Author: Dave

I'm a Christian who has been saved and is being transformed by Jesus Christ and his gospel. Elder and Associate Pastor at Squamish Baptist Church in Squamish, BC, Canada.

Jesus came to suffer, so you will too (Mark 9:1–13)

One of my favorite TV shows is The Beverly Hillbillies. If you’ve never seen an episode, the premise of the show is that the backwoods Clampett family from Tennessee discovers oil on their property, gets rich, and moves to Beverly Hills in California. There, they are befuddled by modern culture. In an early episode, a young man promises the beautiful Elly May Clampett that he will “give her a ring,” meaning that he will call her on the phone later. Of course, the Clampetts take it for a promise of marriage, which leads to a series of misunderstandings and eventually a brief yet colorful feud with the man’s extended family.

Chronic misunderstandings can be hilarious when they’re happening on TV, but when you’re trying to communicate a message of vital importance to your friends, they bring nothing but frustration. It should be no surprise that Jesus’ disciples are once again going to play the role of the Clampett family—convinced they understand what’s going on, but in reality hopelessly confused.

In recounting the event of Jesus’ transfiguration, Mark connects it with the message Jesus had spoken just six days prior. He has promised that his kingdom will soon come in power, and now he’s going to give his “inner inner circle” of disciples (Peter, James, and John) a sneak peek of this future glory. They ascend a high mountain together, and there, the layers of Jesus’ humble earthiness are peeled away; his glory as the Son of God breaks through, and he shines bright like the sun. Even his clothes glow “intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” And to top it off, two of the most pivotal figures in Israelite history, Moses and Elijah, appear out of nowhere and begin holding a conversation with Jesus.

I’m not sure what Jesus’ three disciples were expecting to happen on that mountain, but this definitely exceeds it. They are unable to comprehend what is going on; it has overwhelmed their senses and they are petrified at first. Finally, Peter shouts at Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Mark tells us what’s going on in his head: “He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.” Apparently, James and John are shocked into silence, but that’s not the way Peter handles the unimaginable. When he is flabbergasted, Peter responds by blurting out the first thing that pops into his mind. I guess he just wants to be useful.

Now at this point, the purpose of the transfiguration is revealed. A cloud envelops the mountaintop, and a divine voice speaks to them, saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” The cloud lifts, and the glory vanishes; only Jesus remains with them, as he was before. He leads them down the mountain and warns them not to speak of this event until he has “risen from the dead.” Until then, any announcement of Jesus’ glory is premature. This is the main reason why Jesus orders people to keep quiet about him—his glory is not to be fully revealed until he has died and risen again.

Once again, his disciples miss the point. When they caught a glimpse of his glory, and it was announced that he was the “beloved Son” of God, they should have understood that this was a wake-up call for them, intended to shock them out of their spiritual dullness. The transfiguration ended with the words, “Listen to him!” But they aren’t. They’re “questioning what this rising from the dead might mean” even though Jesus had said plainly what it means—that he will have to suffer first before his glorious kingdom comes (8:31).

Yes, Jesus’ disciples have misinterpreted the transfiguration. They’re high on what they’ve just seen; they’re convinced that the Messiah has come in glory, about to usher in a holy and righteous Jewish empire. Jesus’ predictions that the Messiah will suffer, die, and rise from the dead are just anomalous data points that his disciples have chosen to ignore. They only have one nagging doubt, which they bring up to Jesus: “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” They’d just caught a glimpse of Elijah, but he hasn’t been traveling around Judea to prepare the people for the coming Messiah.

Jesus affirms what the Jewish teachers have been saying: “Elijah does come first to restore all things”—just as the prophet Malachi said (Malachi 3:5–6). But then he redirects the conversation, asking, “How is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?” That’s what the disciples are choosing to ignore, refusing to listen to Jesus. “But I tell you that Elijah has come,” Jesus says, “and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.” With this curveball, Jesus shatters any last hope of a glorious political Messiah. In the Old Testament, Elijah suffered greatly, and the next “Elijah” suffered as well; he was John the Baptist, and he was beheaded by Herod. And the same will happen to the Son of Man, the Messiah.

This is the death knell for the “glory story” of those who promise prosperity and success in this life to you and me. If you are a disciple of Jesus, “Your Best Life Now” will not happen, not yet; anyone who promises it to you is deaf to what Jesus says. Jesus came to suffer, and to follow him (8:34) means that we will, too. Until we are raised to life again in glory, we will share the pain and hardship of our Lord. Expect nothing less.

Posted on by Dave 2

Jesus has come to submit to God’s will, and so should you (Mark 8:31–9:1)

There’s a lot of ground to cover today, so let’s dive right in!

Today’s passage overlaps a bit with the passage we studied last week, because really it’s all one long story that we’re examining a piece at a time. After eight chapters in which Jesus’ divine authority is on display, his disciples begin to understand what’s going on. Peter realizes, “You are the Christ!” So finally we’re getting somewhere. Jesus is the king, anointed by God, whom the prophets had said would come to rescue Israel.

Unfortunately for Peter’s dreams of a glorious political kingdom, Jesus announces that his mission is to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. That doesn’t exactly fit into his disciples’ mindset of what glory looks like, so Peter takes him aside to rebuke him. But Jesus turns the tables on Peter and chews him out, calling him Satan and telling him, “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Now, I think most of us would agree that what Peter said was wrong. But why does Jesus come down so hard on him? Well, we’re about to find out, because Jesus won’t let this teaching moment slip by. There’s a crowd following him and his disciples, so he calls them all together and tells them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Apparently, Jesus isn’t trying to be Mr. Popular.

Remember from a while back that to be a disciple of Jesus means that you need to be with Jesus and you need to imitate him. To be with Jesus, you need to know who he is—that he’s the Messiah. To imitate him, you need to know his mission, and his mission is to fulfill all that God the Father has in store for him—his suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. He has come to submit to God’s will. Now, Jesus is also calling his followers to submit. He tells them that they need to deny themselves; they don’t get to choose for themselves how they will live. Every disciple must “take up his cross.” This is a vivid and repulsive image in the mind of the crowd. They’ve seen crucifixions take place at the hand of their Roman overlords. The main point of crucifixion isn’t to torture a person to death; it’s to present that person as a public spectacle of what happens when you defy the might of Rome. A man going to his crucifixion would be led through crowded streets, bearing the crossbar of his own cross. On his public death march, he is no longer acting as a rebel; Rome has won, and he has submitted to its authority. In the same way, Jesus is telling his disciples, “If you want to follow me, you must join me, abandoning your old mindsets and old ways of life. You must come alongside me in absolute submission to God.”

Now, that’s a tough pill to swallow, so Jesus tells us why it’s necessary. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Counterintuitively, a disciple must give up his entire life to God in order to save it. Like the oil in the jar of the prophet’s widow (2 Kings 4:1–7), it can’t be renewed unless it’s entirely poured out. A disciple can’t hold back a few corners of his life for himself. He can’t play it safe. He must devote himself exclusively to his Lord, take risks for him, wear himself out with the Lord’s work. If he tries to hold back, he’ll give up the very life he’s been trying to keep for himself, because God will take it away from him.

You’ll lose your life if you try to keep it for yourself; you’ll save it if you let it go. Jesus explains this paradox: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” If you keep yourself back from God, it won’t be gain at all, even if you got all the approval and money and comfort and pleasure and self-esteem you could dream of. You’ll lose your soul, and you won’t be able to get it back. “For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Jesus asks, and the answer is, “Nothing.” All that honor and luxury you’ve gained won’t be enough to buy it back.

Why can’t you buy back your soul? Jesus warns, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” You can’t buy your soul back because Jesus will be too embarrassed to be seen with you. He’ll be too ashamed to be around someone who prefers “this adulterous and sinful generation” to “the glory of his Father” and the presence of “the holy angels.” No amount of contaminated money or worthless prestige that you can offer will ever wallpaper over that shame. Jesus can’t be bribed.

But then, Jesus delivers a guarantee to the crowd. “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Jesus won’t allow you to buy your way into his kingdom; he offers it freely. And there are some in that crowd who will consider the cost and still choose to be his disciples. And three of them are about to catch a glimpse of the King with his veil removed and his glory revealed. This kingdom is of supreme worth, more valuable than any earthly kingdom.

So Jesus has come to submit himself to his Father’s will, and his disciples are called to do the same. If you tend to be a self-ambitious person, Jesus is warning you not to seek earthly glory but to submit to God, devote yourself to him, and in this way receive the glory of his kingdom. If you tend to be a lazy person, Jesus is warning you to stop holding back and to start pouring yourself out for God. Go all in. And then…then you’ll begin to see a radiant sliver of the glory that awaits you.

Posted on by Dave 1

Why Facebook friends can never be the same as real friends

I’m sure I’m not the first person to have thought of this. But here’s the problem with Facebook friends.

Real friendships take work. They take investment. You usually have to maintain them over time. Keeping someone as your friend is an active process; you have to, like, spend time with people and talk with them. On the other hand, to lose a friend, all you really have to do is…nothing. Just don’t keep in contact, and over time you’ll drift apart.

Facebook friendships are the opposite. They take no work. They take no investment. You don’t have to maintain them over time. Keeping someone as your friend is a passive process; you’ll stay friends forever as long as neither of you does anything. On the other hand, to lose a friend, you have to hunt for the obscure “Remove from Friends” link on their profile page, click it, confirm that you don’t want to be friends anymore, and then wait for the other person to send an angry message demanding to know why you removed him or her from your friends list.

Notice how that’s not the way real friendships work.

For this reason, it’s impossible for your “Friends” list on Facebook to accurately reflect your real friendships, even if you do your best to maintain that list (as I do). Facebook encourages a false and shallow model of friendship. And that’s why Facebook is singlehandedly responsible for the decline of Western civilization. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

Posted on by Dave 0

Jesus is the Christ, but there’s more to the story (Mark 8:22–33)

Today we’re going to reach what commentator James Edwards calls the “continental divide” in the book of Mark. For the first time, a human being identifies Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah. And shortly thereafter, Jesus chews him out.

What’s interesting is that Mark introduces this story with another healing account. Jesus shows up at the town of Bethsaida, where a blind man is brought to him. He leads the blind man out of the village, spits in his eyes (!), and lays his hands on him. Then, instead of pronouncing a word of healing, Jesus asks him a question: “Do you see anything?”

Now, coming where it does in Mark’s account of Jesus’ life, this question is not just posed to the blind man. Jesus has rebuked his disciples for their spiritual dullness, asking them, “Having eyes do you not see?…Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:18, 21). This time, he’s questioning a physically blind man about his sight.

The man looks around and replies, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” His sight has only been partially restored. Now, this is a surprise! Jesus has cast out demons, calmed a windstorm, walked on water, and raised a girl from the dead; yet here, the blind man’s sight hasn’t been fully restored. Why not? Why does Jesus choose to give the man partial, distorted eyesight before he finishes healing him?

Our answers come at once. The scene shifts to the road leading to the Roman colony of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus has begun quizzing his disciples. “Who do people say that I am?” he asks. They report the speculation that has been swirling around Galilee: “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” In the popular opinion, Jesus is a great man, perhaps even one of the great prophets. He could even be the second coming of Elijah, a forerunner to the Messiah, God’s anointed king who is to reign over Israel.

Even today, people from all religions and ethnic backgrounds seem to respect Jesus. They agree that he’s a great teacher, a righteous man, possibly even a prophet. But is Jesus satisfied with this response?

The next question Jesus asks his disciples is a lot more personal. He isn’t interested so much in what other people think of him. He wants to know what each of his disciples is thinking. Jesus demands a response from each and every person. “But who do you say that I am?” he asks them, and you and I must consider this question as well and give him our answer.

In his customary manner, Peter blurts out, “You are the Christ!” And at once, everything changes. Now the veil has been removed. Peter and the other disciples have been observing Jesus’ divine and exclusive authority, and they’ve followed the bread crumbs to the only reasonable conclusion: this man is the long-awaited Messiah, sent from God. Like the blind man from Bethsaida, they’re finally able to see the truth. Jesus is more than just a great man, and he won’t settle for that label.

What’s funny is that Jesus strictly orders his disciples to keep his identity a secret. Remember that he asked the blind man to stay out of the village as well, rather than reporting the news of his healing. This has been a consistent pattern throughout the gospel of Mark. Why doesn’t Jesus want the general public to know he is the Christ? Well, again our answers come at once.

In a shocking turn of events, Jesus finally reveals to his disciples what he, the Messiah, has come to do. He hasn’t come to overthrow the Roman government and set up an independent Jewish state. He hasn’t come to reestablish the law of Moses or to bring social justice to the beleaguered people of Israel. Instead, he has come to suffer, to be rejected by the Jewish leaders, and then to be killed. And though Jesus also predicts that he will be raised to life again, Peter is so shocked by the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah that he doesn’t seem to notice this final prophecy. He takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. Jesus has it all wrong! The Messiah is a conquering hero, not a suffering wretch! How are they supposed to follow a man who offers only these gloomy delusions? What about the victorious life all the televangelists are promising? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.)

Jesus looks over at the rest of his disciples. They’re watching to see what he will say; no doubt Peter is speaking for all of them. So when Jesus chews out Peter, he’s speaking to them as well. “Get behind me, Satan!” he orders him. “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” In trying to derail Jesus’ mission, Peter is sounding an awful lot like Satan. He has his own plan for how Jesus should be glorified, but it isn’t God’s plan.

Like the blind man at Bethsaida, Peter and his fellow disciples aren’t seeing clearly. They do at least recognize that Jesus is the Christ, but they are confused about what that means. They don’t understand that he is to be a suffering Messiah, who will give his life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). As Edwards puts it, they’ve moved from non-understanding to misunderstanding. That’s why Jesus wants them to keep quiet about who he is. Lies circulating about him are bad enough; half-truths are even worse.

The story of the blind man helps us understand what the Holy Spirit is teaching us through this passage. Jesus doesn’t want us to misunderstand who he is. Yes, he is the Christ, and you and I can’t really know him unless we believe that. But neither can we know Jesus unless we understand what his mission is. And that’s what Mark will be explaining as he continues his story.

Posted on by Dave 0

Jesus exposes our hard hearts (Mark 8:1–21)

Just yesterday, I had a brain-dead moment, commonly known as a “senior moment”—except that I’m not a senior. I was having lunch with a family from church, and I’d brought with me a glass plate which I had borrowed a few months back. However, after entering the house and being warmly welcomed, I suddenly realized that the plate wasn’t with me. I had left it out in the car, I announced to my hosts. And then they told me that I’d actually brought it into the house and given it to them not a minute before—none of which registered in my memory.

Major brain farts are a part of life. Unfortunately, in today’s passage from Mark, Jesus’ disciples are going to experience something more than a brain fart. They’re going to get called out on the carpet for being spiritually dull—by Jesus himself.

Our adventure begins with a moment of déjà vu. Once again, a great crowd gathers, they get hungry, Jesus feels compassion for them and asks his disciples to feed them, they bristle at this unreasonable request, and then Jesus supernaturally feeds the entire crowd with several loaves of bread and a few fish. It’s just like his feeding of 5,000 men, except now it’s a smaller crowd of 4,000 people. However, the context of this story tells us a couple of interesting things. First, Jesus is still in Gentile territory; this is a Gentile crowd! He’s doing the same thing for the Gentiles as he did for his fellow Jews, showing compassion on them and caring for their needs. Second, his disciples haven’t caught on after the first feeding—their response to him is nearly identical to their response the first time around. They still think this is a problem too big for Jesus to handle. They haven’t learned their lesson.

Well, right after this story, Jesus shows up in Galilee again, and he’s confronted by the local Jewish leaders in yet another showdown. Their attitude is unmistakable—they want to discredit Jesus and shut down his teaching ministry. Mark says that they’re “seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.” Now, this isn’t an open-minded search for the truth. After all, Jesus has just fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread! The truth is obvious. No, these Pharisees have already decided that they don’t believe Jesus is from God. They’re just looking for an excuse, any excuse at all, to disparage him.

Jesus is exasperated with these hard-hearted opponents. He knows that no amount of evidence will convince them. “Why does this generation seek a sign?” he asks. “Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” He is adamant that they will not get what they’re demanding. Jesus won’t play their stupid game. Instead, he turns and walks away. He gets in a boat with his disciples and heads to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Jesus’ disciples apparently aren’t very good at planning ahead, because once again they didn’t pack enough food. They forgot to get more bread, and they only have one loaf with them! They’re pretty hungry, and you can guess what their thoughts go when Jesus mentions in his teaching, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” His disciples have bread on the brain, so they completely misunderstand this obvious parable. They hold a little pow-wow afterward to figure out what Jesus meant by this cryptic statement. Is he giving them baking advice? Should they change their brand of yeast? Have they been buying bread that has been contaminated by the Pharisees and Herod? But that makes no sense! They only have one loaf with them; why is Jesus bringing this up? Maybe it’s a veiled rebuke for neglecting to bring bread! Man, we really should have remembered to bring bread. I’m starved.

Jesus gets fed up (haha) and breaks into their conversation: “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet understand?” He is incredulous. Remember that he’d told them that his parables keep spiritually dull people from understanding the truth he wants to teach (Mark 4:10–12). And as he did then, he refers to Isaiah 6:9–10. “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?” His disciples just aren’t getting it!

So Jesus conducts a memory drill. “When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”
“Twelve.”
“And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”
“Seven.”
“Do you not yet understand?”

Jesus wasn’t worrying about bread, and his disciples should have realized that. Why? Because he could make as much bread as he wanted, whenever he wanted, with plenty left over. Bread wasn’t a big issue to him. So they should have realized it was a parable at once. Jesus is warning them about the Pharisees and about Herod—both of whom feel threatened by his authority and therefore oppose him. He’s worried that their “yeast” of unbelief may work its way into the disciple’s hearts and corrupt them. He knows that his disciples are in danger of developing hardened hearts that won’t comprehend what he’s saying to them. The awful irony is that even when he’s warning them, they miss the point of the warning because their hearts are already hard! It’s a catch-22: they can’t understand because their hearts are hard, and their hearts are hard because they can’t understand.

What this means is that the most ignorant, hard-hearted people are often the people who have been with Jesus the longest, who have been “Christians” their whole lives and have heard sound preaching for 50 years. It could be you or me. A skilled surgeon, only Jesus exposes our hard hearts. Only he can rescue us from them.

Posted on by Dave 0