’ death.
• In 15:15, Pilate had Jesus scourged. Scourging meant that Jesus was tied to a post and beaten with a leather whip that had pieces of bone and metal that would tear through the skin. Scourging itself was sometimes fatal.
• In 15:16-20, the guards sarcastically mocked Jesus as a supposed king.
• In 15:29-30, those who passed by the scene of the crucifixion mocked Jesus. They wagged their heads and taunted him.
• In 15:31-32, the chief priests and scribes joined the mocking.
• In 15:32, even those who were being crucified alongside Jesus joined in and mocked him.

It’s absolutely shocking as we read this. Jesus is completely and utterly abandoned by everyone. Jews and Gentiles, religious and non-religious, leaders and ordinary folk, and even criminals join in the mocking. His own friends betray him.

What is this supposed to teach us? Martin Luther, a monk and Reformer who lived 500 years ago, wrote:

Let us meditate a moment on the passion of Christ. Some do so falsely in that they merely rail against Judas and the Jews.

Let’s stop there for a minute. Luther was saying that 500 years ago, some would open up the Bible as an excuse to attack Judas or the Jewish people. In other words, the Bible became a tool they used to point the finger at others, and even to engage in racist behavior. Luther continues:

The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten…Take this to heart and doubt not that you are the one who killed Christ. Your sins certainly did, and when you see the nails driven through his hands, be sure that you are pounding, and when thorns pierce his brow, know that they are your evil thoughts…The whole value of meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble.

Do you see what Luther is saying? There are two ways to read this account. One is to read it and to shake our heads at the people who mocked Jesus. We look at them and condemn them. The other way to read this account is to contemplate that this is a passage that reveals our hearts. This passage shows us to be enemies of God who abandon and mock him, because nobody is excluded from this passage. Everybody joins the mocking. Everybody abandons Jesus. As Luther says, “The true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten.”

This passage both humbles us and raises us up. First, it humbles us. You know, it’s easy to blame a group of people to which you don’t belong. We’ve all been parts of groups in which we begin talking about the faults of others who aren’t like us. But what if we are all put on even ground, and what if there is no difference between us? That’s exactly what happens in this passage. Everyone is humbled. Everyone abandons Jesus. The religious mock him; so do the irreligious. Jews mock Jesus; so do the Gentiles. His friends abandon him; strangers shake their heads at him. Nobody gets off. Everyone is humbled as we read this passage.

But this passage also raises us up. What do I mean by this? Because we’re all in the same boat, nobody here can claim superiority over the other. Everyone of us is equal in our need for Christ. We’re all brought to the point of sinking and trembling. But we’re going to see in a moment that there is hope for us in this passage as well.

This is the first thing that Mark asks us to see in this passage. Everyone is guilty. Everyone abandons Jesus. Everyone joins in the mocking. All of us are humbled. All our hearts our crushed, and all of our consciences are smitten.

Secondly, let’s learn about Jesus.

If you’ve ever been falsely accused, you know how you want to respond. You are going to let people know the truth. There’s no way that you are going to allow people to spread falsehood about you and to ruin your good name. Yet in this passage, Jesus is falsely accused and verbally attacked, and he says nothing. He’s silent.

If you’ve ever been physically attacked, you know that we all instinctively either fight or flee. But in this passage Jesus does neither. He endures the blows and is beaten and shamed, and he doesn’t raise a voice or a fist to defend himself.

This is especially significant because had Jesus stuck up for himself, he would have been very convincing. Adrian Rogers writes:

If Jesus had risen up in his own defense during his trials, I believe he would have been so powerful and irrefutable in making his defense that no governor, high priest, or other legal authority on earth could have stood against him! In other words, if Jesus had taken up his own defense with the intention of refuting his accusers and proving his innocence, he would have won!

We’ve seen that Jesus is incredibly convincing whenever he’s had a verbal confrontation with anyone in this gospel. Jesus is never at a loss for words. But in this passage, Jesus says nothing in his defense, nor does he make any move to avoid what’s happening to him. Centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah had written of Jesus:

I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
(Isaiah 50:6)

In other words, Jesus willingly endured the mocking and the spitting. Hebrews 12:2 puts it this way: “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame.” It’s here that we learn something very important about Jesus.

What do we learn? In a sense, everything that is said about Jesus is true in this passage. They mock him as King of the Jews; ironically, they’re right. He is the King of the Jews, except he’s a king who suffers. Read verses 29-32:

Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!”

In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”

What are they saying? They’re calling on him to save himself. They accuse him of saving others, but not being able to save himself. And in a way they’re right. Don Carson imagines what it would have been like if Jesus had taken them up on their challenge:

This would be a pretty remarkable and convincing display of power, and the mockers would be back-peddling pretty fast. But in the full Christian sense, would they believe in him? Of course not! To believe in Jesus in the Christian sense means not less than trusting him utterly as the One who has borne our sin in his own body on the tree, as the One whose life and death and resurrection, offered up in our place, has reconciled us to God. If Jesus had leapt off the cross, the mockers and other onlookers could not have believed in Jesus in that sense, because he would not have sacrificed himself for us, so there would be nothing to trust, except our futile and empty self-righteousness.

But then Carson explores the meaning of their statement, “He saved others, but he can’t save himself.” Carson says:

The deeper irony is that, in a way they did not understand, they were speaking the truth. If he had saved himself, he could not have saved others; the only way he could save others was precisely by not saving himself. In the irony behind the irony that the mockers intended, they spoke the truth they themselves did not see. The man who can’t save himself–saves others.

One of the reasons they were so blind is that they thought in terms of merely physical restraints…But those who know who Jesus is are fully aware that nails and soldiers cannot stand in the way of Emmanuel. The truth of the matter is that Jesus could not save himself, not because of any physical constraint, but because of a moral imperative…It was not nails that held Jesus to that wretched cross; it was his unqualified resolution, out of love for his Father, to do his Father’s will–and, within that framework, it was his love for sinners like me. He really could not save himself. (Scandalous)

Jesus was completely capable of saving himself – but then he couldn’t have saved us. So he willingly chose to endure the mocking and the spitting. He willingly chose to suffer and die so that we could be saved. He chose death so that we could live.

What is this about? Maybe a movie from 1938 will help. The movie is called Angels with Dirty Faces. James Cagney plays the part of Rocky Sullivan, a celebrity criminal who is the hero of all the young juvenile delinquents in the city. He’s about to go to the electric chair. The night before his execution, he’s visited by his childhood friend Jerry, who is now a priest trying to save inner-city kids from a life of crime. Jerry makes a request of Rocky. He asks Rocky to disgrace himself so that his juvenile followers can live.

I want you to let them down. You see, you’ve been a hero to these kids, and hundreds of others, all through your life – and now you’re going to be a glorified hero in death, and I want to prevent that, Rocky.

Rocky can’t believe it.

You asking me to pull an act, turn yellow, so those kids will think I’m no good…You ask me to throw away the only thing I’ve got left…You ask me to crawl on my belly – the last thing I do in life…Nothing doing. You’re asking too much…You want to help those kids, you got to think about some other way.

Jerry is saying to Rocky, “It’s them or you. If you go down in glory, these kids are going to go down in shame. But if you go down in shame, if you’re willing to throw away everything you have, your entire reputation, then they can be saved.” But Rocky refuses.

The next morning he walks out to the execution chamber as Father Jerry watches. He comes out with a snarl. When one of the guards insults him, he slugs him. He’s in control. He’s going down in glory. But when he gets to the door of the death chamber, suddenly he begins to squeal like a child. “No! I don’t want to die! Oh, please! I don’t want to die! Oh, please! Don’t make me burn in hell. Oh, please let go of me! Please don’t kill me! Oh, don’t kill me, please!”

Father Jerry, as he sees that happen, looks to heaven. The next day, the newspaper says:

At the fatal stroke of eleven p.m. Rocky was led through the little green door of death. No sooner had he entered the death chamber, than he tore himself from the guard’s grasp, flung himself on the floor, screaming for mercy. And as they dragged him to the electric chair, he clawed wildly at the floor with agonized shrieks. In contrast to his former heroics, Rocky Sullivan died a coward.

You see what Rocky did? He substituted his life for the boys. He gave up his reputation so that he could save others.

You see, we are in that story. We are those boys whose life is about to go down. And Jesus is in the story too. He can either save his reputation and his life or save us. And in the most stunning reversal, he offers his life and his reputation so that we could be saved. He substitutes his life and everything he has for us.

Friends, we’ve seen ourselves in this passage this morning. We’re crushed because we are the ones who mocked him. We’ve seen Jesus in this passage. He willingly endures the mocking and the spitting, because he can either save himself or us. He can’t do both. And amazingly, he chooses to save us. There’s one more thing we need to see this morning.

Finally, let’s see what Jesus accomplished by enduring the shame.

Have you ever been shamed? I mean, really shamed? We see it happen with celebrities and politicians. Scandal hits, and somebody’s good name becomes fodder for the late night comedians. We’ve seen it in business. You spend a lifetime building a good reputation, and you hit one rough patch and your name becomes mud. Think of the worst thing that you’ve ever done being made public. It would be enough to disgrace every person here.

What does that have to do with this morning’s sermon? You’ve probably been told that Jesus died for your sins. I believe that this morning’s passage also teaches us that Jesus did more than this. Adrian Rogers puts it this way: “The Bible teaches that when Jesus took our sin, he took all the punishment that goes with that sin. A part of that punishment is shame.”

You see, Jesus assumed your sin. But in this passage he also assumed the shame. Jesus didn’t just die; he was humiliated and shamed so that you don’t have to be. Romans 10:11 says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

As one person put it, “You don’t have anything to prove to us or the world. The work is finished at Calvary, and that work has unlimited meaning and value. Keep your focus there” (Jack Miller). You have nothing to prove. You never have to be ashamed. Jesus took all the shame. And anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.

So Father, humble us this morning. We see ourselves clearly in this passage. We are those who mocked him. Everybody abandoned him. Our hearts are crushed, and our consciences are smitten.

But we see Jesus, who willingly endured the mocking and the spitting. He couldn’t save himself and us at the same time, so he chose to save us. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.

Because he took the shame, we don’t have to be ashamed. Help us to trust in him and in what he did. We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

We’re in Mark 15 this morning. In Mark 15, the book of Mark is reaching its climax. Jesus has been betrayed by Judas and abandoned by his disciples. He has been arrested and beaten and condemned by the religious leaders. And now he’s in his last hours. He’s about to face his death, but before he does he’s going to come up against Pilate, the Roman governor who was in charge of Judea. Only Pilate had the power to condemn Jesus to death. So as we approach this morning’s passage, Jesus is bound and beaten, completely abandoned, and about to lose his life.

This morning’s passage is really a contrast between two people. Mark has set this scene to contrast two types of strength, two kingdoms. One type of strength is the strength that we all aspire to; the other type of strength is what we’ll avoid at all costs. Mark is going to show us what true strength looks like, and if we understand this, it’s going to turn our church and our lives upside-down.

First, let’s look at the strength, the kingdom, that comes from power.

When Jesus was alive, Rome was in power over the nation of Israel. Because Rome was so huge, they appointed governors in different regions to maintain order. The Romans allowed self-government, so that each nation felt like they had some of their identity and autonomy. But the real power belonged to Rome. They had the ultimate say. They had all the military and economic power, and what they decided is ultimately what happened.

So as we open Mark 15, Jesus is brought before the most powerful person he has ever met in his life:

Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

“Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. 


“You have said so,” Jesus replied.

The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”

But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. (Mark 15:1-5)

Notice the contrasts.

Scholars tell us that these events took place early in the morning, because Roman officials began work at daybreak so they could be free by midmorning to pursue activities of leisure. Pilate was going to enjoy the rest of his day; Jesus was on his way to being killed later that day.

Pilate was connected to the most powerful people in the world at that time. He was a mover. At one point he was considered a possible future emperor. He had connections and knew how to access the levers of power. Jesus had no connections. His closest friends had abandoned him. He had no access to the levers of power, and was completely abandoned, even by those closest to him.

Pilate was sitting in a palace. The trial probably took place in Herod’s Palace, which was used by Roman governors when they came to Jerusalem for the feasts like Passover. It was encircled with ramparts and towers. It was the largest and most elaborate of Herod’s palaces. It had two huge and elaborate reception halls in which you could entertain hundreds of guests. One historian from the period said described it as “the king’s palace, which no tongue could describe. Its magnificence and equipment were unsurpassable.” The historian wrote that this palace had rooms that were even more magnificent than the Holy Temple, Herod’s greatest edifice in Jerusalem. Pilate had free access to all of this magnificent palace. Jesus, on the other hand, came as a prisoner, bound and about to be beaten and condemned.

Pilate had troops at his disposal. It is written that he had “power even to execute.” He hadn’t been afraid to use his power either. Luke 13 tells us that he had once mixed the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices, perhaps in response to a riot. Pilate was the law, and he could essentially determine what was going to happen. There was no appeal, no supreme court to second guess his decisions.

In short, Pilate has wealth, connections, power, and leisure. Jesus has nothing – no money, no friends, no power, and no freedom. The contrast between Pilate and Jesus in this passage couldn’t be more striking.

I want us to see this today because Pilate has everything that we can hope for in our own lives. Henri Nouwen wrote:

Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink; and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.

I don’t know about Pilate’s sex life, but everything else that Nouwen mentions is what Pilate had, and what we long for too: the accumulation of wealth and power; the attainment of status and admiration; the best food and drink. Pilate had it all. He had everything that we spend our lives trying to get. We want the connections, the money, and the power. In this passage, Pilate embodies everything that we normally want for ourselves.

But notice what happens in this passage. Pilate has all the advantages, but it’s Jesus who seems to be in control. We read in verse 10 that Pilate perceives that the real reason Jesus is on trial is because of the jealousy of the religious leaders. Pilate comes to an accurate conclusion about Jesus, and realizes that Jesus isn’t guilty of treason. It’s here that you begin to realize that what Pilate has is the appearance of power. He’s not a free man. In verses 6 to 15 he tries to free Jesus, but the crowd won’t let him. Look a little more carefully and you begin to see the problem with Pilate’s strength.

He has access to the best that Jerusalem has to offer – but he hates the place. He has all the power, but he’s learned from the past to pick his battles. He’s already backed down from one battle with the Jewish people, and here again he gives in. It turns out he’s really not in control after all. Eventually he is removed from office and and travels in haste to Rome to defend himself against charges. Before he could get there, the Roman emperor died, and so Pilate disappears from history. Nothing more is known about him. Pilate is a man who has everything, but even in this passage you see that there’s really nothing there.

Listen. You and I will spend our lives chasing everything that Pilate had. Many of us are doing this right now. We want the money, the leisure, the respect, and the power. But this passage shows us the futility of this kind of strength. These things are idols that promise the world but that ultimately never deliver. Mark contrasts the strength of Pilate with the weakness of Jesus, which ultimately turns out to be the greatest strength that ever existed.

So let’s look for a moment at the strength, the kingdom, that comes through weakness.

We’ve already seen the weakness of Jesus in this passage. He’s bound and abandoned. The religious leaders turn the crowd against him. An insurrectionist and murderer ends up being more popular than him. By the end of this passage, Jesus is condemned and scourged. Scouring means that Jesus would have been bound to a pillar or post and flogged with whips made of leather that were sometimes weighted with pieces of metal, bone, or even hooks. There was no prescribed number of lashes, so scourging was sometimes fatal if they got carried away. At best it left you severely weakened and already on your way to death. There’s no greater picture of weakness than in this passage.

Yet it’s a chosen weakness. Jesus had a kingdom that far exceeded Pilate’s kingdom. Rome could not compare to the riches or the power or the acclaim that Christ enjoyed. Yet he laid it all aside and chose to become weak for our sakes. He chose weakness.

The irony is that Jesus is bound and seemingly powerless, yet it’s Jesus who is in charge not Pilate, and not the crowds. Jesus had predicted that this would happen. Jesus had said back in Mark 10:

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the 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 10:33-34)

And Jesus could have put an end to it at any moment. But he didn’t. Jesus chose everything that happened to him, because somehow his kingdom functions completely different from every earthly kingdom. His kingdom functions through weakness.

That’s why, when Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus answers: “You have said so.” What kind of an answer is that? It’s an enigmatic answer that means yes or no – or in this case, maybe it means both yes and no. Jesus says, in essence, that he is a king. But he’s not the kind of king that Pilate is. He doesn’t hold to his rights or his privileges. He’s the king who willingly leaves his throne to come to earth unrecognized, to give his life for people who don’t deserve his grace or return his love. Jesus is the kind of king who offers his life. He’s the king who lays aside his strength and comes in weakness. Isaiah 53 says:

He was despised and rejected by others,

a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

Like one from whom people hide their faces

he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain

and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

stricken by him, and afflicted.
(Isaiah 53:3-4)

If that’s the kind of king we have, what does that mean for those of us who are in his kingdom? It means that we too will lay aside our privileges so that we can serve others. We’ll choose to be weak. Justin Martyr, an early church father who lived from 100-165, wrote:

We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.

Hear that? Willingly choosing to give up wealth and grudges. Clement, who lived around the same time, described a Christian this way:

He impoverishes himself out of love, so that he is certain he may never overlook a brother in need, especially if he knows he can bear poverty better than his brother. He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain. And if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain.

Nobody puts this better than John: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16). Jesus chose to be weak, and we’ll choose to become weak as well as we follow him – willingly pouring out our lives for others.

Because it’s not just a chosen weakness, it’s a saving weakness. The end of this passage gives us a picture of what happened because Jesus chose to be weak. This man, Barabbas, actually had another name: Jesus Barabbas. Somebody was going to be free; someone was going to be condemned and killed. Pilate knew that Jesus Barabbas was guilty and deserved to die. He was an insurrectionist and a murderer. Pilate also knew that Jesus did not deserve to die. He was guilty of nothing. The only reason he was on trial was because of the jealousy of the religious leaders.

Unthinkably, the convicted murderer goes free, and the innocent Son of the father is condemned. Barabbas deserves to die, but Jesus dies in his place. The love of God does for us what we can’t do for ourselves. It’s a picture of what Jesus does for every one of us who trusts in him: he dies in our place, while we who are guilty go free. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Mark is showing us two kings, two types of strength. One king, one type of strength, is how we normally live. It’s about getting ahead and enjoying the best of life. As Nouwen said, it’s what “the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment.” But it ultimately leads to the kingdom of self, a kingdom that ends in weakness.

But Mark shows us another type of king, another type of strength. It’s a strength that willingly lays aside its rights, the strength of a Savior who’s condemned for our sins so that we can go free.

Mark shows us two types of kings – but only one is a king who saves, and a king who will reign forever.

So Father, help us to see what Jesus did.

He left His Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace!
Emptied Himself and came in love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race!

And I pray that all of us would trust in that kind of king.

And I pray it would change us, individually and as a church, so that we would lay down our lives for each other. I pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

This morning we are looking at one of the most challenging passages in the Gospel of Mark, and indeed in all of Scripture. One commentator says that this is “one of the most perplexing chapters in the Bible to understand, for readers and interpreters alike.” And he’s a scholar and a professional interpreter! So we’re in for a lot of fun this morning.

Despite the challenge, this is a crucial passage for us to examine. It’s the final discourse of Jesus with his disciples before his death, and the longest block of teaching in the Gospel of Mark. It has a message that we really need to hear today, although this passage may push us a little. So let’s look at this passage and try to figure out three things: what he’s talking about, what Jesus says about what he’s talking about, and what difference it should make for us today.

First: What is Jesus talking about?

Mark 13 begins like this: “As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’” This is really one of the most important verses to notice in this chapter. It tells us what Jesus is going to be talking about in this passage: the temple in Jerusalem. It’s easy to miss this and to get completely sidetracked. Jesus is talking about the temple. And it begins with the disciples being overwhelmed by the temple and admiring its beauty of the temple in Jerusalem.

You probably know that the temple had huge significance for the Jewish nation. It represented the very presence of God among them. God had said in Psalm 132:14 of the temple: “This is my resting place for ever and ever.” So it was a place of huge significance.

Why would they be in awe of the temple? When these events took place, Herod’s temple had been under construction for fifty years, and it still wasn’t finished. Herod had the reputation for being one of the greatest builders ever, and the temple was his crowning achievement. It was massive. The platform on which the temple sat was big enough to hold twelve football fields. The retaining wall around the temple was as high as fifteen stories off the ground. Some of the single stones were as long as sixty feet, and weighed over a million pounds. You couldn’t possibly walk around the temple without being awed at the sheer size and magnitude of the place.

And then there was the beauty. It was said that the temple was the most beautiful building in the entire world at that time. We have some eyewitness accounts. Marcus Agrippa, the grandfather of one of the emperors, visited Jerusalem and could talk of nothing else “but praise for the sanctuary and all that pertained to it.” The historian Josephus wrote that “the exterior wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye.” The sanctuary was covered with gold and silver, crimson and purple. As you approached Jerusalem, you would sometimes be blinded by the sun reflecting on the gold. It would dazzle you. It’s been said that Jerusalem wasn’t a city that had a temple; it’s more like the temple that had a city. The temple was a huge deal.

As the disciples looked at the temple, they were overwhelmed with its beauty and size. And it’s this that Jesus is going to talk about in this passage.

What does this have to do with us? We don’t have the temple, but we sure have our equivalents. A few years ago I visited the old Bank of Commerce building on King Street, built just after the Depression, you can’t help but marvel at the beauty and opulence of the building. It screams that the bank is secure, and that when everyone has been going broke this bank is going to survive. Don’t forget when it was built, right after the depression. Buildings make a statement. We have buildings all around us that scream that they matter, that they’re permanent, and that they’re going to stand when everything else has fallen.

So the temple is unique in one sense. It represents God’s dwelling place among the people of Israel. But in other ways it represents the crowning achievement of powerful and rich people. It’s part of the national identity and pride of the people who are living at that time. It’s something that inspires awe. It makes you think that it’s going to be around forever.

Let’s ask ourselves the second question: What does Jesus say about the temple?

The disciples marvel as they look at the temple. What does Jesus say?

“Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2)

If you were looking at the buildings, this would have been shocking. Don’t forget how big the stones are. Some of them are over a million pounds.

Later, across from the temple on the Mount of Olives – a vantage point with a spectacular view of the building – the disciples asked Jesus to explain. They asked, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” They want to know when the temple is going to be destroyed.

If you’re going to understand the rest of this passage, you need to understand that Jesus answers this question. Most of what we’re going to read is not about the end times. It’s about the temple. Jesus begins to describe what’s going to happen in the next 40 years after his ascension. There will wars, rumors of wars, and earthquakes, he says in verses 5 to 8. The followers of Jesus Christ are going to be persecuted, betrayed by even family, and killed, he says in verses 9-13 – but the gospel will be preached to all nations. The temple itself is going to be desecrated, Jesus says in 14. And it’s truly going to be horrible, says Jesus in verses 15 to 23. People will have to flee from Jerusalem and they won’t have any time to grab what they need before they leave.

You may buy that Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple at this point, but you may really struggle with believing me in the next few verses. In verses 24 to 27, Jesus says:

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 people 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)

A lot of people have interpreted this as referring to the second coming. But stay with me for a minute here. I think Jesus is still talking about the destruction of the temple. In the Old Testament, the prophets often used cosmic language to describe God’s decisive judgment, particularly on foreign nations. So, for instance, Isaiah described God’s judgment on Babylon:

The stars of heaven and their constellations
will not show their light.
The rising sung will be darkened
and the moon will not give its light
(Isaiah 13:10)

And later on, other Gentile nations including Edom:

All the stars in the sky will be dissolved
and the heavens rolled up like a scroll;
all the starry host will fall
like withered leaves from the vine,
like shriveled figs from the fig tree.
(Isaiah 34:4)

Now Jesus says that God is going to judge the temple in Jerusalem in the same way. Just as God has judged the evil Gentile nations in the past, now God is going to judge his own people as well. This is shocking.

What about verses 26 and 27? Again, that really looks like the second coming, doesn’t it? Here again, Jesus is quoting from an Old Testament prophet. He’s quoting Daniel. If you look carefully at Daniel 7, it is not so much about the second coming as it is about the enthronement of the Son of Man, a name that Jesus used for himself. It’s not about his return to earth as much as it is his coronation. When was Jesus crowned as king? When he ascended to heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God. That’s why Mark could say in verse 30 that this is all going to take place within a generation. We’re going to see in a minute that it actually did.

You know what this means? Mark is saying that God is going to decisively judge the temple. In its place is going to be a new king. People always thought that the authority and power of God rested on the temple. But now, Jesus says, that authority and power is being moved to him. And God is going to gather people from every nation, from ever corner of the earth, to be part of his kingdom. And, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

That’s exactly what happened. After Jesus ascended to heaven, his followers did receive the persecution he promised in verses 9 to 13. In 70 A.D. the Romans besieged Jerusalem. Josephus describes how terrible it was. People starved and ate their own babies to survive. They fought each other for scraps of dirty food. There was infighting, so that more people were killed by other Jews than the invading Romans. And, indeed, the temple was destroyed. A Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple’s walls. The fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. It was later written:

Caesar ordered the whole city and the temple to be razed to the ground…. All the rest of the wall encompassing the city was so completely leveled to the ground as to leave future visitors to the spot no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited

And, by the way, the Bible does tell us that Jesus ascended to heaven and became enthroned. Everything in this passage happened just as Jesus said.

There’s one more question that we really need to answer:

What difference does this make for us today?

This is all very interesting, but what difference does it make in our lives today? It makes all the difference in the world.

First: Jesus could say about all that we see as permanent and awesome around us: “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” We need to hear this. That Bank of Commerce building that screams permanence: gone. The Houses of Parliament: gone. The universities, the businesses, the stock exchanges: gone. This world and everything in it will pass away. As John wrote: “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).

Second: Jesus does make a shift to the end of the world at the end of the chapter. We don’t have to wonder how Jesus applies this to us today, because he tells us. Look at verse 37: “What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” This is so important that he repeats it five times in different ways in this passage. Watch! Be prepared!

Like many of you, I was watching the gold medal hockey game last Sunday afternoon. In the last minute of play in regular time, the USA tied the game. Overtime started. The next goal would decide the game. Up until that point I had been multitasking. I had a newspaper in my hand and I would pick up my laptop during the game.

But when that game went into overtime, I put that newspaper and computer down and watched. The game had my undivided attention. Jesus says in this passage that this world will one day end, and that he will be returning and calling us to account. How should we respond? Not by guessing all the details of what’s going to happen. He calls us to watch, just as closely as I watching that game.

Every time the Bible mentions the end, it’s not to encourage speculation. It’s to get us to live differently now.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. (2 Peter 3:10-12)

Finally: rejoice in the King. This passage tells us that everything will be destroyed, but we have a King who is enthroned and who will reign forever. He is gathering his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth, to the ends of the heaven. Those who trust in him will share in his power and glory.

We’re going to sing to that King in a minute. No matter what’s shaken in this world, or in your life, we can rejoice in that King. Heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away.

And what a King he is. He is a King who died so that we could live forever in his kingdom. Augustine said of him, “Hold fast to Christ. For you he became temporal, so that you might partake of eternity.” In invite you to come to that King this morning.

I’m sure that many of us have enjoyed the Olympics over the past two weeks. We all know that the real event is still to take place later this afternoon. You can enjoy your biathlons and bobsleds and short track speed skating. You can even have your curling, but we all know it’s about the men’s hockey. So today we’ll be glued to our sets seeing who is going to win the gold medal.

I’m not about to predict who is going to win this afternoon, but let me be clear: the team that wins will have both talent and experience. To put it differently, if they passed out skates and sticks to a random group of people here today, I guarantee we would do worse than Latvia, a team that has won no games and has been scored against four times more than they’ve scored. In other words, it’s no accident that teams like the United States and Canada end up near the top. We have the most experience in hockey. We have the deepest pockets of talent.

This may sound like the most obvious observation ever. Except I want to pose a question for you. We’ve been studying the Gospel of Mark, and today we come to a passage in which Jesus is in the Temple. Jesus is in the holiest place. He is at the center of faith and salvation for Jews and Gentiles around the world. Not only that, he is surrounded by the top religious leaders. This is like home ice with the top religious team present. You would think that we would be watching the equivalent of gold medal action as Jesus and the religious leaders talk, that this would be the spiritual equivalent of TED, when they bring some of the top minds in the world to talk about some of the most important ideas going. You would think this would be a thing of beauty.

But instead it’s a train wreck. Last week we saw that Jesus took a look at this center of faith and its leaders and condemned it as lifeless. In this week’s passage we have a series of confrontations between Jesus and these top religious leaders, who have devoted their entire lives to spiritual things. You have four different incidents in which the top religious leaders go after Jesus. And you have Jesus go after them with a story and a question before issuing a warning about the religious leaders.

To go back to hockey, it’s like if the team that practiced most gets worse and worse the harder they try. It’s like Team Canada being beaten by a bunch of five-year-old Timbits. It’s like the higher they go religiously, the further they move away from God.

This isn’t just an academic question, because there are a lot of us here this morning who are not quite at the level of these religious leaders, but we are pretty religious. This passage is a little like a warning label that comes with a prescription: side-effects of religion include the danger that you drift further and further away from Jesus until you’re opposed to him and he condemns you as spiritually dead.

Because we face this danger, I’d like to ask you to look with me at a story Jesus tells us that will help us understand the danger we face. The story comes in four parts. Not only does it help us understand why religious people end up far from God, it also helps us understand the whole story of Scripture and where we fit into it.

So let’s look at each of the four parts, beginning with part one.

Part One: The Vineyard

Mark 12:1 says:

Jesus 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 moved to another place.”

The story begins with a vineyard. It’s a great picture, because the people Jesus was addressing would have been familiar with vineyards, and even though we’re not exactly vineyard folk we can picture what this would have been like.

If you’ve done any gardening, you know the kind of work that it takes to turn a piece of land into something productive and beautiful. It takes planning, and then it takes work. Some of us know the opposite. We know it’s not hard to go the other direction: to take something that was a thing of beauty and see it degrade into a wild patch of weeds.

The picture you get in this passage is of a vineyard that has received a great deal of care and attention from the landowner. This was a new vineyard, so it would take at least four years of work before a crop could even be harvested. It’s a vineyard that has a wall, a pit, a winepress, and a watchtower. The owner has gone to a lot of work. He’s invested a lot in this project.

And then he does what was common in those days. He rents out the vineyard to workers who will care for it in his absence. The workers won’t own it; they will simply rent it. The price of rent would be some of the produce from this vineyard.

If you were one of Jesus’ listeners, you may have remembered a similar image from Isaiah 5:

I will sing for the one I love
a song about his vineyard:
My loved one had a vineyard
on a fertile hillside.
He dug it up and cleared it of stones

and planted it with the choicest vines.

He built a watchtower in it

and cut out a winepress as well.
(Isaiah 5:1-2)

What is this about? The vineyard is an image for God’s people, Israel. It is, the Bible tells us, the object of his love and care. God has invested heavily, providing everything that his people need. If you look through Scripture in Genesis, you see that once sin enters the world things go downhill. Everything you can think of happens. It’s like a garden gone wild. It’s all in a state of chaos. But in the middle of that mess God promises Abraham:

I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.
(Genesis 12:2-3)

God keeps this promise, building and preserving a nation, and delivering them from Egypt, leading them into their land. So you have a beautiful picture here of all that God has done to prepare for his people. It’s a care that extends to this day as well, to everyone who here who has heard the gospel and trusted in Christ’s name. God has lavished his care on every one of us.

Part Two: Rebellion

But, Jesus explains, things don’t go well. You get the most of the Old Testament, right to Jesus’ day, summarized in verses 2 to 5:

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.

Despite all that the owner has done, these people do not respond out of gratitude, nor do they keep their commitments. Instead, there’s a flat-out rebellion against the owner and his messengers. He keeps sending more and more messengers, and things get even worse. They start by beating but pretty soon they’re killing the messengers.

Again, it reminds us of Isaiah 5:

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,

but it yielded only bad fruit.
“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.
What more could have been done for my vineyard

than I have done for it?

When I looked for good grapes,

why did it yield only bad?
(Isaiah 5:2-4)

What is this about? Throughout the Old Testament, God had sent prophet after prophet to his people to remind them of the covenant, and to call them back to faithfulness. The people kept ignoring the prophets, and things kept getting worse and worse. The prophet Jeremiah put it this way:

From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their ancestors. (Jeremiah 7:25-26)

Some of the prophets were killed, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah, and Amos. The most recent prophet to have been sent and killed was John the Baptist. Jesus had just finished talking about him before telling this story.

What Jesus is saying is that God’s people have a long history of rebellion, of ignoring his prophets. The religious leaders in the temple stood in a long line of people who had rebelled against God. We stand in the same tradition today. One hymn says that we’re prone to wander, prone to leave the God we love. This begins to help us understand where the religious leaders of Jesus day went wrong – and where we can go wrong as well.

Part Three: Rejecting the Son

The story in Isaiah ends at this point. It ends on an awful note.

Now I will tell you

what I am going to do to my vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

and it will be destroyed;

I will break down its wall,

and it will be trampled.
I will make it a wasteland,

neither pruned nor cultivated,

and briers and thorns will grow there.

I will command the clouds

not to rain on it.
(Isaiah 5:5-6)

Isaiah is talking about foreign invasion here, and national destruction for the nation of Israel.

But Jesus’ story continues, and it takes a shocking turn.

“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 12:6-8)

What kind of father would risk sending his own son to these rebels after what they had done to all of the previous messengers?

And that’s exactly the point. God is that kind of owner. At incredible risk, God makes one final effort, one final appeal to his people. God does not give up on his people. He sends his own Son to them at the risk of his life.

But it’s not just at the risk of the Son’s life. It’s at the cost of that life. Because, as Jesus tells the story, they plot against that his life and take it, and throw the body out of the vineyard. They don’t even give the body the dignity of a proper burial.

This puts the arguments in Mark 11 and 12 in a completely different light. The religious leaders question Jesus’ authority. They ask questions to try to catch Jesus in a trap. They give the appearance of having theological issues with Jesus. But those are a smokescreen for the real issue. The real issue is that they have long been in rebellion against God, and now they are plotting to take the life of God’s very Son.

Mark is telling us that it’s possible to be religious, to even be at the top of the religious heap – gold medalists – and to be in direct opposition to God. It’s possible to be very spiritual, and yet oppose God.

And yet this passage tells us that God goes to every length to rectify the situation, going so far as to send his only Son, even at the risk of his Son’s life.

Part Four: Judgment and Hope

The story ends in this passage – and for us as well this morning – on a dual note. There is a note of judgment as this story ends. “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). To put it as simply as possible, to reject Jesus is to choose judgment. This is a horrible thing. To reject Jesus is to choose judgment.

But there’s a stunning twist. Jesus says, “He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.” There are going to be new tenants, new beneficiaries of his care. Jesus then quotes a passage of Scripture that is often quoted about Jesus from this point on. It’s apparently about a stone that was rejected as unsuitable as they were building the temple. Yet this very stone, originally rejected, ended up becoming the cornerstone. The one rejected ends up becoming the most important of all.

Haven’t you read this passage of Scripture:

”‘The stone the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
(Mark 12:10-11)

Jesus is saying that even his rejection and upcoming death accomplishes God’s purposes. Jesus’ rejection was foreseen, and God will even use that to bring glory to himself.

Do you see: Jesus is saying that even the most spiritual people, the most faithful attenders of church, can end up as enemies of God. But God has sent his own Son at the cost of that Son’s life so that he could lavish his care on us. To reject Jesus is to choose judgment; to put our trust in Jesus is to receive all of his blessings.

This passage is depressing, because the spiritual gold medalists end up losing not only the game, but everything. But this chapter is encouraging because it ends with two people who unexpectedly seem to get it. One is a religious leader. Jesus says he’s not far from the kingdom. There’s hope even for the religious! The other is the least likely person of all, not a spiritual gold medalist, but a widow who gives everything – literally in the Greek, who gives her whole life, just like Jesus has done for us.

If you’re a spiritual gold medalist, be warned. You’re in danger. But there’s hope for the most unlikely of people. There’s hope for you.

This morning’s passage is one that’s important on many levels. It’s got layers. It’s like one of those movies that has a plot, but underneath the plot are all these layers of meaning, and the more you look the more you see. It’s got surprises. Just when you think it’s going one way, it goes another. It’s puzzling at parts. This is a passage that gets under your skin.

But when you look at this passage you encounter a message that is just as important for us today as it was for the people who are in this story. The more I looked at this passage, the more I realized that it’s exactly what I need, and what you need as well.

So let me try to lead you to understand the two things that this passage is showing us. And then let me spend just a few minutes applying this to us today, and then we’re done.

The Coming of the Deliverer-King

If you’ve been with us so far as we’ve been going through Mark, you know that the tension has been building. Jesus has told his disciples:

“We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the 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 10:33-34)

You can picture what it would have been like for Jesus and the disciples as they join the massive crowds on the way to Jerusalem. They knew that things were coming to a head. Up until now Jesus had been avoiding confrontation with the religious leaders. Now he was heading right towards a head-on collision with them that would cost him his life.

So picture them as they travel from Jericho to Jerusalem. It was mandatory for all male Jews to go up to Jerusalem for the feasts of Pentecost, Tabernacles and Passover. Passover was the most popular. The population of Jerusalem tripled in size. You would have been with tens of thousands of people walking to Jerusalem to celebrate that God miraculously delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt.

Jericho is the lowest city on earth, 800 feet below sea level. Jerusalem is only about a dozen miles away, but is nearly 3,000 feet above sea level. The road goes through a hot, dry desert. Suddenly, as you approach Jerusalem, you would see the first signs of vegetation and the glorious sight of Jerusalem itself. You would see the temple – the place where God had chosen to place his name and present, where he assured Israel of forgiveness. The pilgrims would be singing the songs of ascent from the Psalms. The whole experience would take your breath away.

As Jesus and his disciples experience this, something strange happens. The entire book of Mark, Jesus has never gone anywhere except on his own two feet or in a boat. He’s walked everywhere, except on water – well, even then he’s walked sometimes. But here he asks his disciples to get a colt, a young donkey, on which nobody has ever sat. As he approaches Jerusalem, the crowds spread their cloaks on the road. What’s that about? In 2 Kings 9, Jehu is made king over Israel, and we read, “They quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, ‘Jehu is king!’” (2 Kings 9:13). You don’t throw cloaks on the dusty, stony road for just anyone. You do it for royalty.

They’re also spreading branches and singing, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” (Mark 11:10). Palm branches were a symbol of Jewish nationality and victory. Two hundred years before, Judas Maccabaeus defeated a Syrian king. He entered Jerusalem and cleansed and rebuilt the Temple. The people waved ivy and palm branches and sang hymns of praise. Judas started a royal dynasty that lasted a hundred years.

Put this all together. Jesus’ followers believe that he is the true and rightful king of Israel, come to Jerusalem to be seen as such. It’s the time of the Passover, the time of hope and remembrance of freedom. As Jesus arrives, Mark is screaming for us to realize the significance of what’s happening. To really understand, you have to know what the prophet Zechariah had predicted five hundred years earlier. Zechariah had written:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim

and the warhorses from Jerusalem,

and the battle bow will be broken.

He will proclaim peace to the nations.

His rule will extend from sea to sea

and from the River to the ends of the earth.
(Zechariah 9:9-10)

The promised deliverer-king is finally coming to Jerusalem. Psalm 72 said of him:

May he rule from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
May all kings bow down to him

and all nations serve him.
For he will deliver the needy who cry out,

the afflicted who have no one to help.
He will take pity on the weak and the needy

and save the needy from death.
May his name endure forever;
may it continue as long as the sun.
Then all nations will be blessed through him,
and they will call him blessed.
(Psalm 72:8, 11-13, 17)

Mark has been asking us to consider the question, “Who is Jesus?” Jared Wilson writes:

No man is probably more misunderstood than Jesus…We’ve spent decades selling a Jesus cast in our own image…The quasi-Puritan Jesus liked to smack you on the knuckles with a ruler when you got out of line. Later, we received Postcard Jesus – the Coppertoned, blond-haired blank-stare Jesus of the gold-framed portrait, a bland two-dimensional portrait occupying moral tales that help us to be better people. This flat portrait evolved into a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Jesus, and this Jesus has inspired millions to say a prayer to get his forgiveness – and then go on living lives devoid of his presence….Today we have an amalgamation of all – and more – of these Jesuses running rampant in the world and in the church…We’ve settled for the glossy portrait. We’ve used him, made him into types and stereotypes, taken his message out of context and made it about being a better person or being cool or helping us to help ourselves. (Your Jesus Is Too Safe)

Nobody is more misunderstood than Jesus. This morning’s passage is helping us to understand who Jesus is. He is more than a great teacher. He’s not just someone who was especially in tune with God’s presence and power. He is more than just our personal Lord and Savior. He is the long-promised king, the hope of the ages, the king who arrives to reign over the entire earth. That’s the first thing Mark is telling us in this passage. Jesus is the promised deliverer-king.

Before Peace, Judgment

But the second thing Mark tells us is that Jesus is not the king we would expect. They arrive in Jerusalem, and Jesus looks around at the temple. What happens? “He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve” (Mark 11:11). Talk about anticlimax. The tension has been building. You expect something to happen. And then this? It’s baffling.

Then there’s this incident with the fig tree. This fig tree has given people trouble for years. Jesus sees a fig tree from a distance. He goes to see if there’s any fruit on it. It’s not the time for fruit, but he curses it anyway, and the next day it’s withered. At first glance it looks like Jesus is being unreasonable and petulant. It’s the only miracle in the gospels in which Jesus brings death instead of life. What do you make of the fig tree?

And then Jesus goes into the temple and drives out the moneychangers and those who sell pigeons. What’s that about? It’s been misunderstood for years. People often think that it’s about selling things in the church, which I think misses the point of what’s really going on here.

This all looks baffling at first – until you understand what’s really happening here. The prophet Malachi had written:

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years. (Malachi 3:1-4)

What was Malachi saying? Israel had expected that when the Lord came, it would be good news. Malachi said that God would indeed appear in the temple one day, but not only in blessing. He would come in judgment. “Who can endure the day of his coming?” he asks. When the Lord comes to his temple, Malachi said that he would purify and he would judge.

In the passage we’ve been looking at this morning, the Lord has come to his temple. He came not as a pilgrim but as the sovereign Lord who suddenly comes to his temple. He looks examines it as one who has come to purify and to judge.

What about the fig tree? What’s that about? The key to understanding this is to realize that it’s actually not about the fig tree at all. It’s an enacted parable. Mark places it before and after he judges the temple so he can explain what’s actually happening here.

You see, it wasn’t the season for fruit. But as the leaves appear, there are usually small green figs forming as well that you can eat. This tree had all the appearance of having fruit despite it being early. Yet it as all an empty show. This was a fruitless, barren tree. It had all the appearance of health not no real fruit. Do you see what Jesus is saying? It was a visual parable for the temple: lots of activity, and the appearance of life, with no substance. The fig tree is all about Jesus appearing in the temple, and judging it as lifeless. Jesus arrives at the promised deliverer-king. But before he brings peace, he brings judgment.

The temple was a busy place. At Passover there would have been thousands of people there. There would be hundreds of tables to sell animals for the sacrifices, and hundreds of moneychangers. The historian Josephus tells us that in one Passover week one year, 255,000 lambs were bought, sold, and sacrificed. You know the financial trading floors, how loud and busy and chaotic they used to be? They were probably nothing compared to the temple during the week of Passover.

The temple was at the very center of their national faith and identity. It represented the very presence of God. It went to the very heart of their relationship with God. Jesus looks at it as the long-awaited king and sees that it looks alive, but it’s diseased and blighted. The place of prayer for Gentiles had become anything but that. It was, Jesus said, “a den of robbers.” He’s quoting from Jeremiah 7 there. It’s really not about the buying and selling that was taking place. He’s quoting from a passage that talks about the mindset that you can:

…steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”–safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 7:9-11)

Jesus pronounces judgment on the temple as he curses the fig tree, and when he overturns tables he’s again pronouncing judgment. As Malachi said, “Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple…But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?”

If this is the case, it’s very depressing. I hope we understand today who Jesus is. He’s the king, the Messiah, the one who comes to rule the whole earth, to bless the nations, to deliver the needy. But he doesn’t come only as the deliverer-king. He also comes to purify and to judge. He finds lots of religious activity, but no life. Where is the hope in all of this?

The hope for us is found in the last few verses of this passage:

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will happen, it will be done for you. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:22-24)

What is this? Is Jesus switching subjects and giving a lesson on prayer? No. Actually, Jesus has just pronounced judgment on the Temple. The prayer that should be happening there isn’t. It’s no longer going to be the locus of prayer. In just a few short years it’s going to be destroyed.

But Jesus envisioned a future without a temple. In its place would be a new praying community. Instead of only the appearance of life, this praying community would demonstrate mountain-moving faith centered on Jesus, who became the new and better temple and the sacrifice for our sins.

Have you seen Jesus as the promised deliverer-king? Have you realized that he sees through our religious appearances; that all our busyness and activity can’t hide the lack of true spiritual life? “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears?” Only those who are part of this praying community, who understand that the sacrifice Malachi talked about – “Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years” – that this sacrifice is Jesus himself.

When we’re young, we usually think that we’re original and unpredictable. Maybe it’s because we’re surprised by our own reactions, so we think that everyone else is as well. The longer we live, the more we are forced to realize that nobody else is surprised by our quirks and our shortcomings. The people who know you well often know what you’re going to say before you open your mouth. We’re about to say something, and the people around us can almost complete our sentence before we’ve even said anything. It’s actually kind of depressing to know that we’re that predictable.

What I’ve come to realize is that we are all fairly predictable. I don’t mean to say we never surprise. We all still do things that can surprise those around us. But the reality is that those who know us best can probably tell us what our blind spots are. They can identify our areas of strength, but then they can also probably say, “Yeah, if there’s anywhere you’re going to struggle, it’s going to be here.”

I want to go even further this morning and suggest that there’s an area of struggle that we all have in common. I’d go so far as to say that it’s our biggest blind spot. Saying that it’s a blind spot means that it’s not only a weakness, but we’re not aware that it’s a weakness. We all have this area of struggle, and the danger is that most of us don’t even recognize it as an area of struggle. We’re not even aware of the problem, so we don’t know the danger that we’re in.

In today’s passage, Jesus turns again to the disciples and tells them what’s ahead. They’re going to Jerusalem, and you can feel the charge in the air. The disciples know that something is up. Mark 10:32 says, “They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid.” The disciples realize that something is about to unfold that will change everything. They’re excited and amazed and filled with fear as they get closer to Jerusalem.

For the third time, and in the clearest way so far, Jesus explains what’s about to happen:

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 delivered over to the chief priests and the 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)

Can you imagine being on the road with Jesus, getting closer to Jerusalem, and hearing this? He’s been very clear. This is the third time that he’s made this prediction. Each time the disciples have bristled as they’ve heard it. But Jesus hasn’t wavered. He’s resolute and not at all unclear about what’s going to happen. You know that you’re part of Jesus’ inner circle, and so that if all of this is going to happen to him, things aren’t going to go to well for you either.

A couple of weeks ago you may have heard about a Toronto investment banker, who flew back to Toronto from Shanghai knowing that he would be arrested the minute he stepped off the airplane. Imagine if you were with him, and imagine that he told you that you would be arrested and imprisoned as his accomplice as well. You can understand why Jesus’ followers are astonished and afraid as they get closer to Jerusalem.

It’s important to notice what happens next. This is the third time that Jesus has predicted his arrest and death in Jerusalem, and the same thing happened very time. It happened at the end of chapter 8. It happened at the end of chapter 9. And it’s happening here again in chapter 10. Three times Jesus tells them what’s going to happen, and three times the disciples make the same mistake, and three times Jesus has to explain to them what the cross means for their lives. Do you think the Bible is trying to tell us something?

What’s the problem? Let’s look at today’s passage to unpack what our biggest blind spot is, and then let’s look at what this passage gives us as the antidote.

Our Biggest Blind Spot

So what’s our biggest blind spot? Do you realize that every time that Jesus tells them what lies ahead, the disciples completely fall apart? The first time, Peter takes Jesus aside to privately rebuke him. The second time they’re baffled but afraid to ask Jesus about it, and then start arguing about who is the greatest. This time, we’re going to see, two of them come and make a request of Jesus that is completely inappropriate.

So what’s our biggest blind spot? In broad terms, I think you can say that we have a hard time understanding the cross. I’m not talking about the sanitized versions of the cross that we have today – the cross necklace or the cross hanging at the front of a church. I’m not talking about singing hymns about the cross. I’m talking about the instrument of death, the means of execution. We’re very uncomfortable with the idea of Jesus – and by extension his followers – purposely going on the road knowing that what lies ahead is betrayal, condemnation, torture, and death. If you and I were told that following Jesus means that we will be signing up for a life of suffering and probably even death, we may have the same reaction as the disciples as well. We’d be baffled and afraid. We’d probably wonder what in the world we’re committing to.

Three times Jesus explains that following him means that we’re signing up for suffering and death, and three times the disciples basically say, “Does not compute.” All three times Mark shows us that the disciples have other ideas. In chapter 8, Jesus tells Peter, “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (Mark 8:33). In chapter 9, they start arguing who is the greatest. In chapter 10, two of the disciples make a request to Jesus that shows they’re still making the same mistake.

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)

In verse 41, the others hear about this request and they’re indignant. I’m sure they were indignant because they were appalled by the audacity of James and John. But I’m sure they were also indignant because James and John had beat them to the punch. They were appalled because they had the same desire to get ahead and to occupy positions of power and glory.

Again, when the same thing happens three times in a row, do you think that Jesus and Mark are trying to tell us something? We simply don’t understand following Jesus if it means following someone to our own suffering and death. We actually have other ideas. We dream about following Jesus to positions of greater honor and greater glory. Jesus walks us to our deaths, but we keep thinking that Jesus has other ideas. We keep thinking that Jesus is leading us to our greater glory, in which everyone finally realizes who we are, and when we finally get the glory that we deserve.

I’ve been in a lot of churches, and I’ve been in a lot of meetings. I always hear people dreaming of becoming a bigger church. We’re pretty good at couching it in godly terms. We talk about doing it for God’s glory. But I’ve never been in a church meeting yet in which somebody’s said, “You know, maybe we’ve got it backwards. What if as a church we really wrestled with becoming like children who can offer nothing, like Jesus said in Mark 10. Maybe we need to work at being helpless. Maybe as a church we really need to wrestle with what Jesus said: ‘Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all’ (Mark 10:43-44). Maybe we need to work at being a church that’s last, that becomes a servant of all.”

I was sitting in Starbucks this week and witnessed a recruiting session. The recruiter had a great business opportunity and was trying to reel the other guy in. He started dropping names of famous people he’s worked with. He pulled out a copy of Success magazine. He talked about how his income was growing to five figures a month. There was lots of talk about dreams and passions and coaching and motivational speaking. He never once said, “Let me tell you about an opportunity I can share with you. It won’t involve using any of your talents or skills, because honestly you have nothing to offer but your helplessness. It will involve you giving up positions of honor and letting everyone else go ahead of you. It will involve giving up all of your rights and becoming the last of all. And if you do it right you’ll probably get listed in Failure magazine.”

But that’s exactly what Jesus says.

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. (Mark 10:42-44)

So let’s review. We have a serious blind spot. Our blind spot is that we can’t really understand what Jesus is calling us to. If we’re honest, we all dream of self-advancement, of building a name for ourselves. We want a great reputation. We want to get ahead. We simply don’t understand that Jesus’ plan is the very opposite. Jesus wants us to admit our helplessness, to give up our rights. He calls us to take the very last place and become servants of all. He calls us to give up everything and follow him. He wants us to become servants. And as somebody has said, “You can tell whether you are becoming a servant by how you act when people treat you like one.” We probably agree with Plato a lot more than Jesus. Plato said, “How can anyone be happy when he is the slave of anyone else at all?” Our blind spot is that we’re a lot more likely to agree with Plato than we are with Jesus. We’re a lot more comfortable with being on top than being servants. We want Jesus but without his cross.

The Question

There’s a question in this passage that can help us as we wrestle with this blind spot. Imagine if Jesus asked you this question this morning. Verse 36: “‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked.” Imagine if Jesus asked you this question and you could say anything. What would you answer Jesus if he asked you, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Maybe our answer would be similar to that of James and John. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory” (Mark 10:37). They were asking to become Jesus’ righthand and lefthand men. They wanted to rise to the top. Maybe that’s a little like what most of us would ask for if Jesus asked us, “What do you want me to do for you?”

But there’s another way to answer this question. In verses 46 to 52 we come across a blind beggar. He’s got nothing. The crowd has no time for him. He’s got nothing to offer and no visions of grandeur. He’s even excluded from worship in the temple. But he recognizes Jesus and calls on him as the Son of David – a Messianic title – and simply pleads for mercy. He’s the least likely disciple. Jesus says in verse 51, “What do you want me to do for you?” He simply answers, “Rabbi, I want to see.” And as soon as Jesus heals him, he follows Jesus on the road. The reader knows where that road is going. A disciple, Mark is telling us, is someone who knows that he or she is blind, and who simply wants Jesus to grant eyesight so that we can follow him on the road wherever it leads.

How do we get there? We get there by understanding that this is the path Jesus himself took. This is the path that he calls us to take, because it’s the path that God himself took for our sakes.

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)

This is the clearest Jesus gets in explaining his purpose. Jesus did not come to achieve a position of greatness. He abandoned a position of greatness so that he could take the lowest place. He came to die to pay the price of freedom so that we could be set free. As Jonathan Edwards put it:

He suffered, that we might be delivered. His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, to take away the sting of sorrow, and to impart everlasting consolation. He was oppressed and afflicted, that we might be supported. He was overwhelmed in the darkness of death, that we might have the light of life. He was cast into the furnace of God’s wrath, that we might drink of the rivers of his pleasures. His soul was overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, that our hearts might be overwhelmed with a flood of eternal joy.

In 1700, a man was born into incredible power and wealth. His name was Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, or Count von Zinzendorf for short. He was a German nobleman and could expect to live a life of privilege and a career as a diplomat and landowner.

Zinzendorf pretty much ended up spending his wealth down to zero doing good deeds, pouring himself out for others. Why? What happened to him?

He was sent as a young man to visit the capital cities of Europe in order to complete his education. One day he found himself in the art gallery in Dusseldorf. He saw a painting by Domenico Feti entitled “Ecce Homo” (“Behold the Man”). It was a portrait of Christ before Pilate with the crown of thorns pressed down on his head and blood running down his face. It was very moving for Zinzendorf.

Underneath the painting, the artist had penned an inscription. It was the words of Jesus, and the words were: “All this I did for thee; what doest thou for me?” It shook Zinzendorf to the roots. Later on he said, “Then and there I asked Jesus Christ to draw me into the fellowship of his sufferings, and to open up a life of service for me.” He did, and he will.

Father, we see this morning that we are prone to get it all wrong. We have a hard time with the cross. We tend to seek our own glory. We want to be first.

But that’s not the way of the cross. We serve a Savior who gave up his place of power and privilege, and who became the a servant. You call us to follow him. As 1 John 3:16 tells us, “Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

May we see what Jesus has done on the cross, and as a result may we become servants of all, content to be last. In Jesus name, Amen.

Sometimes we like to think that Jesus is a nice addition to our lives; that he comes and makes things a little bit better. We think that he came to make good people even better.

Today we’re going to see that nothing can be further from the truth. Today Jesus is going to go into three areas of our lives and turn things completely upside down. Even worse, these are three critical areas. You don’t get more personal than marriage, our view of people, and money. Today’s passage let’s us see how Jesus completely overturns our normal way of seeing things, and how he institutes something completely new, something far beyond what we could come up with ourselves.

So let’s look at this passage as simply as we can this morning, and look at three things: our world’s story, the kingdom story, and how we can make the switch.

First: Let’s look at the world’s story

This week I was standing on a subway platform watching the news on the monitors. I saw that a homicide had taken place in Newmarket at the GO station that I used to use way back when I was dating Charlene. I thought about it for a second and then moved on before catching myself. Why was I able to read about something as brutal as the homicide of a person and then just go on with my business? We are so used to the old story that we don’t know any different. We think it’s normal, the way it’s supposed to be.

You and I are not surprised by the brokenness of the world. When we get the newspaper, we aren’t surprised to read about crime and corruption and negative politics. When we get a credit card, we aren’t surprised that we have to sign the back or learn the PIN number. We expect that theft will happen. When you go to a store, you don’t expect that you can cash yourself out and make change from the cash drawer. You know that would never work. We recognize that we live in a broken world. We have grown used to it and we even think it’s normal.

In the passage before us, Jesus identifies this pattern in three areas of our lives:

Marriage – Notice the question in verse 2: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” This wasn’t an innocent question. Verse 1 tells us that Jesus is back in Judea, in Herod’s territory. Herod is the one who had John the Baptist killed for questioning his divorce and his marriage to his brother’s sister. So they’re not really interested in Jesus’ answer as much as they are in trapping him. Verse 2 even tells us that they asked this question in order to trap Jesus.

When Jesus asks them what the Bible says about marriage, they even refer to Deuteronomy 24, in which Moses gave laws regulating and controlling divorce under strict guidelines. You’ll notice that Jesus asks what Moses commanded; they answer what Moses permitted. He never commanded divorce; he merely permitted it due to the sin and brokenness in the world. But divorce had become commonplace. By the time that the Pharisees asked Jesus this question, the common view was that a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason. The historian Josephus divorced his second wife because he was “displeased with her behavior.” One rabbi allowed a husband to divorce his wife if she spoiled a meal, or merely “if he found another fairer than she.” They took divorce for granted as something that is almost inevitable. We’re not that different. We’re saddened by marriage breakups but we’re not shocked. We’ve come to accept brokenness in the most intimate of relationships as almost being normal.

What happened is they took a concession to human sinfulness and made it the norm. It’s a little like trying to learn how to fly by following the rules for a crash landing. You don’t get in an airplane expecting it’s going to crash. But divorce was so common that people then – and today – almost expect it to happen.

People – Then there’s people. It’s easy to miss the brokenness in verses 13 to 16 because our culture is so different. It’s easy to miss what it’s getting at. In Jesus’ day, children were not highly valued. Childhood was seen as an unavoidable interim period between birth and adulthood. Children really didn’t contribute much to a family. They consumed lots of resources but gave very little in return. Six out of ten children died before the age of 16. Children were seen as the least important members of society.

So when people brought their little children to Jesus in verse 13, you understand why the disciples rebuked them. These children were inconveniences. They were people of very little value.

If we’re honest, we’ll admit that there are people who don’t matter much. They really don’t rank. We look down on them and push them away because we have no time for them. At the very least we’re used to ranking people based on their perceived importance and treating them according to where they rank.

Last year we ran a workshop here at the church. I was running around at the last minute trying to get everything done. We were encouraging people to come through the front doors. I was running through my office when somebody rang the buzzer. I don’t know why people are so stupid, I thought. So I answered the buzzer and was a little bit short. I asked them to go to the front doors and I’m sure I said with my attitude that they shouldn’t bother me anymore. About thirty seconds later I realized that these were not conference attendees. They were the conference leaders. I treated them like dirt because I assigned them to a class of people I really didn’t have time for at the moment.

In this passage we come to realize that we do the same thing. We tend to write off people who are less important. We walk in a room and size up the important people, and those we’d rather avoid. This is part of the world’s story, and we’ve become used to it.

Money and Success – The last area Jesus deals with could be the hardest. A man comes to Jesus who has a lot going for him. People would have assumed that God had blessed him, because he’s rich and moral. As he talks to Jesus he demonstrates that he has a good understanding of Scripture. What’s more, he’s moral. Mark 10:21 says, “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Even Jesus loved him.

This man embodies success. He is everything that we long to be. He’s successful; he’s wealthy; he’s a good man. He knows the Scriptures. Even Jesus loves him. We would be proud to have this man as a member in our church. Jesus could benefit from having such a person as a disciple. It never hurts to have someone with some cash, especially when he’s well respected and likable. But Jesus does the unthinkable and asks him to liquidate his entire net worth and give it all away. The man, saddened, leaves. I can imagine the disciples stunned as they watch the man walk away.

What we see in this passage is a complete rejection of the world’s story by Jesus. Jesus identifies three things we know to be true in this world and completely rejects them:

• We know that relationships fracture and blow apart, even marriages.
• We know that we can’t treat everyone equally, and that some people are less important and can’t offer us as much as others.
• We understand that the goal is to become a good and successful person.

Jesus looks at all of this and rejects all of it. What he’s telling us is that life is very different in his kingdom. He’s leading a revolution that turns everything upside down.

What’s the alternative? What’s the kingdom story?

In July 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean off of Martha’s Vineyard. The probable cause was pilot error, spatial disorientation. One pilot explained the disorientation that can happen when you fly by sight only without the proper training:

The airplane’s flight path creates forces that befuddle one’s awareness of earth’s gravity. To judge by the sensations in the seat of your pants, you literally can’t tell up from down, left from right. You are as helpless to move out of the airplane’s acceleration field as you would be if you were pinned to the side of a spinning circus centrifuge when the floor drops away.

And here is the crux of the matter: the pilot’s emotions drowned out the flight instruments’ story about banking and diving at high speed, and screamed out, No way! It can’t be! I’m actually flying straight and level! I know it! I feel it’s true!…

Following your heart will kill you, as it killed young Kennedy, and thousands of other pilots over the years who have failed to recover from a graveyard spiral.

What Jesus tells us in this passage is that we’re flying completely disoriented, and it’s going to kill us. And he pulls us from the world’s story to the kingdom story in these three areas:

Marriage – Jesus essentially says we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking when we can divorce, Jesus says we should be asking what God’s original design was for marriage. Jesus says:

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “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 no one separate.” (Mark 10:6-9)

What’s he saying? He’s saying that in the kingdom, the question isn’t when divorce is permissible. The kingdom question is how we can live into the story of God’s design for marriage. You see the original intention here of:

• lifelong commitment
• intimacy – that the whole lives are intertwined as one flesh
• permanence

In his kingdom, Jesus says, the question is not when we’re allowed to divorce, but how we can live into this story instead of the world’s story. In a group this big there are going to be some who have experienced failure in this area of life. You know how horrible divorce is. Jesus and others in Scripture deal with questions of how to handle this. As we’re going to see in a moment, there’s hope for even those of us who have failed. But in the kingdom story, failure won’t be assumed, because we will be looking for ways to live out the kingdom story in our marriages.

People – Jesus says: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Mark 10:14). In the kingdom, the people who matter least matter a lot to Jesus. The kingdom means welcoming and embracing people who can do nothing for you in return, people that nobody else has time for. In the kingdom’s story, the people everyone else avoids are not only welcomed but embraced. Jesus has time to receive them and to bless them. The least powerful, the least wealthy, the least influential have a greater prospect of entering the kingdom than those who are powerful, wealthy, and influential.

Money and Success – In the kingdom, the world’s view of success is turned upside down. We look at the rich, moral, successful, and well-liked and admire those qualities, even aspiring to have them for ourselves. But in the kingdom, the very thing the world values can become impediments to participating in the kingdom story. Jesus says, “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 the rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:24-25). This is sobering, because the poorest among us have a lifestyle that the rich in Jesus’ day couldn’t have imagined. Our riches and our success get in the way of living the kingdom story. This man had kept many of the commandments, but he had broken the first commandment, the one that is the foundation for the rest. He may have been moral, but he had gods before the one true God. Haddon Robinson says:

For every verse in the Bible that tells us the benefits of wealth, there are ten that tell us the danger of wealth, for money has a way of binding us to what is physical and temporal, and blinding us to what is spiritual and eternal. It’s a bit like the fly and the flypaper. The fly lands on the flypaper and says, “My flypaper.” When the flypaper says, “My fly,” the fly is dead. It is one thing to have money, another for money to have you. When it does, it will kill you.

As somebody said years ago, it’s difficult for a person to have riches and not to love them. It’s difficult for a person to have riches, and not be proud because of them. It’s difficult for a person to have riches, and not be corrupted by them. And it’s difficult for a person to have riches and not trust in them. “To place our confidence in anything but God is certain ruin” (Charles Simeon).

Jesus gets to the heart of all this when he says, “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” In other words, the kingdom story is completely upside down from the world’s story. If you’re flying according to the world’s story, you’re flying like John F. Kennedy Jr. “Following your heart will kill you, as it killed young Kennedy, and thousands of other pilots over the years who have failed to recover from a graveyard spiral.”

So how can we make the transition from the world’s story to the kingdom story?

Really, one of the keys to this passage is seeing the contrast between two of the characters. The rich man has everything. He’s moral. He’s rich. He’s successful. But he walks away living according to the world’s story. “At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:22).

But there’s another set of characters in this passage who show us how we can enter the kingdom story. In Mark 10:14-16 Jesus says:

Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, 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, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

We have to become like a little child in order to enter the kingdom, Jesus says. What did he mean by this? That we have to become innocent like children, spontaneous, or humble? I believe what Jesus identifies is none of these qualities, but the essential quality necessary for entering the kingdom: helplessness. As one commentator puts it:

In this story children are not blessed for their virtues but for what they lack: they come only as they are – small, powerless, without sophistication, as the overlooked and dispossessed of society. To receive the kingdom of God as a child is to receive it as one who has no credits, no clout, no claims. A little child has nothing to bring, and whatever a child receives, he or she receives by grace on the basis of sheer neediness rather than by any merit inherent in him – or herself. Little children are paradigmatic disciples, for only empty hands can be filled. (J.R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark)

We are flying upside down. We’re spatially disoriented because the kingdom’s story seems upside down.

This morning you’re invited to become a little child and come to Jesus, the one who obtained an upside-down victory – triumphing through the cross – so that we could live.

Father, we are so used to living according to the world’s story that we don’t even see the alternative. Thank you for showing us this morning that there’s a different way, and that it touches the most intimate areas of our lives: marriage, how we see people, and even our ideas of success.

Thank you for showing us that we can come as children, empty handed – no credit, no clout, no claims. And thank you that we can receive all the riches of Christ by sheer grace and through no merit of our own. So we come. May you turn us right-side up so we can grasp what Christ has done for us, and live according to the kingdom’s values. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

We’re looking at a passage this morning that’s going to be enormously helpful for us as a church and as individuals. At first glance it looks like a hodgepodge of sayings about different topics: infighting, children, exclusion, and temptation. But it’s far more than this. This passage is actually one that begins with us as we are, reveals what’s wrong with us, identifies the sin underneath the sin, brings us to the solution, and then gives us a picture of what the results could look like.

So let’s look at this passage, and let’s begin by asking what this passage reveals what’s wrong with us.

We’ve now reached the part in the Gospel of Mark at which Jesus focuses the majority of his attention on training the disciples. He’s preparing them for ministry, so that they can carry on after he’s gone. But Jesus knows that there are some very significant issues in their lives. If we’re honest, we’re going to have to admit that they are problems in our lives too.

What are these problems? The first problem that this passage identifies is self-absorption. Mark 9:33-34 says:

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.

This is shocking, isn’t it? We are not usually so blatant as the disciples were. We’re shocked when people admit to this problem. Ashleigh Brilliant is a cartoonist and an author, and he spoke for us all when he wrote these words: “All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance.” And if we’re honest, we would have to admit that this is our problem too.

The disciples were following Jesus. They understood that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. This means that they were closely connected to the deliverer who would rescue Israel and gain status and honor and even worship. They began to think about how they could place themselves so that they could milk their relationship with Jesus so that they too could receive positions of power and glory.

A friend of mine works with a ministry to athletes. He was driving with some hockey stars one night when they were pulled over by the police. The officer came up and began as usual. “Do you know how fast you were driving, sir?” He shone the flashlight into the car and then yelled back to his fellow officer. “Hey, do you know who’s in here?” He began looking at each of the passengers in the car, each of whom was a professional and well-known hockey player. Then he shone the flashlight on my friend. “Who are you?” he asked. “Nobody.” “You’ve got to be somebody. What team did you play for?” “I didn’t play for anyone. I’m nobody.”

We all have the desire, don’t we, for the flashlight to be shone on us, and for somebody to say, “Who are you? You must be somebody!” We crave the status and approval of others, and we desperately want to be on top, even at the expense of others.

This even happens among Christians. I’ve been reading The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards was one of the greatest theologians and pastors in American history. His wife records a period of intense spiritual growth and delight in God. Do you know one of the evidences she mentions of God working in her life? That if a visiting preacher came, and God really moved through that visiting preacher instead of her husband, she would be okay with that. I read that and thought, “You struggle with that? You spiritual midget!” No, I thought, “I can relate to that too.” We all struggle with being self-absorbed, and this passage puts a finger on this problem.

The second problem is very closely related. It’s judging others based on our own insecurity. Mark 9:38 says, “‘Teacher,’ said John, ‘we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us’” – literally because he was not following us. On one hand, this looks very wise. Exorcists in that day would use the name of any deity that they thought would work in order to cast out demons. It’s possible that this man didn’t even believe in Jesus. Can you imagine the problems that could come with allowing just anyone to run around doing this? He hadn’t been with Jesus, hadn’t been trained by Jesus like the disciples.

It’s interesting that John never said, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following you.” He said, “”Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” The real issue seems to come out here. The concern has the appearance of being a noble one, but it’s hiding something far more sinister. This man was a blow to their sense of identity. It undermined their special status. They had just failed to cast out a demon shortly before this, and here was this man who wasn’t even one of them casting out demons, apparently with success. They were not happy, but it wasn’t primarily out of a concern for Jesus. It was out of their own insecurity.

Again, this still happens today. Jesus spoke of love as the distinguishing mark that characterizes his disciples. We aren’t generally known for our love. We are pretty good at expressing concerns about other groups that name Jesus because they’re different from us. We can even make it sound good and noble. But often it’s just a cover for our own insecurity.

This isn’t just about churches. It can also apply to us as individuals. It’s very easy to express concerns about other people. “Why don’t you talk to her anymore?” “Haven’t you heard. I just can’t agree with the way they do X.” The real reason, of course, is because they are a threat to our identity. We dress it up, but that’s the core issue. That’s the second issue that this passage identifies.

One more issue: not taking sin seriously. If you read verses 42 to 48, you can’t help but notice the over-the-top language. You’ve got people being drowned, body parts being cut off, people being thrown into hell. This is very intemperate language. It’s not at all the type of language that you would expect to hear from Jesus.

Of course, you’re right to be surprised by the language. Jesus uses hyperbole in this passage. He’s intentionally overstating his point. We know this because Scripture elsewhere forbids self-mutilation. Jesus is intentionally overstating his case so that we understand the severity of sin. No sin is worth going to hell for. It’s far better to deal with sin and temptation severely than to have our souls destroyed by sin. Nothing less than eternal life and death is at stake. We can’t afford to fool around with sin.

Why does Jesus say this? Because he’s putting his finger on a third problem. We tend to minimize sin and its effects. We think it’s not a big deal. We do not take the necessary steps to eradicate sin from our lives. We tend to tolerate it, wink at it, think that it’s no big deal. Jesus says it will destroy us, and that dealing with these areas is more important than even the things that are indispensable to us.

So look at what this passage is putting its finger on. These are three problems that probably characterize everybody here. We’re self-absorbed, wanting to be noticed, wanting to be somebody. We put others down and make it look good, when the real issue is actually our own insecurity. We don’t take our own sin seriously. We are far too ready to tolerate things that can destroy us and destroy others. As a result you have bickering and exclusion and patterns of sin that are nurtured. It’s not a pretty picture.

Why does this passage put its finger on these issues? It’s because they are characteristics of a pattern of behavior that reveals an underlying problem. That’s the second thing we need to see.

Let’s look at the sin that’s underneath all the sins that this passage has identified.

At first glance, we said, this looks like a hodgepodge of unrelated issues. It almost seems like somebody who’s confronting you and listing all of the things about you that bug them. You feel like saying, “Enough! Just deal with one sin. I can’t handle the grocery list.”

If you look carefully at this passage, though, you realize that Jesus isn’t dealing with a grocery list of sins. Under all these sins is one underlying sin. There’s one underlying issue that shows itself in our pride, our judging of others, and our willingness to tolerate sin.

What do I mean? If you study Mark carefully, you’ll notice that Jesus repeats the same pattern here that he did back in chapter 8. He predicts his own suffering; he corrects a mistake in the disciples; and then he clarifies what it means to follow him in light of his suffering. In other words, the fundamental issue here is a failure to understand that we serve a Savior who went to the cross, and who invites us to follow him and suffer. This is a huge issue for us. Ajith Fernando writes:

I think one of the most serious theological blind spots in the western church is a defective understanding of suffering. There seems to be a lot of reflection on how to avoid suffering and on what to do when we hurt. We have a lot of teaching about escape from and therapy for suffering, but there is inadequate teaching about the theology of suffering. Christians are not taught why they should expect suffering as followers of Christ and why suffering is so important for healthy growth as a Christian.

Do you know why the disciples were struggling with all of these problems? Because they hadn’t yet grasped what Jesus was going to do. They thought Jesus was a victorious conquerer. They had no category for a Messiah who would suffer and be killed. We read:

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 delivered over to human hands. He will be killed, 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)

The fundamental problem is that the disciples failed to grasp the way to the cross as not only the path Jesus would take, but the path that they were called to take as well.

You see, if they had understood that Jesus was walking on ahead to a sacrificial death, they would have realized how ludicrous it is to push and shove to establish the order of the procession behind him. When you’re marching to a cross, you stop pushing to get to the front of the line. If they had understood that Jesus was laying his life down in service by going to the cross, they wouldn’t be threatened by somebody casting out demons who wasn’t part of their group, because servants don’t get threatened. They aren’t worried about their position; they are worried about serving. If they understood the lengths to which Jesus would go in order to offer his life for them, they would understand not only the seriousness of sin, and offered their lives without restraint in return.

In other words, their problem was not just a whole bunch of unrelated sins. Their problem was one underlying issue: they hadn’t grasped the cross. They hadn’t yet understood that Jesus would suffer and die. And they hadn’t worked out the implications of this for their lives.

It’s the same with us. Whatever issue you are facing in your life, you can trace it back to one underlying issue: you haven’t yet worked out the implications of the cross in that area of your life. As somebody has put it:

The main problem, then, in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel – a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. (Tim Keller)

When we understand the cross, and when we understand that we have been called not only to enjoy the benefits of the cross, but to follow Christ in giving our lives away, then we will be transformed in these areas.

So let’s look as we close at what would happen if we lived this way.

Do you know where this really works itself out? It works itself out in our relationships. One of the characters in a novel said:

I love mankind…[but] the more I love mankind in general, the less I love human beings in particular…I am unable to spend two days in the same room with someone else…No sooner is that someone else close to me than his personality…hampers my freedom. In the space of a day and a night I am capable of coming to hate even the best of human beings: one because he takes too long over dinner, another because he has a cold and is perpetually blowing his nose. (The Brothers Karamazov)

Can you relate? If we are really shaped by the gospel it will affect the way we live in community.

So, according to verses 35 to 37, we’ll stop worrying about our own status, and we’ll become servants to all – even to an infant. In those days, children weren’t romanticized like they are today. They were seen as insignificant, dependent, vulnerable, and unlearned. They consumed and demanded much more than they gave. But Jesus says that when we’re shaped by the cross, we’ll stop worrying about our status and we’ll willingly serve even the last and the least.

In verses 38 to 41, the disciples are threatened by this rogue disciple. But Jesus throws open his arms and welcomes not only rogue disciples who claim his name, but also those who do the smallest task – offering a cup of cold water. When we see ourselves as servants, and when we understand how Christ has welcomed us, then we’ll be ready to welcome others as well.

Then, as we close, there’s verses 49 and 50:

Everyone will be salted with fire. “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.”

What in the world does this mean? What does it mean to be salted with fire? There is one place where salt and fire came together: when offering a sacrifice. Leviticus 2:13 says, “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.” What Jesus says here is that following him is like making your life a burnt offering. It’s total and irrevocable. Then he uses salt in a different way, referring to its preserving and purifying qualities. When we maintain our saltiness, he says, we will be at peace with each other. There won’t be fighting and quarreling. We will be at peace with each other. Jesus calls us to live cross-shaped lives of humility and service.

There’s so much wrong with us. But we will never deal with the sins until we get to the underlying issue of becoming cross-shaped. And when our lives become cross-shaped, we will live lives of humility and service and become a community of people transformed by the gospel.