From the sermon preached May 13, 2012
Over this past year we have looked at being a church that loves and being a church that is filled and empowered by the Spirit. These are key areas for us to grow as a church and to expand the kingdom of God in our community. But as I have been speaking on these areas it has been a growing conviction in my heart that we need to step back and take a closer look at the one for whom we do so much and owe so much –Jesus Christ.
It is so easy to get caught up in the what and the why and the how that we lose sight of the who. Jesus Christ is central to our faith, our purpose our eternity. And I am finding that more and more we as a church –the church in general, but even LBC, are less familiar with the person and work of Jesus Christ than in years past. We may be familiar with some of the grand things about Jesus –the birth and death and resurrection things, but the miracles, the teachings, the actions of Jesus as he touched lives, as he walked this earth –the accounts of his life are more and more lost.
I was talking with a man a few months ago, a man whom I know has been in church for many years, and I referred to an event about Jesus and he looked at me blankly. I said, you know the time Jesus reached out and took Peter’s hand when Peter began to sink into the sea? Again blank. I then began to watch and subtly check out a growing theory –we do not know Jesus and the thing is that we don’t know that we don’t know.
Several years ago a friend of mine developed a little course called “Who is Jesus.” His premise for starting the series was, “People don’t know what they don’t know.” I have done this a few times at LBC and have seen how people really don’t know what they don’t know. And we –I, take it for granted that people do know.
We are living in a culture that is less and less familiar with the accounts of the Bible, the events of Moses, Joshua, Joseph, David, Samson and so many others. But even more, we are less and less familiar with the accounts of Jesus. Part of this is a growing secularization of our culture, part is that we (as a church in general) have moved to a more how to approach to our faith, and part is due to the decrease of the amount of time we actually spend in teaching, reading and learning about our faith –about Jesus.
And let us admit it, as we get older, we tend to forget. Oh, we may have a nostalgic recollection that Jesus walked on water, or climbed up mount Vesuvius or fed the 5000 (did you catch that?) Jesus never climbed up Vesuvius –he climbed Mt Ararat! NO! We may have a recollection but could we find the account in scripture, could we recall the event to our children our grandchildren? One of the things that I believe we need to have done is to be reminded of the things we know and taught the things we do not know. That is the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26) but also of the elders, the teachers and the pastors and parents (II Peter 1:12-15)
This injunction to teach goes back to the ancient text of Deuteronomy. Listen to the familiar words of 6:4-5. But now hear the words of 6-12. “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord!” the continual telling of the story, the account is so important. And note, this is given to the parents!
When my kids were growing up, and even today, they would almost roll their eyes when I would start to tell a story or experience from my past. “You already told us that one dad.” I have heard it before. Chris, our oldest, when we got back from Cameroon, had heard us talk so often about some of the things that he could tell the stories verbatim –even up to today. Telling and telling and retelling, hearing and hearing and re-hearing, reading and reading and re-reading the accounts plants them in our hearts and minds and souls.
Knowing Jesus, knowing Him more and more, affects our theology of Christ, our doctrine of Christ, our apologetic of Christ, our witness for Christ, our growing in Christ our teaching of Christ, our passing on to the next generation and the next generation about Jesus. The telling and retelling of the stories, the accounts, the events and the lives Jesus touched. These build into us a greater and deeper faith from which we can share and impart.
Do we have an eagerness to know Him more, to say –tell me more about Jesus. Tell me again about Jesus. Oh, I love that time when Jesus touched the blind man and gave him sight. Oh remember that time when Jesus knelt and wrote in the dust –I wonder what he wrote (do we know the time that happened?).
Do we long for and pray for the eyes of our heart to be opened that we may see Jesus –more and more. Do we long for and pray for the eyes of our children’s hearts to be opened that they may see Jesus and to know Him more and more? Do we long for and pray for the church of Jesus to know Jesus and love Jesus and hear again and again and again the wonderful words of life in Jesus?
It is easy to get caught up in the “what” and the why and the how but do we, dare we, ground ourselves in the who?
And what better way to discover more about Jesus than to learn from those who knew him –walked and talked and touched him. So over the next while –however long it takes, I am going to be speaking from the gospel of Mark.
Why Mark? It is the first (chronologically) and one of the easiest and quickest (he often says “immediately”) and gives a lot of detail for the non-jewish (us) reader.
He wasn’t one of the disciples. But I believe he was there to see at least some of the events that happened. And it is well understood that this writer wrote under the direction of Peter. As early as 120 AD the early church understood Mark to be the interpreter, or secretary, of Peter. It is also thought that this Mark was the one who in this gospel is written, “A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When the seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind.” (Mark 14:51-52) We do not know who this young man was, but most church leaders and writers of the first 400 years of the church (and into today) believe it was Mark.
Imagine the fear and the faith of this young man –first seeing the Jesus arrested, then seeing the disciples flee, then he himself –following, and then seized! The on the surface is a little comical –he fled naked, but stop and think for a moment of the deep faith, the commitment, the desire to be close to Jesus –even as he is arrested and all others flee! The question may well be asked, why would Mark be there, that night? From the earliest authors in church history it is believed that it was at his mother’s home where the last supper was held. Imagine the power and impact that this alone would have on this young man’s life! Although not a participant, he may well have helped prepare the food, helped do some of the serving, listened in on some of the teaching of Jesus that night. We do not know the age of Mark at this point, but it is thought he was in his teenage years.
I want to stop here for a moment. This is mother’s day. Note the impact that Mary opening her home to Jesus had on this young man. The impressions we can make are powerful when we are open to be used by God –even in practicing hospitality.
But the account of this young man and his faith do not stop here. We read later in Acts 12:12 that when Peter is miraculously freed from prison. (read Acts 5-7, 12). This was the place where the church regularly met, it was here they prayed, and it was here Peter went. Again note, this home environment in which Mark was exposed to the teachings and ministry of Peter at an early age. We also know that Mark was a cousin to Barnabas who went with Paul on Paul’s first missionary journey and then alter went with Barnabas on other trips. He later was highly regarded and commended by Paul as His companion when Paul was imprisoned in Rome (II Tim. 4:11).
And later he was with Peter, according to church history. And so the richness of experience, the hearing of the stories over and over from Peter himself, the experiences of his encounters with the disciples with Paul, the mission’s trips with Barnabas all add to the texture of this young man’s life. For over 20 years he has been hearing and sharing the account of Jesus. And now, listening to the teachings of Peter about Jesus, he writes down the events so that we can know, so that we can see, so that we can learn about this most incredible person –Jesus Christ, the son of God!
And Mark begins, not with the birth of Jesus, like Matthew and Luke, but with the ministry of Jesus. He starts, “the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ the Son of God.” These opening words are full of power and hope, love and grace.
He simply and powerfully starts, “beginning.” And it reminds us of the opening of Genesis 1:1, “beginning.” Just as God, in the beginning steps into our history and begins to work, so Jesus steps into creation and begins to work. We begin at the beginning with about whom this is about –Jesus. This is not a book about Peter, or Barnabas, or Paul or some other of the well known disciples these influences in Marks’ life –this is about Jesus Himself, coming into his creation. John writes similarly, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God, he was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made.” And Paul expands on this in the letter to the church of Colosse, READ 1:15-17. What a picture, what a depth, just in one word as comes into His creation to continue the redemptive work God planned for in the beginning.
And this beginning is good news! It is the gospel, the “euangelion” about Jesus Christ. This gospel is an important subject for Mark. The word appears seven times (used 4 in Matthew and none in the other two gospels except as a genitive verb). This good news, this gospel, is offered as hope to the neglected and the oppressed, the lost and the weary, the struggling and the expectant. This is good news! Good news about Jesus, by Jesus and in Jesus Christ. This good news is that God has provided salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, we look to Paul as he continues to write in Colossi ans 1, (verses 19-23).
This is the good news, the beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Oh, there is so much wrapped up in these names –Jesus, Hebrew “Joshua” Yeshua, meaning god is salvation. Matthew picks this up as we saw in the opening call to worship “you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from the sins.” Christ, which means anointed, or in Hebrew, “messiah.” He is uniquely commissioned, solitarily given the task, the one who would restore God’s people.
And he is God’s son. He and he alone has the unique relationship with the Father. Although Mark mentions this title only a few times, it was John who amplified this close connection between Jesus and the Father. John 3:16 is one great example of Jesus talking about his connection to the father and then in his great prayer in John 17 we read, “Father the time has com. Glorify your Son that you son may glorify you.” And even more, this statement, “the Son of God” pronounces the deity of Jesus Christ –He is God.
I know that most of you do not know biblical Greek. But I want to read this opening verse to you in the greek and then transliterate it. “’arxn, tou euangelliou Insou Xristou uiou theou.” It reads, beginning, the gospel Jesus Christ son of God. It punches in bold declaration what this letter is about and who it is about. He is the gospel. It is the good news of Jesus, about Jesus, by Jesus, the son of God.
Come, let us seek to know Him better that we too may proclaim the good news.
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