Proper 5 (B)
June 5, 1994
The One Sin God Can’t Forgive
(Mark 3:20-35)
Without a doubt, this is one of the most unsettling, perplexing, disturbing passages in all of Scripture. In fact, much emotional and spiritual distress is rooted in the various interpretations given to this portion of God’s Word.
The verses unapologetically insist that there is an unforgivable sin. You cannot wish it away or tear it out. Look for yourself: it is there, in red and black.
But what does it really mean? If it really teaches there is an unforgivable sin, does that not contradict everything we believe about grace? Furthermore, what is the sin that is referred to? And most importantly, how do we know if we committed the unforgivable sin?
A whole cadre of vital issues and concerns are raised by these verses. Yet, in order to address them responsibly so as to answer each concern, it is imperative to consider the text and its context as a single unit.
According to Mark, Jesus had gone to the house where He often stayed in Capernaum. Yet the press of the crowds allowed Him no reprieve. In fact, there were so many people making demands upon Him that He could not even find time to eat.
Mark indicates that Jesus’ family became so concerned about Him they determined to go to Capernaum, get Him, and bring Him home (v. 21). They feared that He was so absorbed in His work that He was endangering His health and mind. Some of their friends had already suggested His exuberance was dangerous, perhaps even bordering on insanity (v. 21b).
His enemies, however, were not so concerned and compassionate as His friends. They leveled two malicious charges against Him. “He’s not crazy!” they said, though not in His defense. “It’s quite obvious that He’s possessed by the devil himself!” (vs. 22, 30). Secondly, they claimed that His miracles were being accomplished by the power of the Prince of Demons (v. 22b).
Notice they did not attempt to deny Jesus’ power. They could not refute the miracles He had performed. All they could do was to question the power behind the miracles and, thereby, seek to discredit Him. “It was black magic, pure and simple,” they asserted.
Did you notice that the Scribes did not ask Jesus any question or attempt in any way to understand His powers before they pronounced judgment against Him? Clearly, their minds were already made up before they reached Him. They never even entertained the thought that He might have power over demons because He was the Son of God. As far as they were concerned, there was only one explanation which was really quite simple: He was full of the devil!
Until this time Jesus has attempted to reason with His opposition. Now, His tone abruptly changed. In His response, which is remarkable both for its intellectual depth and spiritual perception, Jesus solemnly warned the Scribes. “You do not even believe your own argument,” He said. “You know as well as I do how absurd it is!” (vv. 23-27).
Why would the Prince of Demons cast out demons? Such a course of action would be self-defeating. Obviously, the opposite conclusion is required: only a power greater than Satan’s could divide the kingdom of Satan.
Far from being proof of Satan’s dominion, instead the miracles of Jesus were prophecies of Satan’s certain doom! Already the devil’s realm was being broken down and a glorious kingdom, which in reality had existed for eons, was arising! Thus the power behind Jesus’ ministry was the spirit of God Himself. The Scribes had resisted that same spirit and declared that Jesus was possessed by the devil. In doing so, they not only rejected Jesus but God Himself.
Perhaps it was in thinking back on this experience of his Lord that the apostle Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit to write to the Corinthians: “… I want you to understand that no one speaking about the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).
This explanation should clear the way for an understanding of this teaching about the unforgivable sin. Clearly, resistance to the Holy Spirit is the unforgivable sin. In no way does the teaching represent a statement of God’s refusal or inability to forgive. Instead, it sets forth the consequence of a person’s utter disregard for the witness of the Holy Spirit in their life.
Think of it this way. The Scribes did not accept Jesus as the Messiah and Lord. If they continued to resist the prompting of the Holy Spirit, they would thereby seal their own eternal doom. The same is true today. The Holy Spirit is actively seeking to bring all persons to an acknowledgement and acceptance of Jesus as Lord. To make up your mind not to pay any attention to His pleading and warning voice is to close the door on any chance of eternal life.
When viewed against the back-drop of the original setting, Jesus’ strange teaching regarding the “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” becomes plain enough. The Scribes were blaspheming against the Holy Spirit by attributing to Satan the miracles which Jesus had worked and denying the power of the Holy Spirit.
Yet Jesus was concerned with far more than the words they had uttered. Their words betrayed an attitude of essential wickedness. Their sin was not due to ignorance; it was one which they had committed deliberately, with full knowledge and understanding. Their souls were so influenced by the power of darkness that their spiritual perception was utterly destroyed. They could no longer discern the difference between righteousness and evil, light and dark, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. That which was good, they perceived as evil; that which was evil, they accepted as righteousness.
Many persons today are still resisting the power of the Holy Spirit and disregarding His witness in their lives. Some refuse the Spirit’s inspiration to acknowledge and confess their spiritual emptiness. Like the Scribes, they are in danger of sealing their eternal doom. They absolutely refuse to admit their need. Talk with them of sin and separation from God, to them the need for reconciliation and forgiveness is utter nonsense. In word and attitude, there is no pressing need for God. Yet, without confession there is no forgiveness.
Others who may be in danger of disregarding the witness of the Holy Spirit in their lives are those who claim to be Christians but who resist the Lordship of Jesus in their relationships and problems. We are called to love difficult people; to forgive when forgiveness isn’t deserved; to become involved with those who desperately need hope and encouragement. To say “no” when forgiveness is needed, when hope and encouragement and love should be given, is to resist the Holy Spirit.
The first time we say “no” to the Lord is traumatic, usually accompanied by overwhelming guilt and regret. Then it becomes easier. Eventually our whole life becomes closed to an intimate fellowship with God. Prayer becomes routine, then infrequent. Bible study is neglected; dependence on the Lord is inconsistent, then utterly disappears.
On a daily, practical level, we say “no” so often and so long that it becomes impossible for us to say “yes.” We become insensitive to the living presence within us of the Holy Spirit who would help us to mature into Christlikeness. We become too easily satisfied with self, and mediocrity sets in.
The apostle Paul spoke of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in very personal terms: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” he said (Eph. 4:30). His challenge to the Thessalonians was: “Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thess. 5:19). Paul means, “don’t let the fire go out!” In time it will, if it isn’t fueled with a fresh willingness to do the Lord’s will.
That brings us to another group who may be moving dangerously close to the attitude typical of those who commit the unforgivable sin. They are the persons who refuse to claim Jesus as the source of their strength for the challenges of life. They, too, claim to be Christians but depend upon their own self-will and self-determination to handle their failures and inadequacies.
Usually they blame others, or life, or circumstances, for all their difficulties. Or they cover their sins by trying harder to be adequate. Some resort to hard work, overwork, self-improvement schemes, or even the sharp edge of self-criticism or self-condemnation to atone for their failures. To them, anything is better than the honest confession: “Lord, I failed and really made a mess of things. Forgive me and enable me to do your will and be the person you mean for me to be.” Without confession, there can be no forgiveness.
Finally, there is another group of people who could benefit from the warning given by Jesus in this passage. They believe more in the power of Satan than in the power of God. That’s what happened to the Scribes, isn’t it? They were more convinced of Beelzebub’s power than they were perceptive to recognize the power of the Holy Spirit working through Jesus. The resistance to the Holy Spirit created within them an inner vacuum which was filled by Satan’s influence.
By being constantly negative — through twisting the facts, perverting the truth, casting doubts, spreading skepticism, creating suspicion, by being more willing to accept falsehood than truth — we actually become agents of evil, because we resist the good. We become vulnerable to what cripples the plan of God for us. We hurt and weaken others. After a while, we don’t even know that we are working against the Lord. We think we have nothing to confess because we have been lulled by our false sense of self-righteousness.
God doesn’t refuse to forgive even that attitude, but we often refuse the impulse of the Spirit to acknowledge our need and ask for forgiveness.
Someone once said, “the really unforgivable sin is the denial of sin because, by its very nature, there is now nothing to be forgiven.” If there is no recognition of the need for forgiveness, or no desire for forgiveness, there can be no pardon.
John describes the condition in vivid terms: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 8:10).
No matter how horrible and hideous our sin may have been, there is pardon available for all sins confessed: adultery, dishonesty, murder, irresponsibility. Remember: there was pardon for the prodigal’s wasteful living; pardon for Peter’s triple denial of his Lord; and pardon for Paul’s pre-conversion persecution and murder of the Christians. However, there is no pardon available for those who will not acknowledge their need for forgiveness and confess their sin.
Have you committed the unpardonable sin? If you are now convicted of your own sinfulness and your need to confess your sin, the answer is “no, you have not committed the unpardonable sin.” God’s pardon is available to all those who are aware of their need. However, there is a level of disregard and resistance to the Holy Spirit which makes it impossible for us to ask to be forgiven.
The warning is clear — that our hearts not become so hardened or our attitudes not become so entrenched that Jesus can never be Lord of our lives. In other words, the only unforgivable sin is the unconfessed sin. (GCR)
Proper 6 (B)
June 12, 1994
A Tale of Two Parables
(Mark 4:21-34)
Jesus used common, recognizable pictures and fictional stories to make a point. He took the ordinary and lifted it up beside the truth so the truth could be more easily understood. The parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.
Often these stories were communicated at two levels. One was a level that was easy to understand. Jesus would take a profound spiritual truth and highlight it in a picturesque way, simplifying it for the masses. However, there was often that deeper level of meaning in which Jesus took advantage of the intimacy He had with His disciples to share with them deeper levels of truth hidden in the public, parabolic utterance. Secrets of the Kingdom of God, in their ultimate form, are only intelligible to citizens of that Kingdom. It is family talk. That’s why at the end of today’s passage we read these words: (Mark 4:33-34).
With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when He was alone with his own disciples, He explained everything.
Today we view two parables, each being a parable of the Kingdom of God.
First, let’s look at the parable of the growing seed (vv. 26-29). If we were to coin a phrase to describe this, it could be, “Although, in terms of the Kingdom of God, growth is mysterious, one thing we can be sure about is that God is proactive in a quiet, steady process of growing His Kingdom both here on earth and ultimately in heaven.” This parable of the growing seed is mentioned exclusively by Mark. You’ll not find it in Matthew or Luke.
The greatest discouragement to me and many of my colleagues in the ministry is to see people, who accept Jesus Christ as Savior, resist an active life of spiritual growth. We see them in a crisis come to faith in Jesus Christ. When the crisis is over, they are back to life as usual. We see them join the church with great enthusiasm, professing their faith in Jesus Christ. Then, within a few months, they just disappear, never to be seen again. We observe them as they become enthusiastic about the role of our children and youth ministries in the lives of their children, only to see their children raised and leave home. Then these parents sort of back off and return to church with a touch of nostalgia at Christmas and Easter and when their grandchildren are baptized. That’s what is most discouraging. Nothing gets me more discouraged than to see a person with all the resources available for growth in Christ completely refuse to grow.
That’s why Jesus gave this parable, to help me feel a little bit better about my role as pastor. And that’s why Jesus gave this parable to the church as we yearn to see more happen in people’s lives. Right now I can sense the Holy Spirit of God picking me up by the scruff of the neck and shaking me, saying, “Now, John, listen to what you are going to say. If you do, you won’t get so discouraged. You can’t quantify constantly the process of spiritual growth in the lives of individuals and in the life of Christ’s church.”
There are five statements this parable makes about spiritual growth.
Statement one: Growth is indiscernible. Your physical ear cannot hear a seed growing. I have seen children plant seeds and a few days later dig them up because they haven’t seen anything happen. Does the fact that you can’t see or hear mean that nothing is happening?
There are seasons in a person’s life. I remember when we lived in Pittsburgh. Every autumn I would rake away the last of the leaves, give the lawn its final mowing, watch the grass turn brown, the earth freeze, and the snow begin to pile up. December, January and February would come and go. Then, sometime toward the middle or end of March, a fresh, green shaft would shoot out of the previously frozen ground. Then another and another. In a matter of days I would see the colorful crocus and the bright yellow daffodil.
God is at work right now in the lives of those who seem spiritually dormant. I want to dig down and see if anything is happening and uproot them from the membership rolls. God says, “Don’t get discouraged. I am at work.”
Statement two: Growth is inevitable. When you put the seed in the ground it will grow. The apostle Paul refers to this in one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It is Philippians 1:3-6. It reads:
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
If you genuinely begin with Jesus Christ, you will end with Jesus Christ. I have stumbled around enough myself to know that my stumbling doesn’t mean that I don’t love the Savior. Nothing is going to stop the Kingdom of God. We Calvinists have the doctrine called the “Perseverance of the Saints.” This doesn’t really mean that we are the ones who persevere. What it really means is the perseverance of the Sovereign God. He is the One who guarantees the inevitability of growth.
Statement three: Growth is incomprehensible. The farmer goes to bed and sleeps. Before he gets up the seed sprouts and grows. The farmer doesn’t know how it grows. God knows how. Although the farmer has worked hard with the planting, the plowing, the cultivating, he isn’t the one who is responsible for the miracle of germination. The farmer could have done all the same work, in fact twice as much, but if he had planted marbles he would see no results.
As hard as we humans work at it we haven’t yet created life. We have a greater and greater understanding of it. Still, ultimately, how life happens, in physical and spiritual nature, goes beyond our human comprehension.
Statement four: Growth is gradual. Jesus says, “All by itself the soil produces grain — first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.” Growth is a process that takes time. Jesus warns against irrational expectations.
Back in 1972 I played in a Pro-Am golf tournament when we opened the new public golf course on Key Biscayne, Florida. My partner was Bob Rosburg. Halfway through the day I asked him to analyze my game. At the time I was an 18 handicap, and I had dreams of getting a lot better by just a comment or two from a great pro. He disabused me of that notion. He said, “You really want to play in the mid- to low-seventies?” I said, “Yes.” He responded, “Alright then, you give me ten months of your life, and I will restructure your swing with daily lessons, after which you’ll hit 200 practice balls five nights a week and play four rounds a week. By ten months from now, I will have you in the mid-seventies. Frankly, though, I don’t think it is worth your effort or the time.”
Some of us want a quick spiritual fix. We want the growth all at once within our lives and the lives of others. It is a long-haul, gradual process. There are no easy steps to Christian maturity any more than one can earn a PhD from Harvard or Stanford in a six-week cram course.
Statement five: Growth is completable. I know that’s not a real word, but it is a fact of life. The day will come when God will reap the harvest. Jesus says, “As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” I have to be frank to admit the growth process is taking longer in me than I would like it to take. Some of that is my fault. If you feel the same way, perhaps some of it is your fault also.
Before we get too down on ourselves, let us remember we have never been promised perfection, self-righteousness, in this life. For those of us who have been redeemed by God’s grace, justified by His atoning work on the cross, we are growing toward wholeness in that growth process of sanctification which will only be ultimately complete in the day of our Lord. It will be complete. But the only completeness we will know in this life is that positional completeness in which we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness based on His activity, not our own.
Second, let’s look briefly at the parable of the mustard seed (vv. 30- 32). If we were to coin a phrase to describe this, it could be, “With God, little is much.”
According to William Barclay there are two pictures which every first-century Palestinian Jew would readily recognize. First is a grain of mustard seed. This proverbially stood for the smallest thing. When Jesus talked about “faith as a grain of mustard seed,” He was talking about “the smallest conceivable amount of faith.” In Palestine this little mustard seed did grow into something very much like a tree. This plant would grow to ten or twelve feet in height. It spread out over a large area.
This brings us to the second picture that was so familar to the first-century Jew. The Old Testament often refers to a great empire as a tree and the tributary nations which are within it are said to be like birds finding shelter within the shadow of its branches. Jesus is saying that a very small seed can grow into something quite large.
I have a little bottle three inches in height, an inch and a half in width, and three-quarters of an inch in depth. It is half-full of mustard seeds. This bottle of seeds was given to me by my grandfather, J. A. Huffman, a biblical scholar and archaeologist, prior to his death in the early 1970s. Grandfather sifted these seeds from the pods of a mustard tree in the garden of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem in June, 1930. He wrote on the label of this bottle that by laboratory count, when full, there were 180,000 seeds in this little bottle. That’s an astounding fact. It is incomprehensible to me that one of these little seeds can produce a great bush.
Jesus is making three specific statements about the Kingdom of God.
First, He is saying, “Don’t despair a small beginning.” God builds His Kingdom from the very smallest of building blocks, person by person, throughout the centuries of human existence.
Just imagine how shocked His disciples would be today if they were to take a glimpse over the portals of heaven and see the size of Christ’s visible Church in the year of our Lord 1994. Certainly they would be discouraged by some of the negative things they would see. But do you think in their fondest imaginations they would ever dream that their efforts would be passed on, person to person, during almost 2000 years and number, in addition to the millions already in heaven with our Lord, to the tens of millions right now alive on planet earth who declare Jesus Christ to be their Savior and Lord?
Don’t despise small beginnings as you begin your servant ministry. You may be teaching in the Sunday school. You may be making sandwiches for the hungry. You may be involved in intercessory prayer. You may be teaching English in the name of Jesus Christ to a recent immigrant. You may be witnessing to a business colleague, and you think it is falling on deaf ears. Don’t despair small beginnings.
Second, Jesus is saying, “Don’t be fooled by the outward appearance.” This little mustard seed may not look like much. When it sprouts it may not be that impressive. But, ultimately, you will be impressed.
Third, Jesus is saying, “Don’t be surprised by the ultimate conclusion.” Even as a little mustard seed grows into a great bush, expanding, giving a place for birds to nest and shade in the sun-parched land, even so the Kingdom of God is becoming, in this life and will ultimately be in the life beyond, everything God dreams of it being. The joy is that you and I are part of that process.
Jesus Christ is Victor. You and I are part of His Kingdom. The day will come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In the meantime, our responsibility is to simply occupy faithfully until He comes again, fulfilling our own particular small role in His Kingdom, knowing that someday, if we simply do what He has asked us to do, He will look us in the eyes and say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into your eternal rest.” (JAH)
Proper 7 (B)
June 19,1994
Jesus Calms the Storm
(Mark 4:35-41)
You and I live in a post-Enlightenment age. Some philosophers and even theologians have found themselves so troubled by miracles mentioned in the Bible that they have tried to “demythologize” them, extracting some spiritual principle or truth while denying factuality of the miraculous.
Those who demythologize Scripture are basically noting that we modern men and women do not live comfortably with the notion of miracles. They do not see Jesus as God. They tend to see Jesus as one of the finest, most-ethical persons to ever walk the face of this earth. Some of them would say that John Mark included some miracle stories, myths, to help illustrate the teachings of Jesus. They take the position that he and his colleagues, Matthew and Luke, did this intentionally.
One commentator stated that we shouldn’t try to take these miracle stories literally. It is the principle, the concept, that counts. That writer is implying that John Mark may have knowingly or unknowingly lied. If we read in the Bible miracle stories that didn’t happen, we are confronting untruth, no matter how true the concept underlying the untruth may be. If John Mark, Luke or Matthew lied about miracles, could they also not have lied about the teachings of Jesus? What about the greatest miracle of all — the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?
The apostle Paul was much more contemporary than some of us may realize. He understood clearly the seriousness of some first-century objections to the possibility of the resurrection. He states: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 16:17-20).
Let me warn you about our contemporary tendency to take scissors to the Bible to remove those passages which offend our contemporary sensibilities and yet maintain those passages that speak great principles that we think survive the ages. If the Bible is not reliable in part of what it teaches, how are we to trust in the rest of what it teaches? If the miracles of Scripture are taken as figments of the imagination to be demythologized, stripped of their supernatural elements, what is left in terms of a life-changing Gospel? If Jesus Christ never said the things the Bible says He said, and these are only the witness of the early church to what they thought He said or would like Him to have said, why should we waste our time in even studying the Bible? Or take this even a step further: if Jesus Christ was not who He said He was — God in human form — why should we even trust Him as an ethical teacher?
Watch out for persons who call themselves ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who do not believe the teachings of the Bible. Watch out for a person who tries to explain away the supernatural, extracting a principle for living but denying the context in which that principle is articulated. If there is a God who created all there is, this God is the Creator of the natural order. By the very definition of what it takes to create from nothing at all to that which is, this God, therefore, is above nature. If this God has given some degree of freedom of choice to the highest of His creation, humankind, and if this God sees us make mistakes that need correction and really loves us and wants to do something about it, is that not His prerogative? Could not the God of all creation break into His creation in a way that is supernatural?
That’s what the Bible says God did in becoming human in the form of Jesus Christ. And if Jesus Christ is God in human form, this Jesus Christ had the power in the first century, as He walked on the face of this earth, to do the miraculous. You and I better sit up and take notice — He still has that power today!
Jesus had just completed a full day of teaching. He had tried to be sensitive to the needs of each listener to the parables He had expressed. Then He joined His disciples in an intimate setting where He dealt patiently with each of their questions. Evening had come. Tired, drained of physical, emotional and spiritual energy, Jesus sought freedom from the crowd and some solitude for His soul. He asked for the boat that had been put at His command and proposed that He and His disciples sail to the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee to get away from the masses.
So we see a tired Jesus setting sail with His disciples across the Sea of Galilee. He had apparently no sooner gotten into the boat but that He settled down in the stern, curled up on a cushion, and fell sound asleep. I get the impression He was almost asleep before His disciples hoisted the sail and began the five-mile trip across the lake. I can picture the scene right now as they moved slowly across the calm sea, as the shadows lengthened, and darkness closed in. Suddenly, Matthew tells us, “without warning” (Matt. 8:24), they were blasted with a tremendous storm.
The Sea of Galilee is approximately 630 feet below sea level. It is surrounded by mountains gouged with deep ravines. These ravines serve as huge funnels to focus swirling winds down onto the lake. This interaction of the thermal buildup below with the cold air from above produced what Mark describes in the following words: “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped” (Mark 4:3 7). Matthew uses a Greek word that literally means “earthquake” to describe the storm. It was as though the whole lake was being shaken. A tremendous fear rose up within the hearts of the disciples.
These were experienced fishermen. When they were afraid, they had reason to be afraid. There is a difference between imagined fears, phobias that paralyze us, and the real realities of human existence.
I deal every day with men, women and children in impossibly difficult situations. There may be situations in which the greatest thing we have to fear is the fear itself, but in most of the situations I observe, the fears are legitimate. Disaster is pending. The sooner we face it for what it is the better off we will be. Then we can do something about it.
What is that point in your life which terrifies you? Identify it now. Look that fear square in the eyes for what it is. Don’t pretend it isn’t there. If it proves to be a phobia, that’s okay. Some of our fears are neurotic in origin. Some of them are real. Identify them now. In what time remains, let’s deal with the toughest of them. It may be your loss of a job and your inability to find a new one. It may be your addiction to alcohol, drugs or sex. It may be the unfaithfulness of your partner. It may be a terminal illness. It may be the mistakes of your child with all the attendant, tragic consequences.
Let’s take a look at your fears in the context of how the disciples functioned. Their fears were well-founded. But in the midst of those fears, they failed to recognize four facts of life.
First, they failed to recognize the peace of Jesus (Mark 4:37-38).
One of the disciplines of dealing with fear is to know when to be afraid. There is such a thing as the peace of God which is capable of functioning in the midst of the most horrendous circumstances. The apostle Paul describes it in these words: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7).
How often I have prayed that prayer in a hospital room, holding the hand of a person deeply troubled. I have sensed the grip relax and a supernatural calm cover over that person in the midst of the most frightening of circumstances.
It’s to the altar of peace that I am forced to retreat many times in life. It is there, at the center of the storm, that I so often find the quiet reassurance of the God of peace whose name is Jesus Christ.
Second, the disciples failed to note the presence of Jesus.
They were so busy fearing the storm that they forgot who was with them in the midst of the storm. It is impossible for me to emphasize this enough. Claim the promises of Scripture that assure you of the presence of God in the most difficult of circumstances.
Third, the disciples failed to note the power of Jesus.
It was one thing to watch Him as He did His miracles and see them touch the lives of other people. It was another thing to existentially trust Him and His power to have viable affect on their lives.
Every so often I have to stop, when I become caught up in fear in the present and the future, to review God’s faithfulness in the past. Forgive me for referring to my recently-gained vantage point of fifty years. To me it is a significant point in life. And it is nothing to be regretted. I am enjoying getting older because I have more to look back on to verify the faithfulness of the Lord.
I periodically need to remind myself of His power and His faithful use of that power, even as I now look head-on into fears that could paralyze me if I allowed them.
How did Jesus handle that pending natural disaster in which the boat was nearly swamped? “He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm” (Mark 4:39). That’s the kind of power Jesus has, power over all nature.
Fourth, the disciples failed to recognize the personality of Jesus.
You and I should be smart enough to know who He is. It was too early for them to fully comprehend it. Mark states, “They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him?” (Mark 4:41).
Don’t let your God be too small. Don’t whittle Jesus down to a mere extension of yourself. Don’t get so buddy-buddy with Him that you lose the grandeur of His personhood. He is the God of all creation. On the other hand, don’t get so awed by Him in that grandeur that you forget the greatest theological statement ever made is simply, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Does my Father know when I am afraid? He certainly does! The reality is not just in the waves but in the One who controls the waves. When you become aware of His peace, presence, power, and personhood, you are able to claim His promises on your behalf.
The Bible is not saying that there will never be trouble, that our lives will be free of difficulty, pain and suffering. The Bible is saying that the God of all creation is sovereign at this very moment. The peace, the presence, the power, the personhood and the promises of Jesus Christ are available to you and me at this very moment. The One who stilled the storm on the Sea of Galilee is as alive and operative in your life as you let Him. I am confident that if you look back you could share some stories of His faithfulness to you in times past which validate His present faithfulness in times when you don’t feel it.
Jesus enables you and me to live empowered by Him in this life no matter what our difficulties may be and to maintain that unquenchable trust that life does not end with death; that the Father who made us will care for us beyond the bounds of vision, even as He has cared for us in this earthly world. (JAH)
Proper 8 (B)
June 26, 1994
Hope for Life!
(Mark 5:21-43)
The air hung heavily in the room where Jairus’ daughter was near death. Scripture relates that she was twelve years of age, and Jewish custom determined a girl became a woman at twelve years and a day. This young girl was on the threshold of life at its fullest, but it was about to be crushed. As Jairus sat at the bedside of his little girl, listening to her shallow breathing, he heard the soft sobs and felt the wet tears of his loving wife — sheer hopelessness invaded his heart.
He knew Jesus was close by, but as a ruler of the synagogue he had been warned about this man who dazzled the people with his “hocus-pocus” miracles. Others had told Jairus that no respectable leader would allow Jesus into his synagogue, and to totally ignore Him while he was in the area.
Hopelessness does strange things to a person. It breaks down barriers of prejudice, pride or dignity and thrusts an individual into a state of humiliation.
As Jairus contemplated the situation, he began thinking that maybe the critics of Christ were wrong. Maybe Jesus was not a Jewish magician out to fleece the people. Maybe this Jesus was really a prophet — a healer — sent by God. Why not take advantage of the situation? Quickly he swallowed his pride and ran to Jesus to beg for his daughter’s life, for Jesus was her only hope for life.
Jesus is our only hope for life, and this story demonstrates that Jesus can meet our every need.
I. Jesus is our Help Through Life (v. 24)
Jairus says to Jesus, “My daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so she will be healed and will live” (v. 23, New Century Bible). He was saying, “Help! I need you, Jesus.”
This call for help is not cowardly, but it speaks of desperation. Jesus is the hope and help of the desperate! God’s arm is not short. He will help in times of need.
II. Jesus is our Confidence in Life (v. 24)
Jesus started the journey back to Jairus’ house without delay, bringing an air of confidence which Jairus adopted. He sensed that something positive would happen to his daughter because Jesus was coming.
Norman Vincent Peale said that he always carried a card in his pocket that had four lines on it. It read:
The light of God surrounds me
The love of God enfolds me
The power of God protects me
Wherever I am God is!
Peale carried that card for so many years because it reminded him of a God of love and care. God is the perfect antidote to fear, to worry, to anxiety, to every problem known to humankind. The words were a reminder to him of an all-powerful Being in the universe who loved him and was only a prayer away (The Answer Bible, Dallas: Word Bibles, 1993, p. 23).
III. Jesus is our Power for Life (v. 41-42)
The Lord did not disappoint Jairus. In spite of the hopelessness of the situation, Jesus brought life back from death.
In his commentary on Mark, William Barclay penned, “The great fact of the Christian life is that which looks completely impossible with men is possible with God. That which on merely human grounds is far too good to be true, becomes blessedly true when God is there.”
The conquest of death occurs by the mighty hand of God when it is conquered through Christ the Lord. What “death” do you face today? Loneliness, heartache, disappointment, dysfunctional family, illness, or spiritual apathy can all be turned to God who can bring new life back from the shadow of death. He can bring companionship, change attitudes, transform our hearts as we allow God entrance into the depths of our spirits.
Jesus is our hope for life! (DGK)
Proper 9 (B)
July 3, 1994
Only a Carpenter
(Mark 6:1-8)
William Muehl of Yale Divinity School tells of visiting a fine old ancestral house in Virginia. The aged owner was the last of a distinguished colonial family, and she was proudly showing him through the home. Over the fireplace he noticed an ancient rifle which intrigued him. He asked if he might take it down and examine it.
She replied, “Oh, I am afraid that wouldn’t be safe. You see, it is all loaded and primed to fire. My great-grandfather kept it there in constant readiness against the moment when he might strike a blow for the freedom of the colonies.” Muehl said, “Then he died before the Revolution came?” “No,” she answered, “he lived to a ripe old age and died in 1802, but he never had confidence in George Washington. You see, he knew him as a boy and didn’t believe he could ever lead an army!”
I. Jesus Had the Same Problem
Those who had known Him as a boy could not believe that He could be the Messiah. The story about Jesus’ rejection at the hands of His own townspeople gives us a disturbing reminder that it is perfectly possible to have something standing right there before you, and not recognize it or its importance.
Remember the story of the first casting session of Fred Astaire, and the comment written by the director at the time: “Can’t act; can’t sing; dances a little.” In 1902, the Atlantic Monthly’s poetry editor returned a batch of poems to a 28-year-old poet with a bitter note: “Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse.” The poet was Robert Frost. In 1905, the University of Bern flunked a PhD dissertation because it was fanciful and irrelevant. The young PhD student who received the bad news was Albert Einstein. In 1894, the rhetoric teacher at Harrow in England wrote on a 16-year-old’s grade card: “A conspicuous lack of success.” The name on the top of the card was that of young Winston Church.” (Parables, Aug. 1986)
There is such a thing as being too close to something to appreciate it. There are people in New York City who have never visited the Statue of Liberty. People come from all around the world to visit Disneyland, yet there are residents in Anaheim, California, who have never gone the few blocks to visit “the happiest place on earth.” There are those in the church who know Jesus the same way that an apartment dweller in New York City may know about a neighbor living in the apartment above, but has never spoken to that neighbor in the twenty-five years they have shared the same roof. One can be too close to something. It may come as a surprise to you, but ministers have a difficult time worshipping. They are too close to the action. They know all of the things which can (and sometimes do) go wrong. They are too close to the trees to experience the forest. So were Jesus’ townspeople.
Rejection by one’s own people is a human experience which evokes sharp emotions: anger, bitterness, disappointment. The consistent witness of the New Testament is that Jesus was rejected by His own people: first His family, then His friends, then His race and nation. John 1:11 says: “He came to his own home, and his own people received him not.” In chapters 9-11 of Romans, Paul wrestles with the thorny problem of Jesus’ rejection by His own people, the Jews. In Mark 6 there is the same theme. But in this passage, Jesus’ own people are not the Jews as a whole but His own friends and relatives, people in His hometown — even His own family. Now His whole hometown takes “offense” at Him. Literally, they “stumbled,” or were “scandalized” — that’s what the Greek word means.
I have a hunch that there is much about Jesus which scandalizes us, too. Unfortunately, most of us put up a good front, and listen to His words in church. But, how often do we think of them after we leave the sanctuary? I am afraid that far too many of us live in not only “split-level homes” but split-level lives. There is Sunday morning, and then there is the rest of the week. There is what we do in church, then what we do at work, at home, or at play. Somehow the two realms never quite connect. As the cynic said, “They’re praising God on Sunday, they’ll forget about it Monday, it’s just a little habit they’ve acquired.” Jesus’ family and friends were too close to the forest to see the trees. They did not recognize Him for who He was.
It might be instructive to couple this Scripture with the one in chapter 3 which suggests that we who claim to be Jesus’ followers are His “brothers and sisters and mother.” We are His family. The question is: do we understand Him any more than they did? Mark’s solemn words ought not to cause us to ask “Why did not Jesus’ own family, own people, listen to Him?” but rather, “Why don’t we? We identify ourselves as His brothers and sisters, together in the family of God called the Church. But do we recognize Him and follow Him any more than they? Jewish philosopher Martin Buber asked: “If Messiah has come, where are Messiah’s people?” That’s a good question.
“Where did this man get all this?” they asked. “Is not this carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him” (6:3). “Is not this Mary’s son?” the townspeople asked. Yes, of course, but He was also the Son of God, and that great mission took precedence over all other family relationships. That is what caused Jesus and His family so much pain. He was more than Mary’s son, and more than “only a carpenter.”
II. “He Could Do No Mighty Work There”
Mark says this about Jesus in His own hometown. Those are blunt words. Too blunt for Matthew, who softens them into “he did not do many mighty works there (Matt. 13:58). But Mark is probably right. Even he shrinks back from such a blanket, sweeping statement, and adds an “except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them” (6:5). It is almost a footnote, no big deal, an after-thought, but I imagine that for the folks who were sick and were healed it was a big deal!
“He could do no mighty works there,” Mark says. Are there things Christ cannot do? Yes, of course. He cannot be other than love. He cannot act out of character. But there are some things Christ cannot or will not do. For instance, He will not force Himself upon us. He calls, but He will not coerce. He called to His own townsfolk, but they refused to listen.
It is possible for us to hear and refuse to listen, also. Sometimes we know everything there is to know about our Christian faith except to experience it for ourselves. We’ve got it all neatly arranged up here in our heads, but it hasn’t gotten deep down into our hearts. A group of secular newspaper religion editors were meeting in a hotel. Some were in the elevator on their way down to dinner. Their badges identified the convention as a “Religious Editors’ Convention.” A man stepped into the elevator swearing and carrying on. When he noticed the badge on his elevator neighbor, he apologized profusely to him. “Don’t worry about it,” said the editor, “I am not religious, I am just a religious editor.”
Some people are like that; they go through life being “religous editors.” They report on what God is up to in everybody’s life but their own. They are “sermon samplers,” wandering from church to church, quick to pick up a grammatical error in a bulletin, more concerned about syntax in a sermon than about sin in society. These are the people with whom Jesus has a hard time, and for whom He can do no mighty work. He wants to do so much for them, and they will let Him do so little. They are “religion editors,” not religion experiencers.
III. “He Marveled Because of Their Unbelief” (6:6)
I marvel at what people do believe today. All sorts of things are coming back into fashion: astrology, ouija boards, tarot cards, lucky talismans. “Forward to the 15th century” seems to be our motto. We believe in all sorts of weird things, from astrology to “channeling.” We are sort of like the high school student who had an astrology book on her coffee table; she was asked whether she believed in astrology. She replied: “I believe in everything a little bit.” That sounds like a lot of us.
A campus chaplain named Chad Walsh wrote a book some years back titled Superstitions of the Irreligious. His message was that simply because people did not attend any particular church, or follow any formal religion, that did not make them less gullible. Many folks have an almost blind faith in science, for instance. Or in progress. Or in “the American way of life.” Or in their political party. And they become very nervous whenever someone challenges their firmly-held faith.
The clear implication of this Gospel record is that if Jesus’ townspeople had believed in Him more, Jesus could have done a lot more with them. That is still true. The spiritual climate of a congregation, its sense of expectancy, its openness to the power of God at work in its midst through the Holy Spirit, will have a great deal to do with just how much Jesus Christ is able to accomplish here and now — through us. Our unbelief does not render God impotent, but it can have a dampening effect.
I have a hunch that God could do a lot more in and through this congregation, if we would let Him do so. But our theme song seems to be: “Take my life and let it be–Period.” Sometimes we appear to be like the church where the pastor listed the hymns and after each one noted whether it was to be sung standing or seated. One of his hymns came out: “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me — seated.” Most of us are quite content to let Jesus pilot us — providing we can remain seated. As long as it doesn’t cost us too much, or inconvenience us too much, then we are quite willing to be His followers, His family. But the minute a cross rears its ugly head, and we are asked to make a sacrifice for our faith, like Jesus’ friends and family of old we become scandalized. Would it not be tragic if the record were to say that Jesus was not able to do a great work here because of our unbelief?
In the old hospital there was a carpenter’s workroom located deep in the bowels of the basement. I know, because that is the route I had to take to find my way through a maze of corridors and eventually to the elevator which would take me to the patient’s floors. One Christmas season I was walking through the basement corridor opposite the carpentry shop and I noticed that someone had tacked up a whimsical little sign on the door. It read simply: “Kiss a Carpenter, $1.00.” I thought: that’s a good idea for a sermon. Little did the comedian who posted the sign know that some years later it would appear in a sermon, but here it is. Does that not sum up the message of Mark, the message of the Gospel? We are all invited to “Kiss a Carpenter” — one carpenter in particular: Jesus of Nazareth.
In a sense, that is what we do every time we commune. We embrace Christ, and He embraces us. “Only a Carpenter”? No, Jesus is much more than that. But He wasn’t a bad carpenter. After all, He made a Communion table which has lasted for nearly two thousand years! (DBS)
Proper 10 (B)
July 10, 1994
A Prison of Fear
(Mark 6:14-29)
When we read this passage our focus is drawn to John the Baptist, the innocent prisoner and victim. But John is not the only prisoner and victim in the story. Herod was a prisoner of fear and a victim of sin — both his own sin and that of his wife. Because of fear and sin, Herod was not free to do what he wanted to do. We can learn about our own prisons, our problems, and the things in life which limit our choices if we look at Herod, the other victim.
I. The Prison of Fear
Herod thought he was free but freedom was an illusion. Several times in the story Herod was unable to do what he wanted to do. He didn’t want to arrest John, but he did “for the sake of Herodias” (Mark 6:17). Herodias wanted John killed, but Herod was afraid of John (vs. 20). Finally, Herod didn’t want to excute John, but was afraid to break his word (v. 26).
Mark tells us Herod actually heard John gladly and did many of the things John called him to do (v. 20). But Herod was afraid to do all John called him to do. Herod had sinned by taking his brother’s wife, and his sin took control of him as one sin led to another. He found himself in a position where fear dictated his every choice.
Herod is not unlike the business-person who tells a client one lie to make a sale. Then the first lie has to be covered by a second, and fear of being found out becomes a prison. You can see in Herod the same dilemma of a teen-age girl who gets pregnant. She is afraid of hurting her parents, afraid of any anger they may feel, and afraid of changing the life plans of her boyfriend. Her fears are as solid as any prison wall and leave only one way out: an abortion she doesn’t want.
Herod is like the woman in an abusive marriage. Because of her sin she thinks she deserves to be beaten. She is afraid of what will happen to her if she divorces her abuser. Her prison is as real as John’s, or Herod’s. I could compare Herod with the racist whose prejudice and hatred have built prison walls that keep out other people — people God created — thus making the freedom of enjoying life with others an impossibility.
The apostle Paul almost sounds like Herod himself when he wrote of his own struggles with sin. “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Rom. 7:19, NKJV). Paul refers to sin as slavery, an analogy comparable with prison. We think we are exercising freedom when we choose to sin, but in reality we are becoming slaves to sin. When I was a teenager, I thought I was proving my freedom when I started smoking, but I only became addicted to cigarettes.
The comparisons are unlimited. The poet was right when he said, “Stone walls do not a prison make, or iron bars a cage.” Fear and sin, compounded and multiplied, can take control of any person’s life.
Having spoken of the prison of fear in general, let me begin to show you the key to freedom.
II. The Key to Freedom
Ironically, Herod had the key to freedom in his hand. He had heard John the Baptist preach repentance of sin. No doubt he had also heard John preach on his other favorite theme, the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is the only place true freedom can be found on earth. Jesus Christ offers the freedom of serving Him. He alone can cut through the chains that bind us and break down the walls that surround us.
The tragedy of this story is that Herod had the key in his hand. He could repent, turn from his sin, ask to be forgiven, and seek after the Kingdom of God. But Herod was afraid.
If today you find yourself unable to make some of the choices you would like to make — choices you know you should make — then perhaps you, too, need a key to get you out of the prison dictating your life. Some of these prisons are rather simple and you can turn to Jesus right now and walk out free. Some of these prisons are rather complex and have been solidly constructed over the years. You may need to meet with me privately. If I cannot help you, I will know someone who can.
Don’t let fear keep you in a prison of fear and sin. Take this step toward freedom in Christ. (BG)
Proper 11 (B)
July 17, 1994
Stormy Weather
(Mark 6:45-52)
This is quite a story. The disciples had returned from their first missionary journey. Jesus had sent them out two by two, and together they had come back worn out. They had been so busy with their coming and going, Mark records, that they didn’t even have time to eat. Jesus, seeing their need, endeavored to sail with them across the Sea of Galilee to a quiet place for solitude and rest. What happened? The crowds, so desirous to feel the healing touch of Jesus, followed on foot after Him and once again crowded around. There were some 5,000 men plus women and children. Jesus treated them with compassion. He gave them words of instruction. And observing their physical hunger needs, He multiplied five little loaves and two little fish.
The apostle John tells us the crowd was so impressed with this miracle that they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). John goes on to tell us that Jesus knew that they were intending to make Him king. This was not His plan. So He sent His disciples ahead by boat to Bethsaida while He dismissed the crowd. He went up on a mountainside to pray. Some Bible scholars feel that Jesus sent the disciples off because they were not prepared to deal with that kind of adultation. He was not going to allow them to confront the temptation of power unprepared. How easily they might have adjusted themselves to a human agenda that would bring about the overthrow of the Roman yoke and an earthly kingdom built on political and military strength.
The disciples had more to learn, as do we. I guess we could say that this story as it unfolds has contemporary significance for you and me as we look at world events in the macrocosm, and personal events in the microcosm. Perhaps the best application of this story to our lives is to show us how we tend to make our problems worse in ways similar to those of the disciples.
Just what did these men do that stormy night to unnecessarily complicate their lives? How are we like them?
First, the disciples thought that Jesus was unaware of their circumstances.
Do you ever think that about Him? Mark records:
When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. (Mark 6:47-48)
Jesus is always aware and watching! Never forget that fact. I know what it is to feel alone. Don’t you? There is a part of me that could very well adapt itself to a secular nihilism. There are those moments when I live unaware of the presence of Jesus. I forget the promises of His Word. I am so lonely. I forget the words of the Psalmist: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Ps. 139:7-10).
Second, the disciples thought their problems were worse than they were.
Do you ever panic? I do. I have a way of imagining the worst. In fact, as one who worked with Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, I thought I might someday write a book on The Power of Negative Thinking. My thought was this: if one expects the very worst to happen, one ends up being happily surprised. I know people who have emphasized positive or possibility thinking to the point that they are always expecting the best and, as a result, are not prepared for bad things. That would not be a bad approach if there were no God and if Jesus Christ were not available to us. It would be a magnificent defensive posture to protect us against our proclivity toward denial of tough times.
Jesus wasn’t particularly panicked about the disciples’ situation. He saw them straining at the oars, with the heavy winds against them. It states here that in the middle of the night He went out to them, walking on the lake and was “about to pass by them …” Apparently, their situation was not as dangerous as they thought. They had overreacted.
Steve Brown tells a little story about a man who in the middle of the night was walking along the railroad track across a bridge. He had been feeling his way along in the darkness only to suddenly hear a train whistle. In great panic, he crawled over the side of the bridge and, lowering himself down very carefully, held on to the trestle. He remained suspended there in mid-air as the train passed over him. Then he tried to raise himself up, but his arms were too tired. To conserve his strength, he hung there, dangling in space, hundreds of feet from the land below — only to discover, as dawn began to break, that during the time he had been hanging on for dear life his feet were only six inches from the ground.
What do we do? We have a stomach ache, and we think it’s cancer. We become physically hypochondriacal. We lose a job or pending financial opportunity and we expect bankruptcy. A conflict comes into our marriage, and we assume that it will inevitably lead to divorce. A child experiments with alcohol or drugs, and we picture it as an irredeemable disaster for our child and for us. There are times in which we think our problem is worse than it actually is.
Third, the disciples confused their solution with the problem.
Did you catch that when I read the text? They saw Jesus walking on the lake, and “they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified.”
What did Jesus say to them? “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Jesus has been saying that to you and me all through our lives. I understand that there are over 3,000 promises of God’s Word to those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ. I guess I just happen to be a slow learner. I could spend the next two or three hours reading to you passages from God’s Word that give assurance of God’s presence, and yet I often fail to see Him and take Him at His Word.
He tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. Shouldn’t that give us tremendous encouragement as we endeavor to live lives with all the complicated tensions that mark them here on planet earth? He has told us that He has gone to prepare a place for us with God the Father in heaven. Shouldn’t that take away some of our fear from death. No. I want to fight it. I would rather not take God at His Word. I would rather rig my existence on my terms, not His terms. In the process, I certainly make a mess out of my life.
Over ten years ago, I had a very serious ski accident at Mammoth in the Sierras. Skiing very fast over some moguls, I suddenly came on a burnout with dirt and rocks. I had the option of jumping or of trying to make a quick turn and stop. I chose the latter. I couldn’t pull it off and flipped head over heels, tumbling down the mountain. My left ski released; my right ski didn’t.
I can still picture the mountains, snow, sky, my arms, my legs, torso and one ski in that crazy jumble of photographic pictures. Suddenly, I felt the pressure on my lower right leg and then the snap of the boot-top, compound fracture.
You want to know what the first thought was that came into my mind? It was the text that I had preached on the previous Sunday which was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It was this: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:5 KJV). My immediate reaction was to recoil from the Scripture passage upon which I had preached with such fervency the previous Sunday. My next reaction was what a phony I would be. So in the shock, the pain, the continual tumbling of that split second in time, in sheer discipline, I prayed, “Thank you, God. I trust you. Do what you want with this.”
It wasn’t easy. During the months that followed, it was difficult — five hospitalizations and a moment with a massive pulmonary embolism in which the whole right lung and a third of the left was nonfunctioning. This brought me close to death. Yet Jesus Christ was there. I look back now and realize that some of the best lessons I have ever learned in my life came during that difficult time. I also was able to accomplish things I couldn’t accomplish before.
The second thought that came through my mind as I tumbled down that mountain was almost the inner voice of God saying, “Now you have the time to finish your doctoral dissertation.” And I did. I preached all but six Sundays during those next seven months, although I was in a toe-to-groin cast. I was limited in my activities and had plenty of time to read, reflect and write.
Fourth, the disciples failed to realize that Jesus had all power and was capable of calming that storm.
Mark records: “then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened” (vv. 51-52).
It is difficult to understand how these disciples who had seen Jesus perform miracle after miracle after miracle could, in a moment when they were in a personal jam themselves, fail to trust Jesus when they had seen Jesus meet the needs of others who had trusted Him.
How often in the past has Jesus let you down? I don’t want to be naive about this and try to manipulate you into declaring experience of His constancy that does not square with your reality. I know that in a group this size there are some here who are very bitter. You trusted God for that marriage to work, and it didn’t. You trusted God to heal that child, and he or she wasn’t healed. You trusted God to make that business a success, and it didn’t work out that way. I grant you your right to be angry.
At the same time, I ask you in your anger to push the issue all the way. Was it God who let you down? Or is it possible that God was actually quite available to you and very helpful during the difficult time? I am convinced that some of the messes I blamed on God are my responsibility. And I am increasingly aware that some of the times I thought God had failed me, that wasn’t quite the case. He was with me through it all. All things did work together for good, as tough as was my innocent suffering at that time.
When I am really honest with myself, I have to come to the realization that God has never let me down. There have been times that I have let Him down. There have been times that I have taken my eyes off Him.
Mark does not record one aspect to this story that Matthew records. You may want to check it out in Matthew 14:28-31. Peter, when he checked out what he thought was a ghost and found out it was Jesus, wanted a final confirmation. He asked, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” Jesus responded, “Come.” Peter was able to walk on the water toward Jesus. Then, suddenly, he became aware of the wind and was afraid. At that moment, he began to sink. What did he do? He took his trust and focus off Jesus and put it back on himself and the impossibility of his circumstances. It was only when, aware of the catastrophe about to happen, he focused again on the Savior, and was rescued.
I could tell you a lot of stories of my own half-century of walking with the Lord. I can describe occasions on which I took my eyes off Him and created some real messes for myself. More significantly, I can describe to you situation after situation when, at the time, I thought I was alone, or that God had neglected me, or that I was left without power. Retrospectively, I can see the steadying hand of the Lord. Even so, my memory does tend to be short. Doesn’t yours? I have to remind myself of the marvelous ways in which God has worked in the past, as I claim His promises for the present and for the future. (JAH)
Proper 12 (B)
July 24, 1994
The Child at the Master’s Feet
(John 6:1-15)
On the basis of the evidence in the New Testament, Christianity at its beginning seems to have been primarily an adult movement. Aside from occasional references to Jesus’ love for children and references in the Book of Acts and the Epistles of Paul to whole families that were converted to Christ, there is little mention of small children or young people.
Very likely this was because Israel was a patriarchy. The important decisions were almost always made by men. When a man became a believer, he and his whole family were baptized and became members of the church. Wives and children’s names were seldom mentioned, especially if the children were under the age of adulthood.
It is remarkable, therefore, that our text today focuses even for a moment on the small lad who surrendered his loaves and fishes to the Master. In the miracle feeding stories in the other Gospels, he is not mentioned at all. But here he is instrumental in providing food for a great crowd of Christ’s followers.
Here was a young fellow who was very deep for his years. He was attracted to the powerful young rabbi who often preached by the Sea of Galilee, where the apostle John’s father was a fisherman. Sometimes the lad would beg off helping his father on the boat in order to walk to wherever Jesus was teaching and to be in the crowd and to hear the wisdom of the Master. Whenever he would go off to do this, his mother would pack him a lunch to carry along, because he sometimes walked for miles and was gone for hours.
On one of these occasions, Jesus decided to feed the crowds, for they had been with him a long time and were hungry. Eager to help his revered teacher, the boy quickly held out his little dinner bag. With a smile on his face, Jesus accepted it. Maybe He said, “Look, see what this youngster has brought us! What a willing spirit he has!” And then Jesus said the blessing and the disciples began to pass out the loaves and fishes. Nobody could describe exactly how it happened, but somehow the food kept multiplying until there was more than enough for everybody.
The other Gospel writers wrote about the feeding miracles as evidences of Christ’s great power. But the Gospel of John sees something else. It sees the power locked up in a youthful imagination — in the mind and heart of this boy who recognized the lordship of Christ and was willing to give him not only his lunch but his entire life.
There is great power in our young people, isn’t there? They are a treasure we must be careful never to squander or neglect. I think about the fine young man in our church in Virginia who became sensitive to the needs of the handicapped and spent his own money and several weekends of his time outfitting our restrooms for handicapped persons near the sanctuary. I read about some young people in a church in Illinois who organized a food pantry for the hungry of their community, and young people in a church in Mississippi who started a drug program in their town to help people who had become addicted and wanted to break the habit.
There is power and promise in young people. Not all young people are roaming the city at night, stealing cars, and getting into trouble. Many of them are among the finest servants Christ has, and they are the church of tomorrow.
Toyohiko Kagawa was only a boy when some Presbyterian missionaries in Japan took him into their home to befriend him. They taught him English and gave him a Bible to read. He read and reread the words of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount. He memorized the Sermon on the Mount and other parts of the New Testament. His child’s heart ready to burst with happiness, he cried, “O God, make me like Christ!”
And God did!
At twenty-one, Kagawa moved into an apartment in the slums of Kobe and began caring for the sick and the poor. His experiences there became the foundation for an extensive ministry throughout Japan and the world. At one point, the Japanese government employed Kagawa to direct its efforts at caring for the poor of the great industrial cities. The heart that had fallen in love with Christ was shared with an entire nation!
God must have a special regard for the young and service of the very young.
I am reminded of Willie, the little Mexican-American boy in Thomas Klise’s novel The Last Western. Willie was only four years old when his mother took him to Catholic worship in the little adobe church in his hometown in New Mexico. Willie stared at the crucifix, blackened by incense through the years. “Mama,” he asked, “who is that?” His mother told him to be quiet, there was a service going on; but he kept asking. Finally she said it was “Jesus the Lord.” Willie wanted to know what Jesus was doing. She said He was suffering for the sins of the world.
Later that day, when everybody had left the church, Willie came back. He was dragging a ladder. He put it up against the front of the chancel, next to the crucifix. Then he brought a cup of water and climbed the ladder. He reached toward the Christ-figure’s mouth, which had partly fallen away and left a dingy white hole in the plaster, and poured water into the mouth. Willie’s tender heart could not bear to see the sufferings of Jesus the Lord; he had to do something for Him!
Can you remember what it was like to be very young and to be in love with God, and yet to feel you had nothing to give Him? I can. When I was twelve or thirteen, I began spending a lot of time wandering the fields and creeks where I grew up, thinking about God and trying to love Him with my small heart. I was often frustrated because there was so little I seemed to be able to do for Him. I had almost no money. I didn’t have a very good education. I had no influence of any kind. I wasn’t even an athlete, so that I could bear witness in that way. I was just a poor boy who loved God.
Years later, when I was a pastor and had a lot of influence in the community, and had written a number of books, I was praying about my life and what I should do with it. I tried to empty my mind and then to set it out like a bowl to receive the impressions God’s Spirit wanted me to have. And you know what I heard God say? I heard God say, “I want my little boy back again.”
Not the man who had been a teacher.
Not the man who was pastor of a big church.
Not the man who had friends and influence across the country.
Not the man who had written all those books.
God’s little boy, who had walked the fields and loved Him.
That’s who God really wants in each of us. Not the person of power and prestige. Not the person with a lot of money and influence. The child, with the child’s heart for loving. (JK)
Proper 13 (B)
July 31, 1994
What in the World Should the Church Do?
(Ephesians 4:1-16)
A family began a vacation to a destination that would take several days of driving to reach. On the third day of the trip, the eight-year- old daughter, weary from the travel, asked, “Daddy, when we get to where we are going, will we be there?” That’s not a bad question for any of us to ask. Where do we want to be? And are we presently headed in the right direction to get there?
No single factor so determines the direction and destiny of our lives as the goals that we set for ourselves. What is our destination? Goals are important for families, for individuals, and for the body of Christ. If a person belongs to Christ, then he or she is in the body of Christ, the church. The church is in the world, and the question is, “What in the world should the church do?” What are we here for? What are our goals? And are we doing the things that will lead us to reach those goals?
What is the trail that the church should be following? What in the world should the church do?
The first answer is that the church should receive life and power from Christ.
Before one can give Christ to the world, one must receive Christ. Before Paul wrote in Ephesians 4 about being gifted for ministry, he wrote in Ephesians 2 about being gifted with new life in Christ. He wrote to the Ephesian Christians, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins … but God being rich in mercy … made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)” (vv. 1, 4-5).
God’s grace is also mentioned in Ephesians 4:7. It is His grace (His giving nature) that allows us to have new life, and it is His grace that affords us His power to minister in His name. If we are to do what we should be doing in the world, we must first let God do in us what He wants to do. If we are to offer to others new life in Christ, then we must first receive that new life.
If you have never opened your heart to Christ and received Him, you need to know that you will never be what you were intended by God to be. You will never do what you should be doing in the world. Receive Christ — His life and His power — and you will be ready to serve Him as you ought.
I believe that there are many people today on the church rolls who have never been born again, and that is the reason they do not serve Christ as they ought to do. The reason the church is not a greater force for evangelism is that it is a field for evangelism. If we are to do in the world what we are intended to do, then first we must receive life and power from Christ. He is the Source of our life and direction.
Second, we must remain obedient to the commission of Christ.
What is His commission, or charge, to His body the church? He commanded us (Matt. 28:19-20), “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” We call those words “the Great Commission.”
Just before He ascended to the Father He told His disciples, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The commission of Jesus to His church is to be witnesses to Him in every part of the earth. In the same way that the Father sent the Son to seek and to save that which was lost, the Son has sent us. And He has sent us to make disciples and to teach them to observe all that He commanded.
In Ephesians 4, it is Paul’s assumption that every member of the body of Christ will be involved in that commission, and that the church will grow thereby. In verse 11 he states that God has given different saints (that’s us) different abilities, or gifts. The purpose of those abilities is in verse 12: “For the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” Some are apostles, some are prophets, some are evangelists, pastors, and teachers in order to train believers to do the ministry of the church, or to be ministers.
You are a minister. You don’t need an ordination certificate; Christ Himself has commissioned you. And God has given to some individuals the gifts necessary to train you to do the work of the ministry.
What in the world should the church do? We are to remain obedient to the commission of Christ. How about you? Are you a serving Christian, sharing the good news of Jesus, or are you a sitting Christian? Have you been obedient to the Great Commission, or is it the Great Omission? If you have not been serving and sharing, you have not been contributing to the church’s purpose for being here. Maybe you started out in the right direction, but somewhere along the way you followed a side road and now you find yourself sitting and watching a mouse hole.
Why is it that more people are not coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? Christians have ceased to see themselves as ministers, thus they do not involve themselves in daily witness. Therefore the Gospel remains within the four walls of the church and within the minds of Christians.
Christ has sent us into the world to make disciples, and He has sent all of us. The result is, as Paul states in Ephesians 4:16: “The whole body … causes the growth of the body.” But someone may say, “I serve on a committee.” That’s wonderful. I serve on them too. But one of the tragedies of the modern church is that we have limited our service for Christ to service for the church organization, when Christ has commissioned us to go to the world where there are people in need of the gospel.
Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses … to the remotest part of the earth.” God supplies the power that we may do the witnessing in the world. When we go to the gas station and fill our cars with gas, they will run for 250 miles or more on that tank of gas. How ridiculous it would be for someone to drive all of that 250 miles by driving in circles around the gas pumps at the gas station. Yet that is what some Christians do. God gives them the power of the Holy Spirit to go into the world but they limit their service to the church organization.
Sometimes I feel like that Britisher who came to the United States for a visit. He was accustomed to watching the fast-paced, almost non-stop action of rugby, but when he came here someone took him to a football game. Afterward he was asked what he thought about football. He said that he enjoyed it, “But,” he said, “they do seem to schedule an excessive number of committee meetings.”
The church can easily do the same thing. There is nothing wrong with getting in a huddle to plan, but people don’t pay $20 a ticket to watch people stand around in a huddle. They want to see the ball move toward the goal line. And sometimes I think the world thinks about the church, “It’s fine for them to meet together and get in their holy huddle. But when are they going to do something? What is the church supposed to be doing in the world anyway?” We know the answer to that. The question is, “Are we doing it?”
The church, first, is to receive life and power from Christ. Second, we are to remain obedient to the commission of Christ.
Third, we should resist any opposition to the growth of the body of Christ.
In Ephesians 4, Paul wrote about some winds of doctrine and some tricks of men that would undermine the spiritual health of the church. We don’t know the exact nature of the heresies about which Paul was writing. But apparently someone, using some kind of theological sleight of hand, made it seem alright to remain immature in the faith.
To the contrary, Paul wrote that we are to “grow up in all aspects into Him, who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body … causes the growth of the body” (vv. 15-16). The context in Ephesians 4 and other teachings on the church in the New Testament dictate that we interpret “the growth of the body” in two ways. It refers to spiritual growth and numerical growth (as additional people come to know Christ and become members of His body).
We do not know the kind of subtle opposition to that growth that the Christians in Ephesus faced. But it’s not too difficult for us to identify the substitutes for growth that we face. Some people substitute activity for growth. It doesn’t matter where we are going,, just so we are going. An active church is a healthy church. But activity is not the measure of success, or health, for the church. The most active chicken in the chicken yard is the one with its head cut off.
Another subtle substitute for growth is unity. The unity of the church is indispensable. But the question is “Unified for what?” Our unity in the body of Christ is not in order to sit in a circle close to one another so that we can become warm, feel good, and gaze into one another’s eyes. Our unity is like the unity of a team. It is necessary in order for us to work together, not against one another, as we fulfill the commission of Christ for the church.
A third subtle substitute for growth is orthodoxy. Orthodox doctrine is absolutely vital to the ministry and the survival of the church. Furthermore, right belief is the basis for right living. But orthodoxy by itself is not enough. We are called to be world-changers, and that calls for not only right thinking but right direction in ministry.
What will it take for us to feel no attractions toward these subtle substitutes for ministry and witness? It will take nothing less than an all-consuming passion to fulfill Christ’s calling for our lives. Do you have a deep desire to be obedient to the commission of Christ? What do you feel when you think of the many around us without Christ? I’ll tell you what Paul felt when he considered his fellow Jews who did not know Jesus. He wrote in Romans 10:1, “My heart’s desire and my prayer to God and them is for their salvation.”
Sometimes I wish I could drive through the streets of our city without feeling this way about people, but I cannot. I cannot just look at homes as I drive by without wondering whether the people in those homes have life in Christ and will be in Heaven when they die. And I would be the first to say that I am not doing all I can to see them saved, and we are not doing all we can. But that deep burden in my soul, that passion to be obedient to Christ’s commission, drives me to do so much more than I would ever do in the strength of the flesh.
If you pray for that kind of burden, it will drive you to do what in the world the church should be doing — resisting opposition to the growth of the body of Christ in order to remain obedient to the commission of Christ. But in order to do that, one must first receive life and power from Christ. Have you done that? (NAM)
Sermon briefs in this issue are provided by: Gary C. Redding, Pastor, First Baptist Church, North Augusta, SC: John A. Huffman, Jr., Minister, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, CA; Derl G. Keefer, Three Rivers (MI) Church of the Nazarene; Bill Groover, Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, Louisville, KY; Donald B. Strobe, Prof. of NT & Homiletics, Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies; John Killinger, Distinguished Professor of Theology & Culture, Samford University; and N. Allen Moseley, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Durham, NC.