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.

Mightier than I (Mark 1:2–13)

It’s been a cold winter here in Indiana. After last winter, in which the windchill dropped to around –30° F at times, I figured we were due for something a little warmer this time around. It’s true that November and December were unseasonably warm, and it’s true that temperatures have not dropped as low as last winter. However, early this January, the weather stayed cold for long periods of time with no respite. I’m just grateful for a warm house to come home to every day.

It’s times like this that I’m glad I don’t live in the wilderness. That word—wilderness—implies a harsh environment barely able to sustain human life. A winter like this makes everything a wilderness. The other way to make a wilderness is to cover a land with rocks, sand, and scorching heat. Take away any water, and you’ve got yourself the kind of place where no one would want to live. The only people found there are nomads and outcasts. Those who are rich and powerful stay away from the wilderness.

So what’s Jesus doing there?

» Read Mark 1:2–13

Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn’t begin his story with the birth of Christ. He has another way of telling the humble beginnings of Jesus. Mark’s “Christmas story” begins in the Judean wilderness—a wasteland of hills, hot sun, dust, and precious little water. It’s not a coincidence that Jesus shows up here; his coming was prophesied in the Old Testament by Isaiah and by Malachi. In verses 2–3, Mark quotes Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3, which together reveal that a messenger will herald the Messiah’s coming. This messenger will call for a highway to be carved into the impassable hills—a highway broad, flat, and straight, fit for a King. This King will make his entrance into the world through the wilderness. Who is this King? Well, in a clever little trick, Mark adjusts and clarifies Malachi’s prophecy. Malachi quoted God as saying, “I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me.” In Mark, we read him to say, “I send my messenger before your face.” So is the messenger preparing the way for “me”—for God? Or is he preparing the way for “you”—for Jesus? Or could it be…?

With a sly smile, Mark moves on with his story.

In the wilderness, a place where the powerless live, the messenger John explains that this “highway” is really the repentance of God’s people, signified by baptism. If they repent—if they change their attitude and their behavior—they will be forgiven for their sins. But that is not all. John, dressed like a prophet, announces that this forgiveness is only the beginning. “After me,” he declares, “comes he who is mightier than I.” This mightier man will immerse his people in the Holy Spirit. He will soften their hearts and empower them to follow the Lord faithfully (Ezekiel 36:26–27).

Mark doesn’t leave us waiting. The mightier man comes from Nazareth in Galilee to be baptized. Now, everyone else who had been baptized would confess their sins and repent. Not Jesus. When he comes up from the water, heaven is opened, and the Spirit descends on him “like a dove” (verse 10). Then comes a voice from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Imagine, for a moment, if this had not happened. If Jesus’ baptism had gone the way all of John’s other baptisms had gone, people would assume that he was just like everyone else. He would be seen as a fellow sinner looking for a Messiah. But when God speaks from heaven, he identifies him as his special Son, as someone he dearly loves, as someone who has pleased him in every way. Mark doesn’t say it outright, but he once again hints to us, “This man is not looking for the Messiah. He is the Messiah.” Unlike any other man, Jesus is fully pleasing to God; he has not earned God’s wrath for sin.

The greatest outpouring of God’s wrath in the Old Testament was the great Flood of Noah (Genesis 6–8). The heavens were opened, and the whole world was immersed in waters of judgment. At the end of the Flood, Noah sent out a dove three times to see if there was any dry land left. The third time he did this, the dove did not return. The water had subsided, and Noah knew that God’s wrath had come to an end. Here in Mark’s story, Jesus is immersed in water, but he is not condemned. When the heavens open, there is no wrath. The Spirit descends on him in the form of a dove, and God announces that he is fully pleased with this man. In Jesus, and only in Jesus, there is peace with God.

The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and drives him again into the wilderness. With Jesus, the mightier one, everything takes place on a colossal scale. Almost in passing, Mark mentions that he stays in the wilderness 40 days, is tempted by Satan, that he lives among wild animals, and that he is served by angels. No big deal. Just another event in the life of Jesus. The Spirit drives him to do great things, until even the great things can only be mentioned briefly.

This sort of understated power and authority is so characteristic of Jesus in Mark’s gospel. And it comes with a promise. The last words that John speaks in this gospel are these: “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is so mighty that he has authority over the Holy Spirit. He can change people’s hearts; he can take cynical, calloused, bitter people and make them trust him, love him, and worship him. He can take fearful people and make them into heroes of the faith, able to stand against Satan and wild animals, heroes to whom angels minister.

Yes, he can change you.

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The unknown Jesus (Mark 1:1)

Out of all the Star Wars movies, my favorite is definitely The Empire Strikes Back. It’s a more mature movie than any of the others, containing a depth of story and characters that is rarely found in the series. And, of course, there’s the surprise ending. It came as a total shock to moviegoers in 1980 to discover that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker’s father. However, this wasn’t a surprise to me when I first watched the movie. First, it’s become such common knowledge in the last 30 years; it’s almost impossible not to know it already before you watch the movie. Second, I saw Return of the Jedi first. So that kind of spoiled it, too.

If you want to begin a great story with an element of mystery, it’s generally a good idea to keep the plot under wraps. If The Empire Strikes Back had identified Darth Vader as Luke’s father in the opening crawl, it would have ruined everything. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the very first verse of the gospel according to Mark:

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
—Mark 1:1

Well, plotwise, that’s something of a letdown. In Mark’s story, Jesus’ disciples don’t identify him as the Christ—the Messiah king that God promised to his people—until halfway through the book (8:29). He is not publicly recognized as the Son of God until he is crucified (15:39). The whole story revolves around two questions: “who is this man?” and “what has he come to do?” The second question is answered by chapters 9 through 16; the first question is taken up in chapters 1 through 8. Yet Mark has given away the answer to the first question before the story even begins! If he were a screenwriter, he’d be fired.

So, let’s stop and consider this. Why would an author reveal the plot of his story before the story even gets started? Usually, it’s because the author understands that his audience already knows the story. The first verse of Mark gives us an important key to interpreting the book. The key is this: Mark wrote his story for Christians.

Isn’t that a bit odd? We would expect the gospels to be geared toward people who have never heard of Jesus and want to learn more about him. Now, it’s true that they are accessible to people who are encountering Jesus for the first time. However, this book was mainly written for people who have already heard about Jesus and have already chosen to believe in Jesus. It was written for people who already know the story.

So what’s the point of writing about a guy whom we already know? Again, there’s only one reason to write about a person with whom the readers are familiar. Mark would only be writing about Jesus if he believed that we, the readers, have an inadequate understanding of who he is and what he came to do. In other words, by writing this book, Mark is telling you, “Jesus is not who you think he is!”

Like his disciples, you and I are invited into a story where we encounter Jesus in all his threatening mystery. This is a Jesus whom we never knew growing up. It’s not flannelgraph Jesus. It’s not Veggie Tales Jesus. It’s not hippie Jesus. This is a Jesus who pushes the boundaries of our sensibilities, who is not afraid to offend us, who is not afraid to confront us because we haven’t learned to trust him. This is a Jesus who will stop at nothing less than total ownership of our lives. This is a Jesus who is not afraid to love us with a love unknown.

This unknown Jesus is the One whom we meet on the pages of Mark’s gospel. My hope as we travel through this story together is that we will see him with new eyes. May these familiar stories take on the unfamiliar air of another world. Let’s meet the real Jesus.

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New feature: Four Minutes in Mark

One of the downsides of having a blog is that you actually have to update it regularly if you don’t want to look like a major slacker. I haven’t been very good about this, so I have worn the “slacker” label with shame for quite some time now. What I’d like to do is turn this “disadvantage” of owning a blog into an an advantage. As I prepare to become a pastor, I know that I will need to get used to producing quality teaching material on a weekly basis. A great way to prepare for that is by doing it on my blog.

So here’s the idea: on Monday, I’m going to begin a blog series entitled “Four Minutes in Mark.” The gimmick is that I’m going to work my way through the gospel of Mark, writing articles that should take the average person four minutes to read. I saw somewhere that the average reading spead is 200–250 words per minute, so that comes out to around 800–1000 words per article. Of course, I don’t feel at all tied down to these numbers, but they do give a ballpark figure.

My goal is not only to get used to producing content and sharpening my writing skills, but also to let the Word of God edify me as well. One of the best ways to study God’s Word is to study it as though you were going to teach it. Observe, interpret, and apply—but apply to your own life.

We’ll get started on Monday with Mark 1:1. I’m looking forward to it! I even made a kind of boring logo:

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The Broken Rose

~ ~ ~

The Broken Rose

Who would love the blossomed rose—
Luster her alluring pow’r,
Fragrance of arousal crowned?
Lovers all ablaze surround—
Bloom and root and stem devour.

Who would want the broken rose?
Seared in sin, in ashes grown;
Tortured pale, her petals torn;
Leaves are lost and left the thorn
Naked on the stem, alone.

Jesus wants the broken rose
While her twisted shape is thrown,
Shriveled, to the wilting scorn:
“Leave, oh, leave her not forlorn,”
Wept and whispered for his own.

Jesus loves the broken rose,
Waters with a bleeding show’r;
Root has gripped the sanguine ground;
Drops of blood, their riches found,
Rise through stem and red the flow’r.

~ ~ ~

Dead rose

Photo by David Garzon

Posted on by Dave 3

Shabernacle (or, The Shack and the Tabernacle)

Scalpel

How would you like to have your appendix removed with a rusty scalpel?

Sorry, that’s kind of a weird question.  But it’s not random.  In a sense, I think that something similar is going on among American Christians today, particularly those who are reading the ultra-popular book The Shack.  Many people are raving about how this book has deepened their relationship with God.  I don’t doubt that this is happening; this book has a lot of truth in it that is cutting out infection in people’s lives.  However, it is also riddled through and through with severe errors, and I am afraid that these errors will be unconsciously absorbed by those who read it, until over time a newer and more severe problem will develop.  A rusty scalpel may cure an immediate illness, but it will introduce a more severe infection that may ruin the whole body.

So why am I writing about this book again?  Didn’t I already cover it a few months ago?

The ShackTrue, I wrote a three-part series of posts on The Shack.  To be honest, though, I never really felt like I had a total grasp on what I liked and didn’t like about the book.  That changed earlier this year after I finished studying the tabernacle for seminary (my two earlier posts on the tabernacle can be found here and here).  I found that the tabernacle was a helpful lens through which to view The Shack.  This is because The Shack is, in effect, a sort of tabernacle; the book is all about our relationship with God.  So let’s line The Shack and the tabernacle up next to each other and see what they tell us about God.  Where do they agree (the good points of the back) and where do they disagree (the bad points of the book)?  We’ll do this by asking several key questions.

1.  Does God love people?

The Tabernacle: Yes!  The tabernacle was the means by which a holy God could dwell with the people whom he loved.  After being delivered from Egypt, as they prepared to meet this God, Moses wrote a song with these lines:  “You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode” (Exod 15:13).  God loves people—and in particular, the people whom he has chosen for his own!

The Shack: Yes!  This is a point that is beaten to death, and that’s a good thing.  Papa (the Father) tells Mack that he is “smack dab in the center of my love” (p. 98).  However, there is a question as to what William Young thinks love is.  For example, he claims that the people who know God are “the ones who are free to live and love without any agenda” (p. 181).  Love without an agenda is no love at all!  Love always has an agenda—to see others conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

2.  Does God want to be in relationship with people?

The Tabernacle: Yes!  The whole point of the tabernacle is that it is the dwelling place of God among his people.  God could have remained aloof, observing the world from afar.  Instead, he chose to be closely involved, meeting and talking with his people in the tabernacle (Exodus 25:22).

The Shack: Yes!  In fact, the book is focused on the idea of relationships—between God and man as well as between man and his fellow man.  Papa tells Mack, “I desire to be in relationship with every human being” (p. 100).  Now, there are strong indications that Young’s idea of relationship is markedly different from the biblical idea of relationship (that is, God’s idea of relationship).  But we’ll get to that later.

3.  Is God holy?

The Tabernacle: Yes!  You can’t miss this theme; it’s the single reason for the entire book of Leviticus.  Throughout Exodus 26–31, God insists that the place where he dwells and the people to whom he ministers be holy as well.  Holiness means “set apart”—particularly in a moral sense, in which God command us to be holy as well (Leviticus 11:44–45).

The Shack: Yes.  Papa tells Mack, “I am what some would say ‘holy, and wholly other than you'” (p. 98).  However, beyond this concept of being something other, there is hardly any mention of holiness in the book.  There seems to be almost no concept of holiness as moral purity, and Mack is never told that he must be holy.  While The Shack focuses on the love of God, it almost totally ignores his holiness.

4.  Is there any obstacle between man and God (i.e. sin)?

The Tabernacle: Yes!  The unholiness of man due to his sin is what separates man from God.  Leviticus emphasizes the defilement of sin that hinders the close communion that God wants with his people.  In Exodus 32, the people build a golden calf as an alternative worship system; God nearly wipes them out in his wrath because they have “sinned a great sin” (Exodus 32:30).  Sin in the Bible damages our relationship with God; it is identified as breaking his law, as failing to love him, as being morally twisted and corrupted, and ultimately as rebelling against his authority.

The Shack: Yes.  The Shack emphasizes many things that stand between us and God; essentially, Young views “sin” as anything that hinders our relationship with God.  Throughout the book, he places particular emphasis on fear, a lack of trust in him, and independence from him.  All well and good!  However, he also adds hierarchy and institutions to the list.  In other words, authority and institutions (whatever he means by that) are inherently sinful.  This flies in the face of what God really teaches in the Bible; the authority of God is a great thing, and he gives authority to people as well.  He also institutes marriage, human government, and the church, among other examples.  Young’s idea of relationship has more in common with hippie communes than with the love relationship that the true God wants us to have with him.

5.  How does God handle sin?

The Tabernacle: Ultimately, there are two ways that God handles sin.  One is to punish the sinner.  In the Second Commandment, forbidding idolatry, he declares, “I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:5–6).  That God punishes evildoers is an inescapable theme of both the Old and New Testaments.  Yet there is hope for us in a second way!  In the Old Testament, the Lord offered atonement for sins through a ritual known as the Day of Atonement, in which the people’s sins were paid for by the death of an animal as a substitute (Leviticus 16).  Ultimately, this prefigured the atonement offered by Jesus Christ (Hebrews 9–10).

The Shack: The Shack has two things to say about sin.  One is that sin must be forgiven by God (p. 225).  The second is that God does not intend to punish sin.  Papa tells Mack, “I don’t need to punish people for sin.  Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.  It’s not my purpose to punish it; it’s my joy to cure it.”  This is only a half-truth.  It is true that sin itself can be a punishment (Romans 1:24–31).  However, the Bible is crystal clear that God actually does punish sin, both in this life and (more importantly and finally) in the next.

6.  Why did Jesus Christ have to die?

The Tabernacle: As we just saw—prefigured by the tabernacle—Jesus Christ had to die to bear the penalty of our sin, satisfying the absolutely just wrath of God against our sin by serving as a substitute for us.  And that is just one aspect of the crucifixion!  It is because of his sacrifice that we are forgiven of our sins.  And it is because of his righteousness that is made ours that we can now boldly come before the God who loves us, in relationship with him (Hebrews 10:19–22).

The Shack: First, Jesus provided the example of a servant who gave up his rights (p. 137); this agrees with the Bible (Philippians 2:5–8).  Second, in some sense, what Jesus did allows God to forgive people of their sins (pp. 224–225); obviously, this is true as well.  Third, Jesus accomplished the reconciliation of the entire world—meaning every last person on earth—to God (p. 192).  Here’s where we run into problems, because first of all, this is nonsense; reconciliation is not possible between a willing party and an unwilling party.  In fact, those who do not believe in Jesus Christ “walk as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18).  Fourth, and even more troubling, Jesus did not die to bear the penalty of our sins as a substitute for us.  On p. 96, Young (using God the Father as his mouthpiece) insists that God did not forsake his Son at the cross (Jesus was just really whiny in Matthew 27:46, I guess).  If he was not forsaken, then we who should be forsaken for our sins have no confidence that Jesus Christ has received this affliction in our place (Isaiah 53).  If you think I am reading too much into this, Young himself has explicitly denied that Jesus Christ died as a substitute for us, bearing the penalty for our sins.

Bottom line?  It would appear that the God of The Shack is a God of love (sort of), but he/she is not particularly holy.  This is not the true God that we are called to worship!  I encourage you, if you plan to read this book (or already have), read it with exceptional discernment and caution.  Be careful about surgery done with a rusty scalpel.

Posted on by Dave 1