Sermon from March 27, 2011
"The Unthinkable"
Mark 8:31-10:52

Every person here is a hero in need of a biographer. Biographers are in short supply. Pity! There are no dull people. Scratch just below the surface, and you’ll find how interesting people are. What makes them interesting is their personality, skills, secrets, how they handle adversity, and – most interesting – their purposes.

We don’t know a person until we know those characteristics. As we get to know them, they will endear the person to us or repel us. Jesus was a case in point. He had asked His most loyal followers, “Who do people say I am?” John the Baptist, Elijah, and one of the prophets were the impressive results of history’s first opinion poll. “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Messiah, the long-expected deliverer of Israel.” “That,” said Peter, “is what the feeding of the 5,000 tells us about the meaning of Jesus Christ. He is the Messiah.”

Then, Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about that fact. Why not? What’s the big secret? What’s going on? I think Jesus was saying, “So far, so good, Peter. You now see like the blind man I healed who saw people but they looked like trees walking. He needed another touch. You need another touch, and then you will see clearly the meaning of the feeding of the 5,000 and the meaning of the Messiah.”

Jesus turned His attention exclusively to the disciples in the next 110 verses. He said and said again and said a third time the unexpected meaning of the loaves and of the Messiah. Jesus introduced them to His deepest purpose and what that would require of them. We’ll have to see if it endeared Him to them or repelled them.

The First Prediction
Here’s why Jesus told them not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah. Mark 8:31: He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. A dead Messiah made no sense.

Verse 32 says that He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. Jesus’ pessimism was not what Peter had in mind when he said, “You are the Christ.” He spoke for all the others.

Then, Mark says that Jesus turned and looked at his disciples. What lay behind that look? I wish Mark had said more. Did Jesus look and think, “It’s a long way to Tipperary with these guys?” Did He think, “This is really hard for them?” Did He regret having to tell them the dark purpose of His life?

Whatever He thought, verse 33 says that when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Ouch!

Peter could be forgiven for thinking, “I do have in mind the things of God. I proclaim the kingdom with you. I see your miracles as acts of God not acts of Satan. I just don’t see the point of this defeatist talk about death. What happened to the kingdom?” The answers to Peter take the form of a speech, a spectacle, a failure, and faith. Listen first to Jesus’ speech in verses 34-38.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

The last line is the point. “You may not understand me, just don’t be ashamed of me. I don’t want to be ashamed of you when my Father’s glory dispels this darkness.”

The spectacle that follows also spoke to Peter’s question: “What happened to the kingdom?” Mark 9:1: And he said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” We call what followed the Transfiguration. It was a foretaste of the kingdom.

Verses 3-4: His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. The dazzling white along with the appearance of Elijah and Moses, long since dead, are samples of the Father’s glory and the coming kingdom. “I have to die; but let this spectacle remind you that death doesn’t have the last word.”

Peter was duly impressed and said something stupid. Verses 5-6: “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters – one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” I have no idea why Peter said that, but that’s okay; he didn’t know either. (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) That’s why we love Peter: he was passionately and desperately flawed, just like us.

Down the mountain they went with more questions than answers. The end of verse 12 is important for insight into Jesus’ thinking about His death. Jesus replied, “Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected?” His mission to die was deeply tied up with the scriptures of Israel. Mark didn’t say how.

Then a failure distracted Peter, James, and John from their continued confusion. The other nine disciples had failed to help a desperate father with his demon-possessed child. Verse 22 captures his desperation. “The demon has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed his immortal answer, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

Jesus’ miracles always point to a greater meaning. You never see the sign that says, “Wilmington Four Miles” and think you’re home. Never read a miracle of Jesus and think you’re home. It always points to some deeper meaning. Here the answer of the boy’s father discloses that deeper meaning. The disciples, still reeling from Jesus’ prediction of His death, really did believe in Him, but they needed help in overcoming their unbelief about the necessity of His death. What happened next showed where the help would come from.

Verse 28: After Jesus exorcised the demon and had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn't we drive it out?”

He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” This kind? This kind of what? This kind of problem? What kind of problem: demon-possession? Yes, but also your lack of faith which only God can cure. Ask Him! Ask Him!

The Second Prediction
Without warning the next three verses introduce Jesus’ second prediction of His death. They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. I think they hoped it would just go away.

Here’s why I think that. Verse 33: They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. I think they wanted Jesus’ talk about betrayal, death and rising from the dead (whatever that meant) to go away, because it disturbed their ambitions for greatness.

Verses 35-36 start a remarkable sequence of events in which Jesus undermined their ambitions for greatness and further prepared them to receive his unwelcome predictions of death. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all. Are you willing to do that” He contradicted everything they believed about getting ahead.

John still didn’t get it. Verse 38: “Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” Jesus could have rebuked him for his small-mindedness, but He answered graciously with another body blow to their ideas of greatness.

“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.” Come on, guys! Your ideas of greatness are too small, too narrow. The politics of God is broader than you know.

The rest of Mark nine is a cataract of hyperbole. These exaggerations further degraded the disciples’ ambition. Verses 42-43: “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.” “Stop debating who’s the greatest. Remember that great people cause little people to sin all the time.” The chapter ends with a wise piece of advice. “Be at peace with each other.”

Chapter 10 opens with the only episode of conflict with the authorities in this section of Mark. It’s about divorce. The authorities wanted to know if Jews could divorce. Jesus asked what Moses said about it. They told Him Moses allowed it. Jesus was unimpressed. Was Moses the best they could do? Were they satisfied with Moses’ excuses at the expense of God’s intentions? God created marriage to be one man and one woman for life. “Therefore,” Jesus concluded, “what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Staying married is true greatness. Were the disciples up to that?

Not yet. Verse 13: People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. He was too important, they were too important, to be bothered by silly mothers and their children. Jesus turned the world upside down again. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” A child is not impressed by grown-ups. That childlike detachment from conventional wisdom is the key to kingdom greatness.

They were still chewing on that riddle when a man asked Jesus the million-dollar question. Verse 17: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ answer first offended the man (“Why do you call me good? No one is good – except God alone) and then offends us (“Just keep the Ten Commandments”).

The guy never blinked. “Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy.” I think he said it with a straight face.

Jesus never blinked. “One thing you lack. Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” “Hey! We’re talking about eternal life. What’s it worth to you?” The guy walked away. His wealth was worth more than eternal life. What’s eternal life worth to you?

Then Jesus flummoxed the disciples again. Verse 25: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Money is the measure of greatness, isn’t it? Or is it eternal life? What do you think?

The disciples fell all over themselves to remind Jesus about their sacrifices. Verse 28: Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”

Jesus reaffirmed their sacrifices but then left them wondering again about true greatness in verse 31: “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

The Third Prediction
We come to Jesus’ third prediction of His death. Verses 33-34: “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

You’re not going to believe what happened next. Verse 35: James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” Jesus asked what they had in mind. They came to the point. “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory, when you seize political power.”

They still thought they were the greatest. The other ten were ticked. They became indignant with James and John. Not peaceful! That brings us to Jesus’ renewed effort to make them understand and to the heart of Mark’s Gospel. Verses 42-45: “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

A Ransom for Many
There it is: to give his life as a Ransom for Many! That line interprets the Gospel of Mark. That’s why Jesus predicted the necessity of His death. That’s why the cross is the central symbol of our faith. That’s what the feeding of the 5,000 says about the meaning of Jesus Christ. Just as a few loaves fed the hungry bellies of a multitude, the death of Jesus ransomed the human family from its bondage to sin.

That’s who we worship. That’s our Savior. The liberation of earth is underway. That’s why we love Him. That’s why we sing. That’s why we give Him our everything. Sing with me: “I love you Lord.”

Does that song express your devotion to Jesus Christ? Believe in Him. Make any sacrifice to believe in Him. If you want to talk about it, tell us on our connection card.