Author: David Petts

Talk 43   Mark 14:27-52 The Garden of Gethsemane

Welcome to Talk 43 in our series on Mark’s gospel. Today we’re looking at Mark 14:27-52. This is a long passage and so to save time we will not read through it in advance. In verses 27-31 Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him. In verses 32-42 we read of Jesus’ agonised prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane and of his disciples’ failure to support him in his time of need. And in verses 43-52 we read how Judas betrays him and how Jesus is arrested. The overall theme of the passage is the contrast between the commitment of Jesus to do his Father’s will whatever the consequences and his disciples’ weakness and failures.

Jesus predicts Peter’s denial 27-31

27. “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” 29 Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” 30 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “today – yes, tonight – before the cock crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” 31 But Peter insisted emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And all the others said the same.

Jesus has just eaten the Passover meal with his disciples, at the end of which verse 26 tells us that, When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. On their way there, Jesus predicts, not only that Peter will deny him, but that all his disciples will fall away. How does Jesus know this? We saw last time that Jesus knew in advance much of what was about to happen. And this knowledge sprang from his intimate communion with his heavenly Father.

Much of that knowledge came from the understanding that certain verses of the Old Testament applied to him directly. God often speaks to us through scripture, but sometimes he speaks directly to us without reference to scripture. Perhaps, as Jesus studied the Old Testament, God quickened certain scriptures to him and Jesus knew that those words applied to him.

The quote in verse 27 is from Zechariah 13:7. Jesus saw his disciples as a little flock of which he was the shepherd. He knows that his arrest and imminent crucifixion would shake their faith, and so he warns them in advance, but offers them hope by reminding them that he will rise from the dead and will see them again in Galilee. But Peter, always the one to speak up too hastily, protests:

Even if all fall away, I will not.

No doubt his protest was sincere, but it was seriously mistaken. Firstly, it was a contradiction in terms. The word all implies there are no exceptions. If all will fall away, then Peter will fall away. But more seriously, it was a contradiction of the prophetic scripture and a contradiction of the Lord Jesus himself. But, as we have seen on other occasions, Peter was not afraid to contradict Jesus, if he didn’t like what Jesus was saying.

We need to beware of not taking seriously what God has said to us and of making rash promises to God. Our commitment to him should be thought through and weighed carefully. Jesus’ reply is not based on a word of scripture, but on direct revelation from God himself. It’s a very specific prophecy which is fulfilled to the letter later in the chapter, even though at this stage Peter refuses to believe it.

But before we criticise Peter too severely, we need to remember that all the others said the same (v31). They may not have denied Jesus as Peter did, but they all failed to support Jesus in the hour of his greatest need, falling asleep instead of praying as Jesus had asked them to (vv.37, 44; Luke 22:46).  

The Garden of Gethsemane 32-42

32. They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

35 Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” 37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

39 Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. 40 When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him. 41 Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42 Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

In this passage we see a contrast between the failure of all the disciples and the commitment of Jesus to do his Father’s will whatever the cost.

The failure of all the disciples

If we compare it with the parallel passages in Matthew 26 and Luke 22, the sequence of events seems to have been as follows:

Jesus leads his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. He tells them all that he is going to spend some time in prayer and that they must pray that they will not fall into temptation. He then takes Peter, James and John with him and, becoming deeply distressed and troubled, he shares his grief with them, saying, My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death and tells them to pray and keep watch, but they all completely fail to do so. Jesus returns to them no less than three times, and on each occasion finds them all sleeping. They have failed to give him support in his most urgent time of need.

And it’s going to get worse before it gets better! Judas is coming to betray him. And Jesus’ prophecy that they will all fall away (v27) is about to be fulfilled. They will all desert him and flee (v50). But before we attempt to account for such a failure, and then finish by considering Jesus’ commitment to his Father’s will, let’s just read the rest of today’s passage to remind ourselves of what happens when Jesus is arrested.

43 Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. 44 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” 45 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. 46 The men seized Jesus and arrested him. 47 Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. 48 “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? 49 Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” 50 Then everyone deserted him and fled. 51 A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, 52 he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.

I think this passage pretty much speaks for itself, but let’s just add in a few extra details that we find in the other Gospels. John 18:10 tells us that it was Peter who cut off the servant’s ear, and Luke 22:57 tells how Jesus healed it. And Matthew 52-54 records that Jesus said:

Put your sword back in its place, …for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

In fairness to Peter, perhaps he was trying to make up for his failure to stay awake and keep watch. Or was he acting out of fear? We’re not told, but at all events it was a foolish thing to do in the light of the fact that Judas was accompanied by a whole crowd of people armed with swords and clubs. Jesus responds to Peter’s aggressive action by replacing the man’s ear, thus reminding Peter both of his supernatural power and of the heart of his message – Jesus had not come to destroy life, but to save it. He points out to Peter three things:

1.    The danger of relying on human resources

2.    The power and resources of God at Jesus’ disposal

3.    The fact that the Scriptures must be fulfilled.

Jesus’ words and actions were determined by his knowledge of God’s redemptive plan for the salvation of mankind. He had pleaded with God that, if it were possible, he might be released from the way of the cross. But he knew that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. His kingdom was not to be achieved by military violence and force, but by love and sacrifice and suffering. He was not leading a rebellion (v48). He had come to save – even those who had come to arrest him.

So the disciples, exemplified by Peter, got it wrong again and again. But how do we account for their failure? Jesus gives us the answer in verse 38 – the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The Greek word for flesh here is sarx. This is sometimes used in the New Testament simply to refer to our body, but it can also refer to our fallen nature and moral weakness. In Galatians 5, for example, the deeds of the flesh are contrasted with the fruit of the Spirit. Here, in Mark 14, it probably refers to both. The disciples’ sleepiness was due to the weakness of their bodies, but there is also an indication of a failure in character. There is a gentle reproach in verse 37 when Jesus says, Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour?

Of course, we’ve all been there! Despite our best intentions we have failed to do what we know we ought to do. Paul deals with this at the end of Romans 7 and concludes that the key to victory is through Jesus Christ our Lord (v25). In our own strength we will fail, but through Christ, the Holy Spirit has set us free from the tendency to sin (Romans 8:2). If we walk in the Spirit we will not fulfil the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

But the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane had not yet received the Holy Spirit. That was to happen after Jesus had died, risen again, and sent the Spirit. After they had experienced the resurrection and been filled with the Spirit at Pentecost, they were changed men. They were not perfect, but they had received a power by which they could live in victory as long as they followed the leading of the Spirit. And rather than deserting Jesus, they now counted suffering for the sake of Jesus a privilege and rejoiced that they had been allowed to do so (Acts 5:41). And all this became possible for them, and also for us, because of Jesus’ commitment to do his Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The commitment of Jesus to do his Father’s will

Mark tells us that Jesus was deeply distressed and troubled. He was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. And so he asks his disciples to pray and then moves away from them to be in solitude with God. He prays that, if it’s possible, the hour might pass from him. Of course he doesn’t want to die. No one would choose to be crucified. He knew that, if he asked him to, God would give him more than twelve legions of angels to deliver him (Matthew 26:53).

Make no mistake about it. Jesus had a choice. He did not have to drink the cup of God’s wrath. Even at that late hour, everything was possible with God. There was a way to escape the cross. But at what cost? The salvation of his disciples was in his hands. Your salvation and mine. Jesus sees in the weakness and failings of his own disciples my weakness and failings too. He finds them sleeping instead of praying. He knows that Peter will deny him. He knows that they will all desert him. And he knows that his destiny is to be the Lamb that must be sacrificed to atone for the sins of the whole world. This he had agreed with his Father from before time began.

And so, out of commitment to his Father’s will, out of commitment to God’s fore-ordained plan, and out of commitment to his disciples, he prays, Nevertheless, Father, your will be done. Thank God that he did!

Talk 42  Mark 14:12-26  The Last Supper

Welcome to Talk 42 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Today we’re looking at Mark 14:12-26. The subject is the Last Supper. It was to be the last meal that Jesus ate with his disciples before he was crucified. It was the feast of the Passover when the Jews annually remembered the way in which God had led their ancestors out of Egypt.

You will of course remember that the Israelites had been in captivity in Egypt and how Moses had constantly demanded of Pharaoh to let God’s people go. In the end, God said that he would smite all the firstborn of Egypt because of Pharaoh’s constant refusal to do as he demanded. The Israelites were told to daub the blood of a lamb on the doorposts and lintels of their houses so that the angel of death would pass over them and their firstborn would not die.

Now Jesus, the Lamb of God who was to take away the sin of the world by the shedding of his blood on the cross, gives the Passover meal a whole new meaning. In fact, his followers who are to become the new Israel, will have a far greater deliverance to celebrate, their deliverance from the bondage of sin, and will regularly share bread and wine together to remind themselves of all that Jesus has done for them. The Christian communion service replaces for us the Passover meal.

The Gospel accounts vary a little in places, but we’ll concentrate on Mark while noting a few extra details that we find in Matthew and Luke. As we now read through the passage, I’d like you to notice the many things that Jesus already knew about all that was going to happen.

12 On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” 13 So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. 14 Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” 16 The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me – one who is eating with me.” 19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?” 20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” 23 Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.” 26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

In this passage I see five things that Jesus clearly knew:

·       He knew the details of where they would eat the Passover

·       He knew what Judas would do and what would happen to him

·       He knew that scripture must be fulfilled

·       He knew that he was going to die and why it was necessary

·       He knew that God would vindicate him.

So now let’s look at the passage in a little more detail and see what we can learn from each of these aspects of Jesus’ knowledge.

He knew the details of where they would eat the Passover

The disciples ask Jesus where he wants them to make the preparations for the Passover meal. So Jesus sends two of his disciples (who, incidentally, we know from Luke 22:8, were Peter and John), and tells them to go into Jerusalem where they will meet a man carrying a jar of water. They are to follow him and go into the house he enters.

They are to say to the owner of the house, The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He will show them a large upper room, furnished and ready. It’s there they are to make the final preparations for the meal. And Mark tells us that the disciples found things just as Jesus had told them.

Of course, some of these things Jesus could have known at a natural level. He could have made previous arrangements with the owner of the house, and he could have known that the owner had a man servant who sometimes carried water for him – something unusual in those days as normally it was the women who carried water. But it seems far less likely that Jesus, without supernatural knowledge imparted by the Holy Spirit, would have known that the man would be carrying water at exactly the time the disciples went into the city or even that the disciples would have crossed paths with him. But the disciples found everything just as Jesus had told them, just as they had when he had sent them to find the donkey on which he was to ride into Jerusalem in Mark 11.

Jesus was a man, and as man there were things he knew in the same way that all human beings know them. But he was a man who lived in close fellowship with his Father, God – indeed, he was God – and there were things he knew by divine revelation. And such revelation is available to us too, as we are filled with the Spirit and in live in close relationship with our heavenly Father. And when we receive such supernatural revelation, it’s possible to know that we know, just as certainly as we know that we know some things at a natural level.

He knew what Judas would do and what would happen to him

Verses 10 and 11 tell us that Judas had already gone to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them and that they were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So Judas was looking for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them. There are many theories as to why Judas did this, but in my view it’s pointless to speculate. But two things are clear. First, whatever his motivations, Judas was responsible and accountable for his own actions. In verse 21 Jesus says:

…woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.

But secondly, it’s clear that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus was already predicted in Scripture. Jesus says:

The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man!…

And in Acts 1:16, no doubt remembering what Jesus had said, Peter says:

Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas, who served as a guide for those who arrested Jesus…

But, people ask, was this fair? How could God hold Judas responsible for his actions if, long before he was born, the Scripture predicted that he would do so? For me, the key to the answer to such questions lies in the understanding that, although God knows in advance the things we will do, it does not mean that he makes us do those things. If I watch a video of my children that I’ve already seen, I know what they’re going to do next, but that does not mean that I made them do it. The choice was theirs and they, not I, are responsible for their actions, whether good or bad. The only difference with God is that he doesn’t need a video because he’s omniscient.

But returning directly to our passage, one of the saddest things we learn about Judas is his hypocrisy. When Jesus tells his disciples that one of them will betray him, all the disciples, including Judas, say, Surely not I? or Surely you don’t mean me? And Matthew adds a detail not shared with us by Mark. In Matthew, Judas is the last to say it. He says it after all the others, as if reluctant or ashamed to do so. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he did it anyway. And in Matthew all the other disciples call Jesus Lord, but Judas calls him Rabbi or Teacher. He had already made the decision that Jesus was no longer Lord in his life.

But Jesus knew all this. He knew that he would be betrayed. He knew who would betray him and he knew what would happen to him. But why didn’t he try to stop Judas? Because he knew that scripture must be fulfilled, he knew why it was necessary for him to die, and he knew that ultimately God would vindicate him.

He knew that scripture must be fulfilled

In verses 20-21, after each of the disciples have said, Surely not I? Jesus says:

It is one of the Twelve, …one who dips bread into the bowl with me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

This is probably a reference to Psalm 41:9 where David says:

Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

Of course, this is not the only detail that the Scriptures predicted about what would happen to Jesus. Again and again the Gospel writers make reference to Old Testament verses that they saw fulfilled in the life of Jesus, especially regarding events surrounding the time of his death. But the important thing to notice here is that Jesus knew that Scripture must be fulfilled. He had confidence in its authority. Through his close relationship with his heavenly Father, he knew which verses applied prophetically to him. And he conducted his life accordingly. And if we really want to be his disciples, we should surely follow his example.

He knew that he was going to die and why it was necessary

We’ve seen in previous talks that there were several occasions when Jesus already told his disciples that he was going to die. In fact, in Luke 24:7, after his death and resurrection, while talking to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, he reminds them how he had told them while he was still with them in Galilee, that:

The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.

And then they remembered his words. We know from all we have seen so far, how bad the disciples were at remembering. And so, to help them, and us, to remember his death, he instituted the meal that came to be known as The Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion, or the Eucharist. That its primary purpose was to help us to remember is made clear in 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 where we’re told to eat and drink in remembrance of Jesus.

So the bread and wine are simply memorials, aids to memory. When Jesus said , This is my body (v22) and This is my blood (v24) he never intended it to be taken literally. The bread doesn’t turn into his body as we eat it, nor does the wine turn into his blood as we drink it. Why am I so sure about this? Because the bread he gave his disciples at the last supper clearly did not turn into his body then, neither did the wine turn into his blood. His blood was still throbbing in his veins! And Jesus said, This IS my blood. He did not say, This WILL BECOME my blood (after I have died and risen again). Just as the Passover meal was a memorial of how the Lord had delivered his people from Egypt, so the bread and wine are memorials of what Jesus has done for us. They remind us of the new covenant that God has made with us through the shedding of Jesus’ blood. (For more on this, see You’d Better Believe It, Ch. 14).

Yes, Jesus knew he was going to die, and why it was necessary. That’s why he was determined to see it through, and he gives thanks (vv22-23) for it. How could he do so? Because he loved God and wanted to do his will. Because he loved his disciples and wanted them to be saved. And because he knew that God would vindicate him.

He knew that God would vindicate him

Notice what he says in verse 25:

I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God.

He knew that he would die, but he knew that his death would not be the end. He knew that God would vindicate him. He would enter the kingdom of God. He knew of the joy that lay ahead. Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us that:

For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

And he knew that he would share that joy with us! Matthew 26:29 includes two words that Mark has left out. Here Jesus says that he will drink it new with you. But let’s finish by considering the meaning of that little word anew. In Greek it’s kainon. Its basic meaning is new, but in the context here it means of a new character or species. Mark uses it this way in:

·       1:27 when the people apply it to Jesus’ teaching because he taught with authority

·       2:21-22 when Jesus says that no one puts new wine into old wineskins to illustrate that he had come to introduce something entirely new that would not only break free from the old (Judaism) and, if it didn’t, would ultimately destroy it (See Talk 8).

·       14:24 where Jesus says that the wine is the blood of the new covenant

·       16:17 where Jesus says that those who believe will speak with new tongues.

All these verses suggest that Jesus is using the word new to mean something of a different and better quality than we have known before. He came to introduce a new and better covenant and in the kingdom of God things, even the wine, will be new and better. And it’s available to us just because Jesus was willing to be betrayed, denied, forsaken by all his disciples, and to go to Calvary to die for us. So in this talk we have seen five things that Jesus clearly knew:

·       He knew the details of where they would eat the Passover

·       He knew what Judas would do and what would happen to him

·       He knew that scripture must be fulfilled

·       He knew that he was going to die and why it was necessary

·       He knew that God would vindicate him.

And if we have acknowledged Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we can be certain of our own future too.

Talk 41   Mark 14:1-11   Mary’s Extravagant Worship  

Welcome to Talk 41 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. We’ve now reached Chapter 14 which records the events immediately before the crucifixion of Jesus which Mark describes in Chapter 15. Today we’ll be looking at Mark 14:1-11 where we read how:

1.    the Jewish leaders are still looking for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him (vv1-2),

2.    a woman anoints Jesus with a very expensive perfume which Jesus says she has done to prepare for his burial (vv3-9),

3.    and Judas goes to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them (vv10-11).

We’ll be concentrating on verses 3-9 and considering what we can learn from this woman’s extravagant devotion and how we can apply it to our worship today. But first, to put this passage in its context, it will be helpful to outline the contents of the rest of the chapter:

12-26 The Last Supper

27-31 Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him

32-42 Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane

43-52 Jesus is arrested

53-65 Jesus is tried before the Sanhedrin

66-72 Peter denies Jesus.

So today’s passage is firmly set in the context of Jesus’ imminent death on the cross:

1. Now the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him. 2. “But not during the Feast,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

3. While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5. It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

6. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

10. Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. 11. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money. So he watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

Bearing in mind the frequent references to the Jewish leaders’ constant hostile attitude to Jesus (e.g. Mark 3:6, 8:11, 10:2, 12:13), we’re not surprised that they are looking for some sly way to arrest Jesus and kill him (v1), and that they are delighted to hear of Judas’ willingness to betray him (vv10-11). Whatever their different motives, Judas and the Jewish leaders were all looking for their opportunity (cf. vv1 and 11). How different was the motivation of the woman, who wanted to express her devotion to Jesus while she still had the opportunity. In John 12 she is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and as I read this passage I am challenged by the extravagance of her worship. I trust you will be too.

3. While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

Bethany lies on the opposite slope of the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem. You may remember that in Chapter 11 Jesus and his disciples were staying in Bethany and travelling into Jerusalem each day. The day of Passover, the day when Jesus was crucified, was only two days away, and Mary expresses her love for Jesus by breaking open a jar of perfume worth more than a year’s wages (v5) and anointing Jesus with it.

In doing so, she was showing how much Jesus meant to her, and that is surely what should lie at the heart of our worship. We are telling Jesus how much we love him. From this one verse there is so much we can learn about worship.

Our worship should be motivated by love

In John’s account the story of Mary’s worship comes at the beginning of Chapter 12 immediately after the raising of Lazarus in Chapter 11. We need look no further for a reason why Mary acted in the way she did. Jesus had shown his love for her by raising her brother from the dead.  Of course she was grateful. Of course she loved him. 1 John 4:19 tells us that we love (him) because he first loved us.

Our worship should be uninhibited

Mary was not concerned about what others might think about her. There is almost an abandoned recklessness about her actions. Who cares about what it cost? Who cares what others might think? Who cares what they might say? She loved Jesus, and nothing and nobody would stop her expressing her love and her gratitude to him.

Hopefully you worship in a church where not everything is dictated from the front and where there is ample opportunity for spontaneous expressions of praise from members in the congregation. For more on this, see my book, When you come together – God’s plans for when his people meet. But even in churches where opportunity is given for individual expressions of praise and thanksgiving, in my experience relatively few participate in this way. Perhaps we need to be more like Mary, cast aside any inhibitions we might have, and publicly tell Jesus how much we love him.

Of course, we all have different personalities. We’re not all like Mary. Some of us are more like Martha, who expressed her love for Jesus by serving him and offering hospitality to others. So be yourself in the way you worship. There’s no need to copy others!

Our worship can be expressed by actions without words

There is no mention in this story of Mary saying anything. But her action is worth a thousand words. In Romans 12:1-2 Paul challenges us, in the light of God’s great love for us, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This he says is a spiritual act of worship, or as the old AV says, our reasonable service. We show our love for God not only by our words, but by our deeds. How can we not love him when we remember all he has done for us? And because we love him, we are able to love others too. Acts of loving service to others are an expression of our love for him.

Our worship should be our lifestyle, not just limited to what we do in church on Sundays

Mary was worshipping Jesus in someone’s home, not in the synagogue and not on the Sabbath. Whenever and wherever we are, our lifestyle should be an expression of our devotion to the Lord Jesus. Notice what Paul says in Colossians 3:16-17:

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Verse 16 seems to refer to when we are gathered as a church. We are to remember what Christ has taught us. We are to teach and admonish one another. We are to sing with gratitude in our hearts. But verse 17 takes us beyond what happens in church to our everyday living. Whatever we do, we are to do it with gratitude to God for all that Jesus has done for us. That certainly applies to what we do in church, but our whole life should be an expression of what we profess in church. Worship should be our lifestyle.

Our worship may cost us something

There was, of course, an immediate financial cost to Mary’s worship – more than a year’s wages. But it also cost her the criticism and condemnation of some of those who watched her.

4. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5. It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

John’s account identifies one of those present as Judas. One lesson we can learn from these verses is that concerns about cash can lead to distraction from Christ. If our hearts are not right it’s all too easy to criticise the way that others worship Jesus. Notice how one thought can lead to an outright attack on someone else’s integrity. Judas’s heart wasn’t right. This led to a critical thought in his mind. Then it was vocalised, and he discovered he wasn’t the only one thinking that way, and so they ganged up on Mary and rebuked her harshly. It’s not only wrong to criticise others in this way, it can have serious consequences. Remember Michal?

But even if we recognise that it’s wrong to criticise others for the way they worship God, that doesn’t mean that others will not sometimes criticise us. And that’s something we should be prepared for. If we really love Jesus and want to tell him so publicly, we shouldn’t hold back for fear that people will find fault with what we say or the way we say it. Hebrews 13:15 tells us that we should continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess his name. Mary was criticised for her worship, but the compensation she received for it was the approval of Jesus.

Our worship brings delight to the heart of Jesus

6. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9. I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

Notice how Jesus defends Mary from their criticism. What Mary had done she had done for him. And Jesus knows it. He says, She has done a beautiful thing to me. Jesus should always be the reason for our worship. Mary had not broken that jar of perfume over him to show others how much she loved him. She did it for him. And he commends her for it. A single word of commendation from Jesus more than compensates for a thousand words of criticism from others.

Notice too that Jesus says, She has done what she could. Mary had taken the opportunity while she could, while Jesus was still physically with her, to express her devotion to him. And all he asks of us is that we do what we can, whether it’s in worship or in witnessing to others. He doesn’t ask more, but he does expect us to do what we can.

And sometimes, whether we realise it or not, there may a prophetic dimension to what we say or do. As one of Jesus’ close disciples, Mary would surely have heard his frequent predictions of his death, but it’s not clear that she knew quite how soon Jesus was to be crucified. What is clear is that her actions had a prophetic significance. She was anointing Jesus’ body beforehand to prepare for his burial. If we act or speak out of love for Jesus, although we may not realise it at the time, God can speak powerfully and prophetically through us. I can’t remember how many times people have told me, after the event, how what I have said has impacted them greatly, and yet I may have completely forgotten what I had said or had no idea at the time how relevant it would be for them.

And finally, we need to remind ourselves that Mary’s act of devotion was done in the context of Jesus’ death. That’s what her actions prophetically proclaimed. The cross was the reason for her worship, and it is surely ours too. We worship God for many things, but in the final analysis, all our love for him and all our devotion to him are because of the cross. I love Jesus because he loved me enough to die on the cross to save me from my sins. That’s why I’m living for him. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Talk 40 Mark 13:24-37 Signs of His Coming?

Welcome to Talk 40 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Last time we were looking at Mark 13:1-23 and considering some of the problems in interpreting this difficult chapter. I suggested that most of what Jesus says in that passage relates primarily to the events that would occur around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, which Jesus so accurately predicted in verses 1-4. Today we’re considering the rest of chapter 13, verses 24-37, where, as we shall see, some verses are by no means easy to understand. But let’s begin by reading verses 24-31.

24“But in those days, following that distress, “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; 25 the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ 26 “At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 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.

28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. 30 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

Before we get into the passage let me remind you of what I said last time about difficulties interpreting the whole chapter. This will be a very brief summary, so, if you haven’t yet listened to, or read the notes on, last week’s talk, I recommend that you do so before going any further.

The first problem arises from the fact that Jesus is answering two questions asked by the disciples at the beginning of the chapter and it’s not always easy to decide which part of Jesus’ answer refers to which question. Is this verse talking about the destruction of the temple or does it refer to the second coming?

The second difficulty is deciding which parts of Jesus’ answer are to be taken literally and which are to be taken symbolically. In my view, much of the chapter is to be understood literally, but some verses must be intended to be understood symbolically or metaphorically.

In attempting to resolve these difficulties, I said that the first thing we must do is to find out more about the context, and I gave a brief description of what we know from history about the horrendous events that occurred surrounding the time of the destruction of the temple in AD70. So now, in today’s talk, I want to do three things:

·      Examine two very different interpretations of verses 24-31.

·      Emphasise why it’s a mistake to be constantly looking for signs of the Lord’s return (vv.32-37).

·      Summarise what lessons we have learnt from the chapter as a whole.

Verses 24-31  Two different interpretations

Interpretations of these verses fall into two main categories:

a)     Those who see most or all of this passage as referring to the second coming

b)     Those who understand most or all of the passage to refer to the events around AD70.

Clearly these are two very different points of view, and we won’t have time to deal with them in great detail. So what I’m going to do is summarise four main arguments that seem to support the view that this passage relates to the second coming, and alongside them to state a counter argument that is sometimes made by those who take the alternative view. It is not my intention to be dogmatic, and, in fact, part of my purpose is to encourage you to form your own conclusions, but not to be too dogmatic, whatever your view may be.

1)     In Matthew’s account one of the questions the disciples asked Jesus was about the second coming (Matthew 24:3). We would, therefore, expect that at least part of Jesus’ answer would relate to the second coming.

HOWEVER, one problem with this argument is that in verse 30 Jesus says, I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. So these verses, it is argued, cannot refer to the second coming unless Jesus himself mistakenly believed that the second coming would take place within a generation of his making the statement, which it clearly did not, but the fall of Jerusalem certainly did!

2)     The events described in vv.24-25 would appear to be unique in world history. They are the kind of things one might expect at the end of the age and verse 27 talks of the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

HOWEVER, in Daniel 7:13-14 we read:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So, it is argued, in its original context, the Son of Man is coming to God and could well refer to Jesus’ ascension into Heaven rather than his coming from Heaven. Moreover, it’s difficult to see how Jesus could have intended us to understand phrases like the stars will fall from the sky (v25) literally. The terminology used in these verses is reminiscent of the poetic language used by the Old Testament prophets and should be interpreted symbolically. And in light of the fact that they were to be fulfilled within a generation, this, it is argued, is the best way to interpret them.

3)     If the fig tree mentioned in verse 28 refers to Israel as it appears to in Mark 11:20-25, then the passage must relate to the end times when, according to this view, the full number of Gentiles has come in and all Israel shall be saved (Romans 11:25-26, cf. Luke 21:24).

HOWEVER, there is no need to assume that the mention of the fig tree refers to Israel on this occasion. Jesus could equally well have meant that, just as you know that when the leaves of a fig tree start to come out, the summer is near, so be absolutely sure that, when you see the things I have been talking about begin to happen, the dreadful events that will take place at the destruction of Jerusalem will soon come to pass.

4)     In verse 31 Jesus says that Heaven and earth will pass away, which suggests that the passage relates to the time of the end.

HOWEVER, the point that Jesus is making in this verse is that whatever happens, his words will never fail. There is a clear claim to deity here. Who else but God could make such a claim? Jesus is the truth (John 14:6). You can rely on everything he says, whether it be about the second coming or the destruction of Jerusalem, or anything else, for that matter.

So that concludes my summary of two very different interpretations of verses 24-31, and in my view it would be unwise to take a dogmatic position on either side. There are some passages of Scripture that are open to more than one possible interpretation. However, when we come to verses 32-37 it seems obvious, to me at least, that these verses must relate to the second coming, as a comparison with the parallel passage in Matthew 24:36-44 clearly indicates.

Verses 32-37  Only the Father knows the timing, so don’t look for signs, but be ready

32 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. 35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back –   whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!'”

As I have already said, the parallel passage in Matthew 24 makes it clear that it relates to the second coming. Jesus says:

As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man (vv37-39).

This cannot possibly refer to the coming of the Son of Man described in Daniel 7, which as we have seen may well be better understood to be a reference to Jesus’ ascension into Heaven rather than his return from it. But in these verses Jesus is clearly referring to his second coming which will be as unexpected as the flood was in the time of Noah.

However, unlike Noah, who was told on what day God would send the rain, no-one will know the timing of the Lord’s return. Jesus said that even he did not know. And if Jesus didn’t know, I wonder why some Christians seem to think that they can work it out! But it’s sometimes said in response to this criticism that it was only the day and the hour that we cannot know. But in the next verse Jesus says, You do not know when that time will come. The Greek word for time here is kairos, which does not refer to the time of day, but means season. This is backed up by what Jesus reiterated in in Acts 1:7 when he told his disciples:

It’s not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put under his own authority.

So why does Jesus tell us to Be alert! Be on guard! Watch!? The answer is simple. He doesn’t mean watch for signs. He means Stay awake! Be alert (v33) literally means, Don’t go to sleep. It’s used of the disciples in Gethsemane whom Jesus found sleeping, and here in verse 36 Jesus says, If he (the Son of Man) comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. And the word for watch in verses 34, 35, and 37 means Keep awake, be vigilant. It’s used elsewhere in the New Testament in connection with:

·      Not letting the enemy break through (Luke 12:39)

·      Standing firm in the faith and being strong (1 Corinthians 16:13)

·      Keeping awake in prayer (Colossians 4:2)

·      Being sober and vigilant because the enemy goes about like a roaring lion… (1 Peter 5:8)

·      Staying awake and not being found naked and shamefully exposed when the Lord returns (Revelation 16:15).

So, when the Lord tells us to watch, he is not telling us to watch for signs. He’s saying that  because we do not know when he will return, we need to be in a permanent state of readiness. And we can do that without constantly looking for signs. We can do it by living lives that please him and by using the gifts and talents he has given us (Matthew 25:14-30). We should concentrate on telling others about him, not trying to know what Jesus has told us is not for us to know (Acts 1:6-8).

Lessons we can learn from the whole chapter

So now, as we draw to  a close our discussion on this difficult chapter, let’s remind ourselves of some of the lessons we have learnt. I have pointed out that the problems of interpretation arise from two factors, 1) deciding which of the disciples’ two questions in verse 4 Jesus is answering at any point in the chapter, and 2) determining when the language he is using  is meant to be understood literally or symbolically.

Because of these difficulties, I have suggested that it would be unwise to be dogmatic, but that perhaps verses 5-23 should be seen as largely relating to Jesus’ prophecy of destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, that verses 24-31 are open to either interpretation depending mainly on whether one sees 24-27 as literal or symbolic, and that verses 32-37 relate very definitely to the second coming.

However, despite the difficulties, I do believe that the principles that Jesus teaches in all three sections are relevant to all Christians throughout the history of the church, and so I want to conclude by reminding you of seven things that I have mentioned already, either in the last talk or in this. I hope that, whatever your view on the second coming, you will find yourself in agreement, at least with most of them.

·      We must watch out for deceivers

·      We must not be surprised by international turmoil and natural disasters

·      We must expect to be persecuted

·      We must continue to tell others about Jesus, relying on the help of the Holy Spirit

·      We must not try to work out the timing of Christ’s coming, because it’s not for us to know

·      We must stay awake, in a permanent state of readiness for the Lord’s return, because

·      THE LORD IS CERTAINLY COMING and, if we’re ready, we simply do not need to know when.

Finally, as I mentioned last time, we’ll be taking a break for the rest of August, and our series on Mark will continue, God willing, in September.

Talk 39 Mark 13:1-23 Jesus prophesies the destruction of the temple

Welcome to Talk 39 in our series on Mark’s gospel. Today we’re looking at chapter 13:1-23 where Jesus prophesies the destruction of the temple. We’ll deal with verses 24-37 next time. This is a difficult chapter, not least because of the strong convictions some Christians hold about it, but my intention is not to make dogmatic assertions about how it should be interpreted, but to point out some of the problems of interpreting it and to see what key lessons we can learn from it for ourselves today.

As we shall see, despite the NIV heading, Signs of the End of the Age, much of this chapter is not about the second coming of Christ, but about what Christians should do leading up to the destruction of the temple in AD70. That is not to say that none of the chapter relates to the second coming, but I want to confess at the outset my own personal scepticism about using passages like this to try to predict when the Lord may return. This is based on three things:

Firstly, the Lord himself said in verse 32:

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Secondly, he also said in Acts 1:7, just before he ascended into Heaven:

It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

Jesus told his disciples not to be concerned with such things but to get on with the task of world evangelisation.

And thirdly, my scepticism is based on the fact that so many attempts to calculate the timing of his coming have proved wrong. It’s not only the Jehovah’s Witnesses who have made predictions which they have been compelled to recalculate, but sincere Christians like William Miller, a Baptist farmer, who, based on his understanding of Daniel’s prophecy, was convinced that Jesus would return on a particular day in 1842 and then readjusted his calculations to the same day in 1843. He later admitted that he was wrong but said that, if he had his time all over again, he would still have arrived at the same conclusion!

And even in my own lifetime I have seen Christians making radical changes to their lifestyle,  based on events taking place in and around Israel, as those of you who may remember the Six Day War may remember. But, having expressed my scepticism, let me now make it clear that I certainly do believe in the return of the Lord Jesus! In Acts 1, immediately after Jesus had told the disciples that it was not for them to know the timing of his coming, we read in verses 9-11:

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

His return will be personal, physical, and visible. Of this we can be certain. But it’s not for us to know when. So, with all this in mind let’s now make a start on our passage in Mark 13. We’ll begin by considering two difficulties that make this chapter particularly hard to interpret, before looking at the historical context in which it is set.

Interpreting the passage

The first problem arises from the two questions the disciples ask Jesus in the opening verses.  

1 As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” 2 “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” 3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”

So, in verse 1, one of them draws Jesus’ attention to the size and beauty of the temple, to which Jesus replies in verse 2:

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

Then Peter, James, John and Andrew ask him privately,

When will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled? (v4).

So, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple and the disciples ask him when it’s going to happen and what sign there will be. Notice that here there is no reference to the second coming of Jesus. However, it’s clear from Matthew’s account that his disciples clearly connected very closely the destruction of the temple with the return of the Lord, because they ask him they ask him:

When will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? (Matthew 24:3).

So, in his reply, Jesus is answering two questions, which in the disciples’ minds are closely related, one about the destruction of the temple and the other about the second coming. But when we try to interpret the passage, it’s not always clear which parts of Jesus’ answer relate to which of these two questions. What does seem clear is that much of Jesus’ answer related to the destruction of the temple and not to the second coming. How much, if any, refers to the second coming is a matter of debate. But more of that later.

The second difficulty that arises when we seek to interpret the chapter is deciding which parts are to be taken literally and which are to be taken symbolically. Although much of the passage is, in my view, clearly to be understood literally – for example it’s hard to see how let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains (v14) can be interpreted symbolically – some verses must surely be intended to be understood symbolically or metaphorically.

For example, as we shall see next time, the stars will fall from the sky (v25) can hardly be taken literally any more than the moon will be turned into blood in Acts 2:20. Such expressions need to be understood as symbolizing cataclysmic events the like of which have never been seen before. But how can we decide which way to understand any given verse? Literally or symbolically? Part of the answer at least lies in the historical context in which the passage is set.

We began by saying that what Jesus says in this chapter is in answer to questions about the destruction of the temple, which the disciples associated with the return of the Lord. To me much, if not all, of Jesus’ answer relates to the destruction of the temple, indeed, of Jerusalem itself. So what do we know from history about this?

The historical context

It all began in a single year when in AD 69 four Roman emperors succeeded one another, each time with violence, murder and civil war. In AD 70 Titus, the adopted son of Vespasian, the last of these emperors, entered Jerusalem, burnt the temple, destroyed the city and crucified thousands of Jews. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us how, during the siege of Jerusalem, people were starving and ate their own babies to stay alive, how they fought each other for scraps of dirty food, and how more Jews were killed by other Jews than by the invading Romans. If you want to learn more about this, just google AD70 Siege of Jerusalem.

Examining verses 5-23

Bearing in mind, then, the horrific events that would take place in AD 70, let’s now attempt to solve the riddle of which verses refer to the destruction of Jerusalem and which, if any, refer to the second coming. We’ll begin with verses 5-23 which, it seems to me, refer mainly  to the years  leading up to and shortly after the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, although some may possibly have a wider significance. I say this because of the immediate context. Jesus has predicted the destruction of the temple and is now replying to the disciples’ question in verse 4:

When will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled? (i.e. the destruction of the temple).

Jesus’ answer in verses 5-23 contains warnings about what was shortly to happen and instructions on what they should do which can be summarised as follows:

·      Watch out for deceivers (vv. 5-6, 21-22)

·      Don’t be surprised by international turmoil and natural disasters (vv. 7-8)

·      Expect to be persecuted (vv. 9-14)

·      Take appropriate action when the time comes near (vv. 16-23).

Watch out for deceivers (vv. 5-6, 21-22)

5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many.

21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect – if that were possible.

Of course, the verses could refer to any time in church history including the period leading up to the Lord’s return, but, bearing in mind the context in which they are set, it seems that Jesus’ primary intention was to warn his disciples about what would happen in their own lifetime.

Don’t be surprised by international turmoil and natural disasters (vv. 7-8)

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

It’s easy to assume, as many have, that these things are to be taken as signs of Jesus’ near return, but again the context suggests otherwise. In fact all these things have been happening throughout church history, and are certainly very evident right now, but Jesus does not say the end is near. He says the end is still to come. And as we shall see next time, at the end of the chapter Jesus says you do not know. We won’t know when he is coming, and that’s precisely why we need to be ready!

Expect to be persecuted (vv. 9-14)

9 “You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. 12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 13 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Again, all these things could be said of almost any period in church history. They were certainly relevant during the lifetime of the disciples and no doubt will be right up until the time of the Lord’s return, so there is no need to see them as exclusively relevant to the second coming. But there are two things in this passage I feel I need to make special comment on, as in people’s thinking they are usually associated with and seen as signs of the second coming.

The first is in verse 10, where Jesus says, The gospel must first be preached to all nations. The Greek word for first is proton. This can mean either first in time or first in importance, or both. The immediate context in Mark, where Jesus is talking about his disciples being persecuted as they witness for him, suggests to me that he is stressing the importance of preaching the gospel whatever happens.

And, of course, this is applicable throughout the church age and is something Jesus emphasises in Acts 1:6-8. This is so important that the end will not come until the gospel is preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations (Matthew 24:14). So this verse does have a very real application to the second coming, but Jesus is stressing the importance of worldwide evangelisation rather than seeing it as a sign of his coming!

The second is in verse 14 where Jesus says:

When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong – let the reader understand – then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

So what is this abomination that causes desolation? It was first prophesied in Daniel 9:27 and is believed by some to have been fulfilled in 168 BC when Antiochus Epiphanes sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the temple altar. However, since this took place before the coming of Jesus, it cannot be what he was referring to which was yet future.

Bearing in mind the context it’s far more likely that Jesus was referring to what happened in AD70 when the Roman general Titus placed an idol on the site of the burnt-out temple just a few years after the destruction of Jerusalem. That, of course, does not rule out the possibility of another fulfilment in the future, but in my view the Bible is by no means clear about this, and it would be unwise to be dogmatic.

Take appropriate action when the time comes near (vv. 15-23).

15 Let no one on the roof of his house go down or enter the house to take anything out.

16 Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now – and never to be equaled again. 20 If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them. 21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect – if that were possible. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

At the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the danger was imminent. Jesus’ instructions are specifically related to that situation. The basic message is, Get out quick! Don’t let anything delay you! You will never have seen anything like it! Things are going to be terrible! Don’t let anyone deceive you or distract you! But now it’s time for me to summarise my understanding of how these verses apply to us today:

1)     Because these verses apply initially to the period before AD70, they contain some specific instructions (e.g. vv. 15-18) that relate only to that period.

2)     However, since what the disciples were about to experience then were only the beginning of birth pains (v. 8), it follows that similar things would continue to happen throughout the whole church age and that, with the exception of the specific instructions I have just referred to, the broad principles of what Jesus was teaching continue to be relevant to us today.

3)     Because what Jesus is teaching here has been relevant throughout church history, there is no need to see the whole passage as relating directly to the second coming.

4)     The parts that do appear to have a bearing on it must not be interpreted as signs, something which Jesus makes clear in the closing verses of the chapter, as we shall see next time.

Talk 38  Mark 12:35-44 Jesus warns against the Teachers of the Law

Welcome to Talk 38 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Today we’re looking at Mark 12:35-44. So far in this chapter, Jesus has faced questions from Herodians, Pharisees, and Sadducees, all of whom have been trying to trick him into giving an answer that might give them grounds for taking action against him. But on every occasion Jesus’ answers have silenced his opponents.

Now, in today’s passage, Jesus:

·      asks them all a question which they are unable to answer (35-37)

·      warns the people to beware of these hypocritical teachers of the law (38-40)

·      and draws a contrast between their self-seeking behaviour and the generosity of a poor widow (41-44).

35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, “How is it that the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, declared: “‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”‘ 37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ How then can he be his son?” The large crowd listened to him with delight.

Jesus’ purpose in asking this question is not to catch his opponents out as they had tried to catch him out. His purpose was not retaliation, but to make them and the others listening think. As we shall see, the implications of his question are enormous. They reveal, without a shadow of a doubt, who Jesus really is. The teachers of the law had rightly understood that the Scriptures predicted that the Christ, God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, would be a son (i.e. a descendant) of King David. This view was widely held by the Jews at the time of Jesus, and Jesus is not disputing it. But what he is saying is this:

If the Christ really is to be a son of David (which he certainly is), how is it that David refers to him as his Lord?

Jesus is referring to Psalm 110:1 which says:

The Lord says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’.

This psalm was widely held to be messianic (i.e. prophesying about the Messiah).  But, asks Jesus, if David is speaking of the coming Messiah, how can he call him my Lord if he is one of his descendants? It would be unthinkable to a Jew that a child could be superior to its father, or a descendant superior to an ancestor. Matthew 22:46 makes it clear that the teachers of the law could not find an answer to this riddle, but the early Christians certainly knew it, as this very verse is quoted in Hebrews 1:13 where the writer is demonstrating the deity of Jesus. And this is what Jesus is trying to show them by his question. If the Messiah was to be David’s Lord, he must be more than a physical descendant. He must be none other than God himself. But that was a mystery that the Jewish leaders were completely unable to fathom.

Now, in the next section, verses 38-40, Jesus warns the people against the teachers of the law.

38 As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, 39 and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets. 40 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”

The meaning of these verses is clear. The Jewish religious leaders – the majority, at least – were insincere and wrongly motivated. Note the words like to in verse 38. They enjoyed dressing differently, to show, as they thought, their superiority to others. They felt entitled to have the most important seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. The motivation in all that they did was to be admired by others, and even their prayers were designed to impress others rather than to seek the blessing of God.

But Matthew’s account of what Jesus said is more detailed. In Matthew 23:3-7 Jesus makes the following accusations against the teachers of the law and the Pharisees.

1.     They do not practise what they preach (v3)

2.     They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders (v4)

3.     Everything they do is done for men to see (v5)

4.     They love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues (v6)

5.     They love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi’ (v7).

And in verses 13-36 we read how Jesus again and again calls them hypocrites, blind guides, blind fools, blind men, and even describes them as you snakes, you brood of vipers! and warns them of the judgment to come as a result.

Of course, it’s easy enough for us to identify with Jesus’ condemnation of the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his day, but I wonder how seriously church leaders today take Jesus’ words of instruction to us as his disciples. Notice what he says in verses 8-12:

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. 11 The greatest among you will be your servant. 12 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

If you’re wondering why Matthew includes these verses and Mark does not, it’s important to remember that Mark was writing for a mainly Gentile audience whereas Matthew’s audience was largely Jewish. It was important that Christians with a Jewish background should understand that there was no room for such practices in the Church of Jesus Christ. And the Book of Acts and the New Testament epistles bear witness to the fact that Jesus’ forthright teaching in these verses was largely followed.

For example, unlike the practice in many churches today, the gifts mentioned in Ephesians 4:11 were never used as titles. Words like apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher described a gift God had given a person to fulfil a certain role in the church. They were not used as titles. Paul did not refer to himself as Apostle Paul but as Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Agabus was a prophet named Agabus, not Prophet Agabus. Philip is described as Philip, the evangelist, not Evangelist Philip, and so on. Interestingly, no one is named as a pastor in the New Testament. Pastor means shepherd and it was the elders who shepherded the churches in the New Testament. Yet today the term Pastor is frequently used as a title, a practice completely foreign to the spirit of the New Testament.

But does it matter? Isn’t the culture different today? Yes, it is. But we should align our practices with the teaching of the New Testament, not with the culture of the day, or even the culture prevalent in the church. The New Testament does teach us to respect and pray for our leaders, but the culture of honouring pastors in some churches is in danger of encouraging the very things that Jesus was so strongly condemning in these verses.

But it’s time to return to our passage in Mark 12. So far we’ve seen how Jesus asks the religious leaders a question which they are unable to answer, but which clearly implies his deity (35-37), and then warns the people to beware of these hypocritical teachers (38-40) and in Matthew’s account telling his disciples that it must not be so among them. Now, in the final section of the chapter Jesus draws a contrast between the self-seeking behaviour of the religious leaders and the generosity of a poor widow.

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.”

Perhaps you’ll remember that in verse 40 Jesus accused the teachers of the law of devouring widows’ houses. To understand this fully we need to realise that in those days widows had little or no power in the courts. A husband would appoint a scribe or Pharisee to be the executor of his widow’s estate. This gave them authority to deal with the widow’s estate and a corrupt lawyer could easily trick a widow out of her house. In doing this they were directly disobeying their beloved Law of Moses which clearly stated in Exodus 22:22, Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. It’s not surprising that the word Pharisaical has become a synonym for hypocritical! No wonder Jesus said, Such men will be punished most severely.

So when he sees many rich people throwing large amounts of money into the temple treasury, Jesus takes the opportunity to compare their ostentatious behaviour with that of the Pharisees who prayed long prayers for a show, and to contrast it with the abandoned generosity of one poor widow. Note the contrasts between rich and poor, between one and many, between large amounts and only a fraction of a penny. Yet her offering was greater than all the wealth of all the others put together.

If, as we have seen, Jesus told his disciples not to behave like the Pharisees, here he is surely teaching them that they should follow the example of this poor widow. Her commitment was total. NIV translates the last few words of this chapter as everything – all she had to live on, but literally translated the Greek says her whole life! And that’s exactly what Jesus demands of his followers. Unless we deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him we cannot be his disciples. And unlike the Pharisees he does not demand of us more than he himself was prepared to give. He threw in his whole life. It cost him everything he had.

So for us the challenge is not merely to avoid the hypocrisy of the Pharisees – and, if we’re honest, that’s not always as easy as it may sound – but to follow the example of the poor widow, whose prodigal giving is but a picture of the abandoned generosity of Jesus in giving his whole life for us.

As we have seen in previous talks, he was the fulfilment of what Israel was meant to be, he was the fulfilment of all that the temple stood for, and he was the fulfilment of the Law for he loved the Lord his God with all his heart and with all his mind, and with all his strength, and he loved us, his neighbours, enough to die for us.

Surely the least we can do, is live for him.

Talk 37 Mark 12:28-34  The Greatest Commandment

Welcome to Talk 37 in our series on Mark’s gospel. Today we are considering Mark 12:28-34 where Jesus answers the question, Of all the commandments which is the most important? But before we read the passage it will be helpful to remind ourselves what has been taking place in recent chapters.

We have seen in Chapter 11 how Jesus cursed a fig tree which was not bearing fruit and I suggested that this was an enacted parable telling of God’s rejection of Israel. This is confirmed by the parable of the tenants in the opening verses of chapter 12. We saw also how Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, and I suggested that this was a prophetic action declaring that the end of temple worship was near.

We have also seen how these actions annoyed the Jewish religious leaders and how they asked him various questions in an attempt to trap him. The Herodians tried to trap him by asking him a question about paying taxes to Caesar. The Sadducees tried to catch him out with a trick question about a woman who had had 7 husbands, and they asked whose wife she would be in the resurrection. Now, in today’s passage, one of the Pharisees asks him a question about the law.

Now there is an interesting verse in Acts 21:28 which is relevant to all this. There we read that Paul’s opponents shouted:

“Men of Israel, help us! This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple area and defiled this holy place.”

This verse reveals three things which the Jewish leaders were most concerned about – Israel, the Law, and the Temple. But these three things were totally superseded by what Jesus came to do. The nation of Israel and the Jewish temple were superseded by the church as the true people of God, a living temple, comprised of all the Jews and Gentiles who came to believe in Jesus. But what about the Law? Well, that’s the subject of today’s passage:

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

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

32“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

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

We’ll take this a verse at a time.

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

We know from Matthew 22:34-40 that this teacher of the law was in fact a Pharisee. He heard Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees’ question about the resurrection and was clearly impressed by it. Remember, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection but the Pharisees did. So, seeing that the Sadducees had failed to catch Jesus out with their question, the Pharisees got together and decided to test Jesus with a question about the Law.

29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Jesus answers by quoting two passages from the Pentateuch. He begins with what was known as the Shema which is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This begins with a declaration about God:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

He is the one and only true and living God, and that’s why we should hear (i.e. obey) him. Perhaps the greatest reason that people do not obey God’s commandments is that either they do not believe he exists, or that they do not really understand who he is. Knowing who God is gives us the greatest incentive to love and obey him.

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

This means that we are to love God with every faculty, every fibre, of our being. In Matthew’s account, Jesus describes this as the first and greatest commandment. In Mark it’s the most important one. At first sight this might sound a bit strange. Does God really ask us to love him more than our fellow human beings? Isn’t that selfish of God? Well, before we jump to that mistaken conclusion, let’s remind ourselves of two things.

First, we need to remember how much God loves us. He loved us so much that he gave his one and only Son to die on the cross to save us from our sins (John 3:16). God wants us to love him because he loves us so much. And, if you’ve ever been in love, you’ll know that, essential to the very nature of loving someone, you desperately want them to love you too. If you didn’t want them to love you, could you really say that you loved them?

And secondly, God knows that, if we truly love him, we will want to keep his commandment to love other people. It’s because Jesus loved God so much that he went to the cross. He knew it was God’s will, and he knew it was God’s will because he knew how much God loved us and wanted to save us. And, of course, Jesus went to the cross because he loved us too. There’s no conflict between loving God and loving others, because that’s exactly what God wants us to do. That’s why Jesus says the second is like it (Matthew 22:39). These two commandments are inextricably linked. You can’t love God without loving your neighbour –  Whoever claims to love God, but hates a brother or sister is a liar (1 John 4:20).

31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

This is taken from Leviticus 19:18. First let’s consider what Jesus meant by ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Let’s start with what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean, as some have wrongly assumed, that Jesus is teaching us that we should love ourselves. I am aware that it’s often used this way to encourage people who, for one reason or another, have a low self-esteem, but neither in the original context of Leviticus 19:18, nor in the context of what Jesus was saying can this interpretation be justified. It’s a typical example of eisegesis, of reading into a text what you want it to mean. Christian counsellors must beware of using the methods of modern secular psychology. Using Scripture in this way can be dangerous, however much we may wish to encourage others. There are other ways to encourage such people without misusing Scripture – reminding them how much God loves them, for example.

But why am I so sure about this? Because, as we shall see in a moment, in Matthew’s account, immediately after saying, Love your neighbour as yourself, Jesus says that All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:39-40). But in Matthew 7:12 he says

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Putting these two passages together, we see that loving your neighbour as yourself means doing to others what you would have them do to you – and that presupposes that you love yourself.

So why does Jesus say as yourself? It seems to me that the obvious meaning is that we should love others as much as we love ourselves. Jesus knows that it’s human nature to love ourselves. The difficult thing can be loving others. Because of the tendency to sin we have inherited from our first parents, we are all basically selfish. This is very evident even in the behaviour of little children. They have to be taught to put others first, and that’s what Jesus is doing here.

But why does Jesus say, All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments? Because, if you really love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and if you love your neighbour as yourself, you will keep all the commandments. Notice what James says:

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, you are doing right (James 2:8).

Let me illustrate the point I’m making by referring to the Ten Commandments. The first four relate to God, the final six relate to our neighbours. If we really love God with every fibre of our being, we won’t need a written law to tell us not to worship other gods, not to make idols, and not to misuse God’s name. And we will remember to set aside time to rest and to worship him. And if we really love others as much as we love ourselves, we will honour our parents, and we won’t murder, commit adultery, steal, tell lies about them or covet their possessions. Perhaps you remember what St. Augustine of Hippo said: Love God, and do as you please. Because if you truly love God you will only do what pleases him.

Notice what Paul says in Galatians 5. After reminding them that the entire law regarding our relationships with others is summed up in the single command, Love your neighbour as yourself (v.14), he goes on to tell them to live by the Spirit (v16) and they will not gratify the desires of the flesh. And in verse 18 he says, If you are led by the Spirit you are not under the Law. Why? Because the fruit of the Spirit starts with love (v.22). But that brings us back to our passage and the reply the Pharisee gave to what Jesus had said.

32“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

According to Matthew’s account, the man’s purpose in asking Jesus the question was to test him, presumably hoping to catch him out by getting Jesus to say something against the law of Moses. Remember, Jesus had more than once overridden the authority of the law – or at least the Pharisees’ interpretation of it. But now the Pharisee, having weighed up Jesus’ answer, is compelled to acknowledge that Jesus is right.

When people ask us questions about what we believe as Christians, their motive may not always be genuine. But if we give them an honest answer there is always the possibility that they may come to admit that we’re right. They may be nearer the kingdom of God than we think.

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

In the previous verses we saw the man’s evaluation of what Jesus had said. In this verse we see Jesus’ evaluation of him. People have all kinds of different opinions about Jesus, but in the final analysis Jesus will have the last word. It’s his evaluation of us that determines our final destiny. Jesus said that the man was not far from the kingdom of God. But he did not say he was in it. We don’t know if this man ever entered it, was ever born again (John 3:3). It’s one thing to admit that something Jesus has said is right. It’s quite another to acknowledge who he is!

However, perhaps this man did finally come to a full realisation of the truth about Jesus. It’s clear from Acts 15:5 that some of the Pharisees had become believers in Jesus and were part of the church in Jerusalem, even if they were still struggling with the idea that Gentile believers did not need to be circumcised! It may still take some time after we become Christians to break away from the unbiblical traditions we have grown up with.

But let’s finish by asking why Jesus said that the man was not far from the kingdom of God. It was undoubtedly because the man had understood that the attitude of our heart is far more important than religious observance. There is no religious ceremony or ritual that can save us, whether it be the Old Testament sacrificial system, or Christian baptism or confirmation, or church attendance, or pilgrimage. When we understand that, we are not far from the kingdom of God, but we can only enter it by personal faith in Christ as our Saviour. And if we really believe that he loved us enough to die for us, we will love him with all our being, we will only do what we know is pleasing to him, and we will love others because we know he loves them too.

Talk 36   Mark 12:1-27 Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders

Welcome to Talk 36 in our series on Mark’s gospel. In our last two talks we were considering the meaning of Jesus cleansing the temple and of his cursing the fig tree in Chapter 11. I suggested that, rather than cleansing the temple, Jesus was by his actions declaring the beginning of the end of worship in the temple, because that was soon to be replaced by the living temple, the church. I also suggested that’s the cursing of the fig tree was, in a similar way, an enacted parable declaring God’s rejection of Israel as his people.

Today’s passage, Mark 12:1-17, continues Jesus’ confrontation with the Jewish religious leaders, firstly in the form of a parable, and then in the account of two specific encounters, (1) with the Pharisees and Herodians, and (2) with the Sadducees, all of whom were bitterly opposed to Jesus. First then, the parable of the tenants.

As I mentioned this briefly last time, and because its meaning is so obvious, I shall devote little time to it today, especially as it is dealing with much the same subject as we were dealing with in the last two talks. But let’s begin by reading it.

The Parable of the Tenants (vv.1-12)

He then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. 2 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed. 6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. 9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this scripture: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; 11 the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” 12 Then they looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away.

As I say, the meaning of this parable is extremely clear:

·      The man who planted the vineyard, the owner, symbolises God

·      The vineyard is Israel

·      The tenants are the Jewish leaders – and they knew it (v12)

·      The servants sent to them are the OT prophets and John the Baptist

·      The son of the owner is Jesus

·      The ‘others’ to whom the owner gives the vineyard are the Gentiles.

This last point is not made clear in the passage but is in harmony with Paul’s teaching in Romans 11 which we looked at last time. So the parable confirms the line we have been taking in our last two talks.

Jesus concludes with a quote from Psalm 118:22-23. He himself is the stone the builders rejected and has become the most important stone in the building of the new temple which was to be his church. The builders who rejected him were the Jewish leaders – see Acts 4:11 where Peter applies this same scripture directly to them (see also 1 Peter 2:4-8). No wonder the Jewish leaders were looking for a way to arrest Jesus. Which introduces us to the next section.

An Encounter with the Pharisees and Herodians – Paying Taxes to Caesar (vv13-17)

13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.

We’re very familiar with the Pharisees constantly opposing Jesus. They were sometimes joined by the Herodians who were a political group. What they had in common was their fear that Jesus might cause political unrest and that the Romans would impose even more sanctions on their nation and so affect their position in society and frustrate their own personal ambitions.

So both groups wanted to get rid of Jesus and the question about paying taxes to Caesar, the Roman Emperor, was designed to trap him. If he said yes, it would turn the people against him because they hated their Roman oppressors. And if he said no, Jesus would be in trouble with the Romans who might very well accuse him of treason. Either way, they thought they had got him!

But Jesus always had an answer for them. He answers, as he so often did, by asking them a question. He asks for a coin and then asks them whose portrait is on it and whose inscription. They then reply, Caesar’s. So Jesus says, Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. In other words, The coin belongs to Caesar, then. So you’d better give it back to him! And don’t forget to give to God what belongs to God. Brilliant!

But how does this apply to us as Christians? Let’s look at what Paul has to say in Romans 13:

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes…

This applies whether we like the government that has been elected or not. The exception to this is when the authorities want you to disobey God, who is of course a higher authority. As Peter and John said to the Jewish Sanhedrin who ordered them no longer to teach or preach in Jesus’ name:

Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19-20).

But now let’s turn to the next trap that was set for Jesus. This time it was by the Sadducees. Along with the Pharisees they formed the Jewish Sanhedrin (a council of national religious leaders). The Pharisees believed in life after death, spirits and angels (Acts 23:6-8). The Sadducees did not. So now let’s read Mark 12:18-27.

An Encounter with the Sadducees – Marriage after the Resurrection

18 Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 19 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. 21 The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 At the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

24 Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 26 Now about the dead rising – have you not read in the book of Moses, in the account of the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”

From this passage I have selected three main areas from which we can learn:

1.     Jesus’ opponents and our opponents

2.     The basis of Christian certainty

3.     Life after death.

1 Jesus’ opponents and our opponents

The first thing I’d like you to notice is that the questions Jesus’ opponents asked were not genuine. They didn’t believe in the resurrection (v18), but they ask him a question about it. There was no genuine desire to find out the truth. They just wanted to catch him out.

Jesus knew this, but he gave them an answer anyway. Sometimes we need to bear witness to the truth even when the questions people ask are not genuine.

Secondly, their questions were based on ignorance. The only authority they accepted was the Pentateuch and they couldn’t find resurrection in the Pentateuch, so they didn’t believe in it. But in v32 Jesus shows them it’s there in Exodus 3! The point Jesus is making is that at the time God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all long since dead. But God doesn’t say to Moses, I WAS the God of Abraham etc. He says I AM. Because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive, even after they had died.

The Sadducees hadn’t read the Pentateuch carefully enough. Very often, the questions people ask us are based on ignorance too. When they criticise the Bible, it’s not a bad idea to ask them, Have you read it? It’s important that we should know our Bible well, and know how to interpret it correctly. And one important principle of interpretation is that it’s Jesus’ interpretation of the Old Testament that matters.

Thirdly, we see that religious leaders can be in error. Notice what Jesus says in verses 24 and 27:

24 … “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? 27 …You are badly mistaken!”

Their error sprang from the fact that they did not know the Scriptures well enough and had no real experience of the power of God. Sadly, this is true of many religious leaders today. We must not be led astray by them.

Finally, the opponents of Christ usually differ among themselves. The Pharisees now had an answer to the Sadducees but were more interested in defeating Jesus than in learning the truth. And it’s much the same with many people today. Nevertheless, we still have a responsibility to tell them the truth. But that brings us to the basis of our certainty as Christians.

2 The basis of Christian certainty

The Sadducees were in error because they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God. It follows, therefore, that if we want to know the truth we must understand both the Scriptures and the power of God. Both are important. As a Pentecostal minister, I am both an evangelical and a charismatic. I believe in the authority of the Bible and I believe that God’s miracle-working power is still available to us today. Some Christians believe in one without the other. But to neglect either is to miss God’s best for our lives.

God is all-powerful. So don’t limit your faith to what you can see. It’s the Scriptures that tell us what to believe. We can believe in life after death, resurrection, because God is all-powerful. We can say like Paul when on trial before King Agrippa:

Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

It’s a matter of simple logic. Our faith is not contrary to logic, but logic is not the main basis for our belief. We believe in resurrection because of what the Scriptures say. Look at how Peter quotes Psalm 16:8-11 in Acts 2:25ff. The resurrection was inevitable because of what God had said in the Old Testament. And in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Paul insists that Christ was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures.  

In short, we believe in the power of God as revealed in the Scriptures. Like the noble Bereans in Acts 17:11, who examined the Scriptures every day to verify what they were hearing, we need to do the same. It is not enough to believe in the power of God. We must believe the Bible! Failure to do so will only lead to error. Supernatural manifestations must be tested to see if they are in line with Scripture. And the great certainty of our Christian faith is the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus as revealed in the Scriptures.

3 Life after death

So what does Jesus teach us in this passage about life after death? Four things:

i.                    He assures us that there is life after death (vv. 26-27).

He is not the God of the dead but of the living.

ii.                  We will be like the angels in heaven (v25)

This doesn’t mean that we will become angels when we get to Heaven. In Hebrews 12:22-24 angels are distinguished from the spirits of righteous people made perfect.

However, Jesus’ main purpose is to point out the fallacy in the Sadducees’ reasoning when they ask, Whose wife will she be? He is not saying that we will not recognise our loved ones when we get to Heaven. He is saying that relationships will be different.

iii.                There is life after death now. We don’t have to wait until the resurrection.

Abraham is alive now (26). He lived some 2000 years before Jesus, but he was still alive when Jesus spoke about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:22 ff. And, as we saw at the transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were still alive at the time of Jesus. When we die as Christians we go to be with Christ which is far better (Philippians 1:23). To be absent from our body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

iv.                Ultimately there is to be a resurrection

Jesus had already predicted his own death and resurrection on three different occasions. He got that right, so we can trust him about our resurrection! Look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.

Talk 35   Mark 11:11-33 (continued)       The Cursing of the Fig Tree

Welcome to Talk 35 in our series on Mark’s Gospel. Today we’re continuing to look at Mark 11:11-33. As we said last time, there are two interrelated stories interwoven in this passage – the cursing of the fig tree and the so-called ‘cleansing’ of the temple. I suggested that Jesus’ actions were not really a cleansing (i.e. to make it fit for purpose), but rather an enacted parable declaring the beginning of the end of worship in the temple which was soon to be destroyed. It was to be replaced by a new temple, not one made with human hands, but a living temple made up of God’s people the church. If you have not already heard that talk, I encourage you to do so, as it is closely connected with this one.

Today we’ll be considering the significance of Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree and I’m going to suggest that this too was an enacted parable. So let’s begin by reading Mark 11, starting at verse 11.

Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. 12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.

Then we have the story of Jesus clearing out the temple, so now, jumping to verse 20:

20 In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. 21 Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!” 22 “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. 23 “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

So what can we learn from this story? I’m going to deal with this under three headings:

·      Lessons about Israel

·      Lessons about Jesus

·      Lessons about us.

The subject of Israel and its future is one over which Christians are often disagreed. I hesitate to deal with it because of the strong opinions held on the subject. But I’m going to address it,

(1)   because I want to be faithful to the text of Scripture,

(2)   because of what’s going on in Israel at the moment,

(3)   because so many Christians are preoccupied with that.

Lessons about Israel

If I am right in saying that Jesus’ actions in clearing the temple were a kind of enacted parable declaring the end of temple worship, the question naturally arises, is the cursing of the fig tree also an enacted parable signifying God’s rejection of Israel? I’m going to give you three reasons why I think it is:

1 God himself likens Israel to a fig tree (Hosea 9:10)

When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree (something exceptional and wonderful). But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol…

In Mark 11 Jesus is looking for early fruit on a fig tree but finding none. So he curses it. In Hosea, God is saying that at the beginning Israel had been a delight to him, something rare and precious, like grapes in the desert or like early fruit on a fig tree, but now they had forsaken him and had followed idols. (Compare v1 where he calls them Unfaithful).

2 Jesus’ parables clearly indicate God’s rejection of Israel

In Mark 12:1-12, (the very next chapter) Jesus tells the parable of the tenants. A man plants a vineyard and rents it to some farmers and then goes on a journey. At harvest time he sends a servant to get some fruit from the vineyard. The tenants seize him and send him away empty-handed. He sends other servants, but they are all badly treated. Eventually he sends his son, and they kill his son. As a result, Jesus says, the owner of the vineyard will kill the tenants and give the vineyard to others.

This reminds us of Isaiah 5:1-7, where God describes Israel as a vineyard he has planted which only produces bad fruit and so will be destroyed. All this strongly suggests that the cursing of the fig tree is a picture of Israel’s failure to please God by producing the fruit he is seeking. (Cf. also the parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6-9).

3 The overall teaching of the New Testament.

Paul teaches that the true Jew is not a person physically descended from Abraham, but anyone, whether Jew or Gentile, who has believed as Abraham believed. Consequently, it is not the Jewish nation, the state of Israel, that are the people of God, but the company of those who believe, the church, the body of Christ, whose members are, as we saw last time:

 …a spiritual house …a holy priesthood …a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God …who are now the people of God (1 Peter 2:5, 9-10).

But where does that leave the nation of Israel today? Doesn’t God still have a plan for Israel as a nation? Well, it all depends on how you interpret Romans, chapters 9-11. These chapters teach five things:

1. Not all Jews are God’s children (9:6-8, 10:16)

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” (10:16)

2. It’s only the believing remnant who are (9:27)

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.

Paul will say more about the remnant in chapter 11. But why aren’t all Jews God’s children?

Because, whether we be Jew or Gentile, salvation is by faith.

3. Salvation is by faith (10:30-32)

30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.

That’s why he says in 10:1 that

4. The Israelites need to be saved (10:1)

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

It’s not that they haven’t heard the message. In verse 19 Paul says:

Did they not hear? Of course they did

But sadly, Israel are a disobedient and obstinate people (21).

However, despite all this, Paul says that

5. God did not reject his people (11:1-2)

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew…

But what does Paul mean by God’s people? (11:2-7)

But what does Paul mean by God’s people? (11:2-7)

From what follows in verses 2-7 it seems that’s he’s talking about what he calls a remnant.

Don’t you know what the Scripture says in the passage about Elijah – how he appealed to God against Israel: 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? 4 And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6 And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. 7 What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened…

(You may remember what Paul said in 9:27 – only the remnant will be saved.)

So, Paul begins by saying that God has not rejected his people (vv1-2). But who are his people? He refers to the story of Elijah where, despite the apostate condition of Israel as a whole, God had reserved for himself a remnant who had not bowed the knee to Baal. It’s the believing remnant that are the true Israel.

But what about the rest?

Paul says that those who have fallen are not beyond recovery (v11). He hopes that by his ministry he may save some of them (14). He compares Israel to an olive tree and some of the branches (the unbelieving Jews) have been broken off, so that the Gentiles, a wild olive, might be grafted in. But God is able to graft the Jews in again if they do not persist in unbelief (v23).

So, in the context, it is the Jews who believe who are God’s people. The true Israel was never, not even in the Old Testament, the entire state of Israel, but the remnant chosen by grace who have not bowed the knee to Baal (11:1-10).

So how does keep his promises to the Jewish nation?

By grafting them back into the olive tree (which now contains Gentile branches) if they come to faith in Christ. In doing so, they become part of the true and much larger Israel, the people of God from every tribe and tongue and nation, who have trusted Christ in whom alone is salvation.

So what does Paul mean when he says that All Israel shall be saved? (11:25-26)

25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.

In the light of all that Paul has said again and again about the true Israel not being the physical descendants of Abraham but those who believe as Abraham believed, he cannot possibly mean that all Jews will be saved simply because they are Jewish.

In my view, to be consistent with the clear teaching in the rest of the New Testament, God will fulfil his promises to Israel through the salvation of the believing remnant of the Jews along with the believing Gentiles who together comprise the true Israel.

However, I acknowledge that many Christians believe that at some point in the (maybe not too distant) future, when the full number of the Gentiles has come in, many of the Jews will come to faith in Christ, through whom alone is salvation. But even if that is correct, it does not mean that at present Jewish people, or the nation of Israel are God’s people. The true Israel is the company of all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile.

So ultimately, All Israel will be saved finds its fulfilment in the fact that all those who believe in Jesus, and only those who believe in Jesus, whether Jews or Gentiles, will find salvation in him. These chapters do not teach that the citizens of the modern state of Israel are God’s chosen people, and it’s wrong to talk of them as though they were.

But does this amount to antisemitism? Certainly not. Holding this view is no excuse for hatred of the Jews or for the terrible events of the holocaust. As Christians we are called to love the Jews, not because of the mistaken view that they are still God’s chosen people, but because they, like us, are sinners for whom Christ died. But we should not love them any more than we love the Africans, the Americans, the Australians, or the Arabs for that matter. God loves the world… and so should we.

So I encourage you to think on these things in the light of Scripture and not on the basis of preconceived ideas taught so dogmatically on some of the God channels.

Lessons about Jesus

His humanity

The first thing we notice in our passage is that Jesus was hungry (v12). This speaks to us of his humanity. As a man Jesus was subject to all the problems that we as humans face. He was God. He had created the universe. But he was hungry! In becoming one of us Jesus put himself in the position that he, the Creator, became dependent on his creation! What humility! What condescension! 

And we find another aspect of his humanity in verse 13 where he went to find out if the fig tree had any fruit. Now it was early spring, at the time of the Passover. Mark tells us that he didn’t find any because it was not yet the season for figs. However, it was in leaf and the figs would soon be appearing. In fact, as we’ve already seen from Hosea 9:10, sometimes there would be early fruit on a fig tree. And no doubt that’s what Jesus was looking for. But he did not know if there would be any or not. He went to find out. Again, this speaks of the humanity of Jesus.

Although he was God – and God knows everything – when he came to earth he laid aside the use of his divine attributes. By limiting himself to a human body he could not possibly be omnipresent. Neither was he omniscient. He became as one of us. And yet he was still God! And our passage indicates that too.

His deity

Yes, we see his deity as well as his humanity in this passage. This is revealed, not as you might expect, in the fact that he was able to wither the fig tree, but in his reason for doing so. Like Israel, it was failing to produce the fruit God was looking for. The miracle itself did not indicate his deity, because he tells his disciples in verse 23 that anyone who has faith can do the same. But Paul says in Colossians 1 that Christ is the ruler over all creation. All things were created by him and for him. The fig tree was created by Jesus and for Jesus, and if it wasn’t bearing fruit for its Creator, there was no point to its existence!

Lessons about us

A lesson on fruitbearing

Now, putting together what we’ve been saying so far, it follows that as the true Israel is the church, made up of all believing Jews and Gentiles, then God expects to find fruit in our lives too. This is a clear biblical principle. God expects the things he has created to fulfil the purpose for which he has created them.

This is what Jesus is teaching in the Parable of the Fig Tree, to which I referred earlier:

A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ (Luke 13:6-9).

And the same truth is illustrated in John 15 in the Parable of the Vine. The branches that don’t bear fruit he cuts off (v2). And the fruit he is looking for is the fruit of the Spirit, especially love. If we’re not bearing fruit for Jesus, there really is no point to our existence!

A lesson on faith

It’s interesting that the disciples didn’t notice that the fig tree had withered until the day after Jesus had cursed it. And we don’t know exactly when it withered. Obviously it was some time during that 24 hour period. Surely if it had happened immediately they would have noticed it.

In a way, it doesn’t matter, because once Jesus had spoken the word, the tree was dead. The leaves, the symptoms of life, may have taken 24 hours to wither. This may be true of the problems we face too – the symptoms don’t always vanish immediately. The proof of the power of Jesus’ words may not have been evident at first, but Jesus himself doesn’t even look to see if has withered. He has faith to believe that what he has said will come to pass, because he was always hearing what his Father had to say (John 5:19).

And he even says that we can do the same:

Have faith in God, he says, I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Wow! What a promise! Is Jesus really saying that whatever you say will happen as long as you have faith and do not doubt? At first sight it certainly looks like it. But before we jump to that conclusion, we need to consider verse 25:

25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.

This seems to suggest that the promise about putting mountains in the sea is conditional on our right standing with God. If you’re not prepared to forgive people, you’re not in right standing with God. And if you’re not, you won’t have the faith that brings the answer to your prayers. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me (Psalm 66:18). Consider what Jesus says in the parable of the vine in John 15. The condition of answered prayer is our abiding in him.

And in 1 John 3:21-22 we’re told:

If our hearts do not condemn us we have confidence before God and receive anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

But, returning to the promise in our passage, we need also to ask if it has ever been literally fulfilled in 2000 years of church history. And if not, why not? Has no one had enough faith? Or could it just be that God who put the mountains where they are doesn’t want them put into the sea?

But if the promise has never been literally fulfilled, there are many testimonies of metaphorical mountains that he been put into the sea. And every time someone puts their trust in Christ as their saviour, the mountain of sin that separated them from God has been removed and buried in the deepest sea. So, a promise that has possibly never been fulfilled literally has been fulfilled millions of times spiritually. But that brings us to our final lesson:

A Lesson on God’s Love

We need to remember that all this took place a few days before Jesus died. He was about to face an enormous mountain – the mountain of our sins, of the sins of the whole world. He didn’t have to face it. One word from him and Mount Calvary would be destroyed. And he was about to face another tree – the cross on which he died. He could have destroyed that too. He could have withered it like the fig tree. But instead of cursing it he chose to embrace it, and in the words of Galatians 3:13, to redeem us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us.

And why did he do it? Because he loved us. And that’s why he has the right to expect to find fruit in our lives. Are we really living for the purpose he created us? I know I want to be. Do you?