Sermon from March 18, 2001
What pictures come to mind when you think of God? Nothing in our life matters more than that. No one better than Jesus Christ can draw those pictures in our minds. He once said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." We do not read the Gospels and I am not preaching on the Gospel of Mark in order to take some nostalgic trip down memory lane. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John present to us the only authoritative and trustworthy accounts from the life of Jesus Christ available to humanity, and as we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, we come to see the face of the invisible God.

Having come half way through the Gospel of Mark, it is appropriate that we should pause and ask ourselves again what image of God is taking shape in our souls as a result of this exposure. My task is to present faithfully the vision of God that is emerging from the words and deeds of Jesus Christ. This vision of God is what we bear witness to in this congregation. It is what we stand for. It provides us with a vantagepoint from which we can look out on our world and ask if our world measures up. This is soul food. This is a vision of hope and a source of joy.

Between today and last Sunday, I will present this vision of God. For ease of presentation and listening I will present it with six statements. I will illustrate each one with material from the Gospel of Mark. The first statement I made last week said this. God elected Israel as the human community in which He would anticipate and guarantee the unimaginable good He has in store for all the nations of the earth.

By the way, Israel's privileged position in God's plan to bless all the nations of the earth does not exempt Israel, when it mistreats its Palestinian neighbors. Very few of us can fathom the explosive issues and emotions of the modern Middle East, and the world must guarantee Israel's security. But Israel's actions in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank have not always been just. The Intifada has righteous anger behind it. We Christians must bear witness to Israel's unique place in God's plan for humanity, and we must not forget the Holocaust. Neither should we fail to be critical of Israel, when it neglects the legitimate needs of Palestinians, many of whom are our Christian brothers.

Here is the second statement I made last week. Jesus Christ reveals to us that God is acting within human life so as to bless all the nations of earth with unimaginable goodness, and nothing can thwart Him in His purpose. The life of Jesus Christ stands as irreversible and an irreplaceable pledge and symbol of the inevitable coming of the kingdom of God.

That brings us to a third insight into what Jesus reveals to us about the nature of God. Human sin builds the greatest barrier to God's intended blessing on humanity. Jesus said in Mark 7:21-23, From within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" We carry within us the seeds of our own destruction and that of others even. The Gospel has come to forgive, cleanse, control, and transform the realities of our heart.

This third insight in particular builds the context in which we are to hear the next three statements about the vision of God that Jesus gives us. We are now ready for our fourth statement. God is compassionate toward human beings in their many sufferings, and He has power to relieve their suffering and bring about the unimaginable good He has in store for all the nations of the earth.

We often hear people say, "God is love." Those are comforting words. Judging from the success of Touched by an Angel, people respond well to that message. But how do we know that God loves us? There is plenty of evidence to the contrary in human life. We in this country by and large escaped the bloodpaths of the 20th century. We have structured life in this country so as to shield ourselves from the profound human suffering that takes place around us every day. Some others who have not been shielded have found it more difficult to say that God is loving, compassionate and tender of heart.

If  we are going to say that God is love, we need to root that statement of faith in something greater than our emotions and wishful thinking. Jesus Christ, as Mark's Gospel reveals Him, is that something greater. If by watching Jesus we see what God is like, then we have cause to say that God is tender, compassionate and powerful toward us. For example, in Mark 1 a leper (with the disease of a lifetime) begs Jesus to heal him. Verse 41 says, Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

It was an unthinkable act of compassion for human suffering and authority over the suffering. The very act of touching an untouchable is compassionate, but Mark makes sure we don't miss it by adding that little phrase, filled with compassion. Matthew does not say that. Luke doesn't say that. Mark does the same thing again in Mark 6:34.

As Jesus and the disciples were trying to get away from the crowd for some rest, they came to shore, and when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. In Mark 8:2, when again a large crowd had gathered and had nothing to eat, He said to His disciples, "I have compassion for these people."

In each instance, Mark takes us inside Jesus' soul and shows us what motivated Him, and what we find there was compassion for people, especially people in need. That is why we can say that at the heart of the universe is a heart of compassion for humanity. God loves us.

It is easy to ask, "If God loves us, why doesn't He put a stop to the brutality and undeserved suffering of human life?" You can always embarrass us Christians with that question, because we feel the force of it, and we do not have easy answers for it. It may be important to say that God has great compassion for us, but the brutalities and undeserved sufferings of life still go on.

I for one am glad to know that God has compassion on us amid the brutalities and undeserved sufferings of our life. I conducted my first funeral when I was 22 years old. A six-year old boy had died when a car struck him on his bicycle. I trembled inside when I learned that his father was a navy vetern. I had no confidence that I had anything to say to that man and his wife.

My heart melted, when a few hours after his son had died he opened his door to me, and the first words out of his mouth were: "I'm so glad you've come. We've been waiting for you." Just having someone to share their grief with gave them some strength to bear the grief.

Jesus' life says, "God is like that. He is present in our sorrows and pain." What if God had no compassion on us? What if there was no God to have compassion on the victims of brutality and suffering? Atheism and agnosticism present suffering people with a black hole of meaninglessness. Jesus teaches us to hold on by faith to a different picture of reality. And that brings me to a fifth and difficult statement of what God is like.

God's present exercise of compassionate power to relieve human suffering is selective, because in the kingdom of God matters of the human spirit are more urgent than the relief of suffering. Look first at Mark 1:35-39. The morning after an evening of healing for the people of Capernaum, Jesus arose early and went out alone to pray.

Verses 36-37 continue. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for you!" I think we can understand their eagerness. "Jesus, you said you would make us fishers of men. Well, we have a net full of them back at my house. Whatever you are doing out here at this time of day, don't you think it is time to come back and finish what you started last night?"

Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come." Those last six words speak eloquently of Jesus' intentions. "That is why I have come." The Man knew what He was about. He was not acting randomly; He was acting according to some clear vision of where He was to go next and what He was to do. Capernaum mattered. Other places mattered also.

In the meantime the sick in Capernaum would get well in the normal course of things or they would not. What He had done was truly compassionate and powerful, but it served a purpose larger than health. It is almost an insult to say that. What could be more important than health? It feels good to feel good. Medical progress is desirable. Health insurance for everyone makes good sense. We are glad the Centers for Disease Control is on the job. "If you have your health, you have everything."

That is a very appealing philosophy of life. Under its impact we are prone to ask, "If God has compassion on human suffering and has the power to relieve the suffering, why doesn't He just do it?" In his delightful fairy tale, The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis pointed out that unwearying strength and endless days are not enough. He said, "Length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery," (p. 157). Before we believe that health is everything, we had better look at Jesus' response in Mark 2:8-12. It brings us back to the great barrier of sin in our hearts.

He points to a purpose in His healing greater than the healing itself. Verse 9 gives Jesus'  pivotal statement. "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins ..."  He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." Jesus meant for His power to heal to give powerful, material evidence of His authority to forgive sins. In His mind the power to heal served the larger purpose of vindicating the claim to forgive sins. Forgiving sins is the larger purpose, because it begins to remove the great barrier to receiving God's blessings – the barrier of sin in our hearts.

The next episode in Mark 2 illustrates this larger purpose. Jesus called Matthew, whom Mark called Levi, to be one of His disciples. Tax collectors were right down there with prostitutes, the demon-possessed, and other "sinners" in first-century Jewish society.

One thing led to another, and Jesus found Himself and His disciples sharing meals with other "sinners" and tax collectors, and as a result found Himself on the receiving end of harsh criticism. Failing to keep a kosher table defied what pious Jews saw as an indispensable badge of loyal Jews. He was aiding and abetting Israel's greatest enemy, and no one who cared about Israel's unique relationship with God would overlook it.

Jesus called this into question. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor," He said, "but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." The word call carries its own punch. He did not say, "I came to socialize with sinners," or "I came to be friends with sinners." He said, "I came to call them," "I came to draw into the kingdom of God the very people that you are in such a hurry to leave out of the kingdom of God."

God's larger purpose calls for the restoration of sinners to full participation in the purposes of God. Is not such restoration on a global scale such as we see today an even greater manifestation of compassion than removing human brutality and suffering without changing the human heart? After all, where does the brutality and much of the suffering come from? Atheism is too easy, because it is much too optimistic about human nature. C.S. Lewis got it right when he wrote, "The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation," (Surprised by Joy, 229). And neither does God neglect our cry for justice.

That cry for justice brings me to my last statement about God. Every alternative to the kingdom of God stands under the judgment of God. Jesus revealed this in a most personal way when some Pharisees asked Him to prove they were wrong by giving a sign from heaven. Mark 8:12 says, He sighed deeply. We weary God with our folly, but here are limits to His patience.

When Jesus said, "Repent," He meant we had to change our minds about what we think is best for human life and to believe the good news that God has a better idea. Refusing to change our minds has repercussions. When the Jerusalem delegation attributed Jesus' power to the devil, He warned them that they were not only not thinking straight, but they were also in danger of committing the unpardonable sin. He responded to His family's statement that He was mentally unbalanced by saying that those who believe in Him do the will of God, and doing the will of God forms a family of faith that transcends the family of flesh. Were the authorities right, or was Jesus right?

In that atmosphere of decision Jesus told the parable of the soils. Anyone hearing that parable for the first time would know every word He said and have no idea what He meant. He explained why He spoke in parables in the first place. He told them, "...to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, 'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'" (Mark 4:11-12).

To reject Jesus, as some official Jewish leaders had done, would also bring judgment on the Israel of Jesus' generation. Jesus' unintelligible parables symbolized the divine judgment that was coming on people, who no longer had the power to discern what God was doing in Israel. The barrier of sin in our hearts can bring us to such a point. If God did not exempt His elect people from judgment, will He exempt the other nations of the earth?

There is a wideness in God's mercy toward the nations of the earth. He allows them great latitude in developing their national lives with all their inherent contradictions. As those inherent contradictions emerge, God calls on them to repent. If a nation does not, then it takes another step in forging an alternative to the kingdom of God. The more it does that, the nearer it comes to its doom.

This then is the vision of God that has begun to emerge from the first half of the Gospel of Mark. Jesus shows to us a God who intends unimaginable good to all humanity in Christ, who is compassionate toward us in our sufferings, but who places a higher value on matters of the human spirit than on the relief from physical suffering. He does that because forgiveness, cleansing and transformation of humanity's voracious capacity to love removes the barrier to receiving His blessing. So, I say to you, hold on to Christ. Hold on to what He reveals to us about the nature of God. Allow those pictures of God to find a permanent home in your mind and imagination. Allow them to transform you.

God elected Israel as the human community in which He would anticipate and guarantee the unimaginable good He has in store for all the nations of the earth.

God is acting within human life so as to bless all the nations of earth with unimaginable goodness, and nothing can thwart Him in His purpose.

Human sin builds the great barrier to God's blessing on humanity.

God is compassionate toward human beings in their many sufferings, and He has power to relieve their suffering and bring about the unimaginable good He has in store for all the nations of the earth.

God's present exercise of compassionate power to relieve human suffering is selective, because in the kingdom of God matters of the human spirit are more urgent than the relief of suffering.

Every alternative to the kingdom of God stands under the judgment of God.