Pilate
Pilate knowingly sent an innocent man to die. Think about that.
Today’s Scripture:
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The Difference Between Peter & Judas
The difference between Peter and Judas is that Peter, even when he denies Christ, is still trying to say close, whereas Judas runs off on his own.
Be like Peter.
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The Next Time You Are Treated Unfairly
Jesus was not given a fair trial:
55 The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. 56 Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.
57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.Mark 14:55-59
The next time someone treats you unfairly, remember: they did the same to Jesus.
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Mark's Self-Portrait?
Many scholars think that Mark wrote himself into his Gospel in this one strange verse:
A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, 52 he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.
Mark 14:51
Who knows? We know that John Mark was from Jerusalem (cf. Acts 12:12), and would have been a young man at the time of the Crucifixion.
Today’s Scripture:
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Judas
I find Judas fascinating.
- Jesus kept Judas in his inner circle, even though he knew he would betray him. Why?
- Judas had been with Jesus for years, and then he deliberately chose to betray him. Why? (He clearly immediately regrets it.)
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The Day & Hour Unknown
Jesus switches from talking about the end of the Temple to The End of All Things. He continues using apocalyptic language, and tells us that because no one knows when the end will come, we all need to be ready.
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The Little Apocalypse
In Mark 13, Jesus is not talking about the end of the world, but an end of the world: the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. In the generation after Jesus (who died circa 33 AD), the Jews staged a revolt against Rome which was cruelly put down, culminating with the destruction of the Temple. The Temple remains in ruins until this day. (The well-known Wailing Wall is a still-standing wall of that Temple.)
Jesus is here foretelling the destruction of the Temple, using apocalyptic language, which is appropriate, because in the time of Jesus, the idea that the Temple would be thrown down, stone upon stone, would have seemed to require the end of the world.
13 As Jesus 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.”Mark 13:1-2
I've been to the Temple Mount and seen the great stones that were brought from the quarry into Jerusalem. Even today, their size and scale is astounding. Add to this the fact that, as with the Pyramids, we still don't know how the Temple was built and couldn't build it today, and you can see why Jesus uses the language he does.
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God's Economy
In God's economy, it's not the amount of the gift that matters, but the heart behind it.
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Punished Most Severely
Jesus warns the large crowd that has gathered around him in the Temple courts that hypocritical religious leaders who prove unfaithful will be "punished most severely." Whoa.
No wonder the crowd of ordinary people "listened to him with delight" (Mark 12:37).
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The Stone the Builders Rejected
In the Parable of the Tenants, Jesus quotes Psalm 118:22-23:
The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.Psalm 118:22-23
What if God has a redemptive purpose for the overlooked things in our lives?
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By Whose Authority?
We know the answer to the question the Temple leadership puts to Jesus: he is authority.
They totally miss it. What about us?
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Overturning the Tables
Just as with the cursing of the fig tree, by overturning the moneylenders' tables, Jesus is enacting a living parable in Jerusalem, testifying that the entire Temple leadership is corrupt and will be overthrown.
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Why Does Jesus Curse the Fig Tree?
Jesus enacts a living parable with the fig tree on his way to and from Jerusalem that last week of his life. Why? The fig tree represents Israel (see Jeremiah 8:13, e.g.), and Jesus is telling the disciples that the religious establishment in Israel is totally corrupt and will be overthrown,"from the roots" (Mark 11:20).
In AD 70, the Romans destroyed the Temple and razed it to the ground.
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What Do You Really Want?
I love the question Jesus asks Blind Bartimaeus:
“What do you want me to do for you?”
Mark 10:51
Bartimaeus has his answer.
Do you?
(If you don't, then that's yours right there: "Lord, give me an answer.")
Today’s Scripture:
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The Baptism of His Suffering, Death, and Resurrection
In the liturgy for Holy Communion we pray:
"By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection
you gave birth to your church,
delivered us from slavery to sin and death,
and made with us a new covenant
by water and the Spirit."
In today's reading when Jesus asks James and John, "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" he is talking about his coming suffering. He will be glorified, but he'll have to be crucified first.
Cross before Crown.
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Can Rich People Be Saved?
Yesterday marriage, today money: Jesus gives us another very hard word in today's reading. Is it possible to be wealthy and inherit eternal life?
The answer: Technically yes, but it's practically impossible. (That's what Jesus says, not me, so don't shoot the messenger!)
Here's my question: Why? Why is it so hard to be wealthy and live into the Kingdom?
I think it's because the essential question every person must ask is this: am I going to be lord of my life, or will I choose to submit to the Lordship of Christ? That's a difficult choice for everyone and has been since Eden, but for the rich it becomes even more excruciating because one of the things that wealth brings is control. The more wealth you have, the more control you have, or more accurately, the more control you think you have. Wealth lures you into the spiritual trap of self-sufficiency, and the more wealth you have, the deeper into the trap you walk.
There are 2 ways that rich guys like me try to wriggle out from under this hard teaching of Jesus:
- We tell ourselves that we aren't really that wealthy--now John Doe, that guy is wealthy. But this is a lie: I personally have more wealth not only than most people who have ever lived, but more than most people living today.
- Or, we comfort ourselves at Jesus's words that, although it is impossible for man that the rich to be saved, with God all things are possible. The problem with relying on those words is that I can too easily let myself off the hook and not take Jesus seriously.
There is no question: if we are going to be followers of Jesus, we must wrestle hard with the question of wealth. If not, it's liable to overpower us.
I'm a wealthy American, and I expect I will be my entire life: wealth won't go away for me. I think Jesus is telling me that I am going to have to constantly bring my wealth before him in prayer and ask the question, "Lord, am I being a good steward of this?"
But then again, I guess I'm the only one with this problem, right?
Today's Scripture:
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Marriage & Divorce in Mark
What Jesus says in Mark 10 about marriage is a hard teaching, and harder to live by. In this post, I am not going to offer a comprehensive theology of marriage and divorce, and there are lots of questions I'm not going to try to answer; what I will try to do is explain what I think Jesus is saying in this particular passage. Don't shoot the messenger!
10 Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”Mark 10:1-2
Jesus has now begun his journey to Jerusalem. He's left the Galilee in the north, and has come south. Unsurprisingly, he has drawn a crowd. And, equally unsurprisingly, the Pharisees--who hate Jesus--have come to try to trip him up. Some things haven't changed; even today, talking about marriage can get you crucified!
The question about divorce is not an earnest, truth-seeking question, because the Pharisees who ask it are trying to set a trap for Jesus. Why is this question so controversial? In the time of Jesus, there were two rabbinical perspectives on divorce: one perspective (from Rabbi Hillel) said that men could divorce their wives for any reason, and the other perspective (from Rabbi Shammai) said that divorce should be reserved for cases of adultery. In both cases, it was understood that only a husband could seek a divorce, and not a wife. Unsurprisingly, the Hillel perspective was the popular one in the time of Jesus.
As he always does, Jesus throws the question back to his interrogators:
3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”Mark 10:3-4
The Old Testament does contain provisions for divorce, as the Pharisees rightly point out. In response, Jesus explains why there had to be divorce, and then goes on to talk about God's design and purpose for marriage:
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Mark 10:5-9
As he always does, Jesus uses scripture to frame his answer. In fact, he goes back to the very beginning of the Bible itself: Genesis 1-2. (Specifically Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24.)
Note that Jesus doesn't actually answer their question about divorce directly, but implies that divorce is necessary because people are sinful, and then goes on to talk about the purpose of marriage, as designed by God. I think there are 4 interesting implications to his answer:
- Our identities as male or female are not an accident, but part of God's purpose for our lives.
- Marriage makes new families. The husband comes from one family, the wife comes from another, but when they get married, a brand-new family is created through them.
- The marriage union is meant to be total: in the biblical language, "one flesh." Marriage is a complete union: emotional, of course, but also, in some mysterious way, bodily as well. The physical result of that bodily union, obviously, is a child. A child is the "one flesh" that results when a husband and a wife come together through sexual intercourse. A child is one, though it comes from two: a mother and a father. Even at the molecular level, this is true: the child has one DNA sequence, but that sequence has been made from the DNA of two parents. There are billions of us on this planet, and every single one of us--without exception, and whether we know them personally or not--has a biological mother and a biological father. The fact that each of us is the fruit of our parents' union is really astounding, but because it is commonplace, we overlook it.
- The marriage union is meant to be lifelong.
Later, when they are alone with him, the disciples ask for more clarity, and Jesus provides it:
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
Mark 10:10-12
It is important to point out that since it is only men who were able to divorce their wives in the time of Jesus (and not vice versa), then the practical effect of Jesus's comments is that they protect women, who, without clear divorce laws, could be cast aside for any and every reason. Jesus's words sound harsh, but they are actually helpful to women whose husbands wanted to divorce them for any and every reason.
The entire passage is extremely counter-cultural for twenty-first century Americans, as it flies in the face of our divorce culture. Since Governor Ronald Reagan signed the nation's first no-fault divorce law into effect in California in 1969, we have come to accept (not only in law, but in our understanding) that marriage is something that either party can end for any reason whatsoever, and once divorce papers are filed, then the marriage is over. Jesus says that, in effect, marriage is more durable than that, and that regardless of what the papers say, marriage can't be ended as easily as that. This is a radical teaching.
I am not trying to give a comprehensive Christian understanding of divorce in this post, but I also know that if you've read this far, you likely have many questions about grounds for divorce. Remember that this is just one scriptural passage in which Jesus is replying to a specific question put to him about a particular Jewish controversy. So, drawing from the rest of the Bible, here is one answer to the following question.
What behaviors break the marriage covenant and are grounds for divorce?
- Adultery (Matthew 19:9);
- Abuse (Exodus 21:10-11);
- Abandonment (1 Corinthians 7:15).
As for other conclusions, I will let you think on these issues yourself. This is just one passage in all of Mark's Gospel, which is but one book in the entire Bible--on marriage and divorce, we need to take the whole counsel of scripture. But, what do you think--is Jesus right? Is marriage meant to be lifelong, or can it be ended when either spouse wants to end it?
Scripture Passage:
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Whatever It Takes
Whatever it takes, get rid of the temptations to sin you have around you.
Today’s Scripture
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Ask Me a Question
I have nothing to say about today's reading: it seems pretty clear to me.
So, if you have any questions about Mark, please comment below!
Today’s Scripture
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Only By Prayer
I find it interesting that Jesus tells his disciples that some demons can be cast out "only by prayer."
In other words, there are some things that can only be accomplished through prayer. For what do you need to be praying today?
Today’s Scripture
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