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Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Monday May 10, 2021
Monday May 10, 2021
Last week we heard of Peter rightly calling Jesus “the Christ,” the promised Savior, but misunderstanding what that meant for Jesus. Peter was thinking of earthly power and glory and “the things of man” and even of Satan. Instead, Jesus would follow His heavenly Father’s will and began even more clearly to speak of His suffering and death, as key to His saving work for the world. Glory and honor would come only later, in His resurrection and the events that followed.
In Mark 9:1, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God coming with power, but that not all the disciples would see that. This most likely refers to the resurrection of Jesus, which Judas would miss out on, by his suicide. See Romans 1:4, for example, for the “power” of the resurrection.
Jesus would also give three of His disciples a glimpse of His glory in the event described in Mark 9:2-10. He took Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. We don’t know just where that was, but likely it was north of Caesarea Philippi, where they had last been, in the far north of Israel. Jesus was “transfigured before them” (Mark9:2). His clothing became radiantly white, beyond what anyone on earth could bleach or clean them (Mark 9:3). (See references to the purifying prophesied when the Lord, the messenger of the new covenant, would come, in Malachi 3:1-2. See how the transfigured Jesus looked like the “Ancient of Days,” the heavenly Father described in Daniel 7:9, also. It is a glimpse of Jesus in His glory, as the true Son of God.)
Two great leaders of the Old Testament, Moses and Elijah, also appeared with Jesus, talking with Him. Somehow, Peter was enabled to know who these people were, and he began to talk of a plan he had. Tents could be built for these three - Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.
There was an Old Testament festival where people built temporary outdoor enclosures and stayed in them for 7 days, remembering their days in the wilderness with Moses. (See Leviticus 23:42-43.) Maybe Peter was thinking of this and how this amazing time could be prolonged. More likely, though, Peter was just saying whatever came into his head, because he and the others were “terrified” at what they saw, as Mark tells us (Mark 9:5-6.) (Remember that Mark learned much from Peter and likely is recording just what Peter told him, as God inspired him to do. Fear and terror are often reactions when sinful people see an angel or even a glimpse of the glory of God. See Luke 1:11-13, 26-30, Exodus 20:18-19, etc.)
Right after that, “a cloud overshadowed them” (Mark 9:7). Clouds were often a way of showing that God was coming among His people in the Old Testament, even as He dealt with Moses. See Exodus 24:15-16 and 40:34-35, for example. Then the voice of God the Father came from the cloud, clearly identifying Jesus as His Son: “This is My beloved Son.” It was the same message as at the baptism of Jesus. See Mark 1:11. The Father also added, here at the Transfiguration: “Listen to Him” - Listen to Jesus! (Mark 9:7) This was also in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy given long before by Moses, who was standing with Jesus at that moment. (See Deuteronomy 18:15.) Then we hear, “Suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only” (Mark 9:8).
The message of the Transfiguration was to listen to Jesus - His Words and the Words of His Holy Scriptures, the Bible - and to believe them, because He was the true Son of God. Even if His Words did not make sense to them and their human way of thinking, the disciples were to believe Him, “Jesus only,” above everything else. This is the message for us, too - to keep listening to the Words of Jesus (as we are doing right now in this study), even if we do not fully grasp what Jesus is telling us.
In fact, as we read Mark 9:9-13, it is clear that Peter, James, and John were still not getting many things that Jesus was teaching them. They did not understand what “rising from the dead” meant (Mark 9:10).
They did not understand that John the Baptist was the “Elijah to come," even though Jesus had already told them that. (See Matthew 11: 10-14, for example.) Jesus repeated again that John was the one prophesied to “restore” God’s people and get them ready for the Savior. People “did to him whatever they pleased” - rejecting him and Herod even putting him to death - even as the original Elijah had been persecuted, “as it is written of him” (Mark 9:11-13). (See also 1 Kings 19:1-3,10.)
Sadly, the scribes and other Jewish authorities had added many things beyond what the Old Testament said about the Elijah prophesied to come. “The expectation was that Elijah would first teach the Jews, settle all their disputed questions, give them again the pot of manna and Aaron’s rod, (which had been in the Ark of the Covenant), etc.” (Lenski’s Commentary). No wonder the disciples were confused, having been taught these wrong ideas by others!
Jesus had to repeat again that He, as the “Son of Man,” would also “suffer many things and be treated with contempt,” just as Elijah and John the Baptist had been treated (Mark 9:12). (See also comments in an earlier study portion, on John 2:10, about Jesus as the “Son of Man.”)
Jesus knew that confusion was still there in the disciples’ minds, so He also told them not tell anyone about the Transfiguration until after His resurrection (Mark 9:9). Later on, they would better understand about all this. Peter wrote about the Transfiguration, for example, in 2 Peter 1:16-21, and explained accurately about Jesus, after the resurrection, in Acts 3:18, 22-26, by the power of the Holy Spirit and quoting Moses.
The weakness of the disciples and the strength of Jesus and the need to rely on Him are emphasized again in the story which follows in Mark 9:14-28. Jesus, Peter, James and John returned to the other disciples, after the Transfiguration, and found another big argument between the Jewish scribes and those disciples. Jesus asked what was going on, and a man explained that he had brought his son to the disciples for healing. The son was possessed by an evil spirit, so that he could not speak or hear and often was thrown into what we might today call an epileptic fit. The disciples could not cast out the evil spirit from the son, though, even though they had been given power from Jesus earlier to do so (Mark 9:14-18). (See also Mark 6:7-13.)
Jesus was frustrated with so much evil around in His “faithless generation” and with the lack of faith in His own disciples, too, and all that He had to bear with (Mark 9:19). He asked for the boy to be brought to Him, and the demon in the boy immediately recognized Jesus and convulsed the boy, seeking to harm him, as he had often done before, ever since the boy was a child. (The goal of Satan and all his evil angels is always to harm and not to help.) The Father pleaded for compassion and help from Jesus, if He could do anything for the boy (Mark 9:20-22).
Jesus wanted to increase the faith in the father, as well as heal the son. So, He said, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” The man has some faith or he would not have brought his son to the disciples and Jesus; but he answered very honestly and quickly: “I believe; help my unbelief!” (This is a good prayer for all of us, as our faith is imperfect and not always so strong, either.)
Jesus quickly then commanded the “deaf and mute spirit” to come out of the boy and never return. The evil spirit cried out and convulsed the boy again terribly and finally came out of him, leaving the boy looking as if he were dead. Jesus lifted up the boy and he arose and was well (Mark 9:23-27).
The disciples then asked Jesus why they could not cast out the evil spirit. Jesus had already spoken of a “faith” problem and now he talked about the need for prayer, as well (Mark 9:28-29). It might be that the disciples were so proud of casting out other demons that they began to think that they were doing this themselves and forgetting that it was only by the power of Jesus, delegated to them, that any of this healing was happening. They were trying to do the healing by their own power, instead of leaning upon Jesus and asking for heavenly help for what they did, through prayer.
Don’t we sometimes do the same thing? We have a problem, and we try to solve it by ourselves, by our wisdom and using every other human means possible, and only later remembering to pray and ask God’s help. Jesus is teaching us to combine faith with prayer, asking God for His help early on, not at the end, when nothing else has worked. Jesus has taught us, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). God does not answer every prayer as we wish; but James tells us, “You do not have because you do not ask" (James 4:2). Prayer is simply talking with God, and is a sign of our faith in our Lord, as dear children ask their dear Father for what they think they need.
In Mark 9:30-32, Jesus continued to teach His disciples. He knew that they needed to hear and hear again what He was teaching, even as we do. He repeated again about His coming death and resurrection. This time, He added that He would be ”delivered into the hands of men” and be killed. Someone would help this to happen, and Judas was the person who most clearly did that, as he arranged for and then betrayed Jesus with a kiss. We will hear more of this in Mark 14:10-11 and 43-45. It was all clearly predicted, and yet Judas ignored these warnings of Jesus, for him.
In Mark 9:32, we hear again that the disciples were not understanding these direct words of Jesus and were afraid to ask Him, to pray to Him for His help in understanding. (Again, how often do we do the same? Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief and indecision and fear and weakness, as we are so much like those disciples. We can live only by Your grace and mercy and patient help for us.)
Monday May 10, 2021
Monday May 10, 2021
Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter, based on:
Sermon originally delivered May 13, 2012
Monday May 03, 2021
Monday May 03, 2021
As we heard last week, Jesus spent some time outside Galilee and the land of Israel, where He preached and did miracles for the benefit of non-Jews and showed His care for Gentiles, as well as Jews. As soon as He returned to Galilee, though, where more Jews lived (Mark 8:10), He was confronted again by Jewish religious authorities, Pharisees, who “began to argue with Him” again. This time, they wanted Him to show them “a sign from heaven” as a kind of “test” of His authority and His right to speak and do what He did. Already Jesus had done many miracles and taught the Word of God to them; but that was not enough. They wanted something more, and He knew that they would never be satisfied, no matter what He did. So, He “sighed deeply in His spirit," sorrowful at their reaction, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly (literally, Amen), I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation” (Mark 8:11-12).
Later on, Jesus would call that generation an “adulterous and sinful generation” (Mark 8:38), because it was not being faithful to the One True God and His Word and His will for His people. (See also Matthew 12:38-41, where Jesus would give only “the sign of the prophet Jonah.” As Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days, so Jesus would be in the grave for three days before His mighty resurrection. See also 1 Corinthians 1:22-25, where Paul, who was a Jew, saw the continuing demand from Jews for more signs and proof, but he would preach only Christ crucified, the Power of God for salvation.)
Jesus soon left that Jewish territory again for the other side of the Sea of Galilee with His disciples. As they traveled by boat, the disciples realized that they had forgotten to bring any food with them, other than one loaf of bread. Jesus used this discussion to given them a warning. “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” The disciples seemed to have no idea of what Jesus was telling them and they kept talking about their lack of bread (Mark 8:14-16).
As Jews, they should have remembered Old Testament stories about “leaven” - a word for “yeast,” a substance used to make bread dough rise. When God’s people were rescued from slavery in Egypt, they were to sacrifice a lamb and put blood from it on their door posts and lintel of their homes, so that judgment against the Egyptians would pass over their homes and families. (The sacrificed lamb was a symbol of the sacrifice that Jesus would later make on the cross, so that we would be forgiven and judgment for our sins would pass over us and not come to us.) That night Jews were to eat a meal, including unleavened bread, because they would not have time to wait for their bread to rise, but would leave Egypt quickly, when they were allowed to.
In coming years, then, they were to remember these rescue events from God with a yearly Passover meal, including unleavened bread, and then seven more days of eating unleavened bread. No leaven was to be in their homes or their land during those days. (See especially Exodus 12:1-20 and 13:3-10.) Over time, leaven (yeast) became a symbol for evil or for moral influence, usually bad but sometimes good. (See Matthew 13:33 for an example of good leaven, good moral influence, as the kingdom of heaven starts small in people, yet has great influence over time.)
Jesus was warning, in Mark 8:15, of the leaven, the corrupt moral influence of Herod, who killed John the Baptist and did so much other evil, even though he was powerful and influential. Jesus also warned of the evil moral influence, the leaven, of the Pharisees, with whom they had just been speaking. The Pharisees seemed to be so morally good, but were actually far from God’s will, especially in their opposition to Jesus. (See also 1 Corinthians 5:1-2,6-8 as another example of the leaven of evil, if it is allowed to corrupt even a church.)
The disciples of Jesus were missing what He was saying, though, because of their concern for themselves and their lack of enough bread to eat. Jesus strongly accused them of not being able to see or hear what was really important for them and not listening to and understanding Him, because of hardness of hearts. Surely they should remember how Jesus could take care of their physical needs if necessary, as He had done before in the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. Watch out for spiritual blindness, He is warning, when the focus is on the wrong things (Mark 8:17-21).
Right after this, Jesus and the disciples arrived in Bethsaida, where a blind man was brought to Jesus for healing. Jesus took the man away by himself and put spit on his eyes. This was, as in an earlier story, a way of communicating to the man that healing was coming for him. Maybe to emphasize the healing of blindness, the miracle happened in two stages; but the man finally “saw everything clearly.” As often before, the man was to go home and not spread the news about what had happened (Mark 8:22-26). This was a real healing of a man, but may have had some symbolic meaning, too. If Jesus could heal physical blindness, could He not also cure spiritual blindness, which was ultimately an even greater problem for people?
Jesus then went with His disciples to Caesarea Philippi, which was in the far North of Israel, almost out of the country, where a mixed group of Jews and non-Jews lived. This was a more isolated area, where He could do more teaching with His disciples. As they traveled there, Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” The disciples gave the usual responses. Some said Jesus was John the Baptist, come back to life after he was killed by Herod. (That is what Herod thought, at times, because of his guilt over putting John to death. See Mark 6:16.) Others thought Jesus was Elijah, though we have heard that John the Baptist was actually the Elijah predicted, who prepared the way for Jesus. Others said that Jesus was a prophet. He did have prophetic power, but He was far more than a prophet (Mark 8:27-28).
Then Jesus asked the disciples the most important question, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, as usual, quickly answered for all the disciples, “You are the Christ.” Peter was exactly right. The word “Christ” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Messiah,” the “Anointed One,” the promised Savior from God. (See Part 1 of this study of Mark for more on this.) Jesus then told Peter not to tell people this about Him. The time for Jesus to be very open about Himself and to complete His saving work was getting close, but not just yet (Mark 8:29-30).
From this time on, though, Jesus was very open with His disciples about what it really meant to be the Christ. He had told them before, but not so directly. “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He said this plainly” (Mark 8:31-32). This was not at all what Peter and the others expected or wanted to hear. They were still thinking that the Christ would be a glorious conquering hero, bringing great honor to Himself and His followers. They were not thinking that He would suffer much and be rejected and die. And it was as if they never even heard the part about rising from the dead. Peter took Jesus aside and began to “rebuke” Him - to criticize Him and tell Him to stop this talk about suffering and dying (Mark 8:32).
Jesus right away rebuked Peter, saying very strongly, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Jesus must suffer and die. That was the plan of His Heavenly Father from the beginning. He had to pay the penalty for the sins of the world by His suffering and death. If Peter and the others opposed that, they were opposing God and doing the work of Satan. That is a challenging statement for us all. Do we sometimes think we know better than God and that he ought to do things our way, instead of His way? Do we too much set our minds on the things of man and our own human desires, rather than on God’s way, according to His Word (Mark 8:33)?
Jesus went on to speak to the crowd of people around Him, as well as to the disciples. Read Mark 8:34-38 very carefully. Following Jesus means self-denial and cross-bearing and might even mean losing our physical life for the sake of Jesus and His Gospel. (It actually did mean that for most of Jesus’ original disciples, eventually, and it could mean that for some, even today.) But following Jesus also means gaining life - life and hope in this world and eternal life with Him and through Him. There is no other way to eternal life and heaven than through Jesus and what He promised to do and did do for us. If we gained everything this world had to offer, that would not be enough to save our own souls. (See Psalm 49:7-9.) The key is trusting Jesus and His Words and work for us and not being ashamed of Him and His ways and plans for us. We cannot attain this on our own (Mark 8:34-38). This a gift of God to us, as we come to faith in Him, as we shall see, in weeks ahead. There is joy and glory also in Jesus; but before it, Jesus now heads to the cross to do what He must do to save us.
The disciples heard all this, but they still did not understand what it all meant, as we shall see. May we also follow Jesus to the cross and grow in our own faith and understanding in Him.
Monday May 03, 2021
Monday May 03, 2021
Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Easter, based on:
Sermon originally delivered May 6, 2012
Sunday Apr 25, 2021
Sunday Apr 25, 2021
We began with a few additional thoughts from our previous study. When we heard that Jesus came to “villages, cities and countryside” last week, teaching and helping people (Mark 6:53-56), this was a direct fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that the Lord God Himself would come as Shepherd for His people. See Ezekiel 34:11-16. “I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country... I Myself will be the Shepherd of My sheep... and will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong (the ones who take advantage of and harm the other sheep) I will destroy.”
Jesus was God the Son, Who became a human being, one of the sheep, in order to help as many sheep as possible in His ministry (Mark 6:53-56), and to battle those who were being bad shepherds and leading people away from God’s truth (Mark 7:1-23). Jesus came from the line of King David and was (and is) the “one Shepherd” predicted to come (Ezekiel 34:23).
As True God, as well as a real man, He was able to interpret God’s will perfectly, and even change some things under the “New Covenant” He was bringing in - including “declaring all foods clean” (Mark 7:14-19). He was able to identify our sinful human nature and hearts, out of which come all kinds of evil (Mark 7:20-23). And later, Jesus would declare, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep,” predicting His death on the cross to pay for all sins and bring new life and hope to His people, His sheep, in His resurrection from the dead (John 10:11, 17-18).
Opposition to Jesus was growing, though, from the false shepherds, the religious leaders, because of what He was saying and doing. Even the people in Galilee were focusing too much on His miracles and misunderstanding His teachings. So, as we hear in Mark 7:24, Jesus went away, outside of Galilee and the land of Israel to “the region of Tyre and Sidon” to the north. Most of the people there were Gentiles, non-Jews; but even there, people had heard about Jesus and what He was doing. A Greek woman from that area came to Jesus, begging that He would cast a demon, an unclean spirit, out of her little daughter (Mark 7:25-26).
At first, Jesus seemed to be very harsh with her, reminding her that He had come “first” for the children of Israel. (Most of His time was spent within Israel, reaching out to fellow Jews. His suffering, death, and rising from the dead all had to happen within Israel, too, as predicted in prophecy.) Then He seemed to be calling her a “dog,” which was a derogatory term some Jews used for non-Jews. He did not use the term for a wild dog or a street dog, though, dogs that people disliked very much. He used the term for a little dog, one that might be kept as a pet, a part of the family.
The woman did what He really wished her to do - to keep asking and believing that that He could and would help her and her daughter. She said, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” She was willing to accept that Jesus came first for the Jews; and she trusted that even a few crumbs from Jesus would be enough for her daughter.
It was a great statement of faith in Jesus; and this was the only person in all of Mark’s Gospel to call Jesus “Lord,” other than Jesus speaking about Himself. “For this statement,” Jesus said, “you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” The daughter was healed (Mark 7:27-30). This humble, persistent prayer was prayed “from under the table,” the commentator, Martin Franzmann, says. Jesus was showing that He came to be the Savior of all people, not just the Jews. All nations could be supplied with His blessings.
Jesus then traveled back, avoiding Galilee, to the region of the Decapolis - another largely non-Jewish area, where He had been earlier and cast out many evil spirits from a man (Mark 5:1-20). That healed man and others had spread the news about Jesus; and soon, some people brought to Jesus a man “who was deaf and had a speech impediment,” begging that Jesus would heal the man (Mark 7:31-32). Jesus took the man away to a private place and put his fingers in his ears and spit and touched the man’s tongue. The man could not hear, and this was probably a way of letting the man know that He was going to heal him, so that he could both hear with his ears and speak with his tongue. Some Jews thought that spit had some curative power, too; but Jesus needed only to look to heaven in prayer and say with a deep sigh “Be opened” in Aramaic, and the man could hear and speak plainly.
It was a great miracle, and the people could not help but tell others, even though Jesus told them to keep quiet about it. You can imagine that the healed man was eager to use his new powers of speech and hearing. He was likely a non-Jew, among mostly non-Jews, too; but the people spoke with honor of Jesus and more accurately than many Jews, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:33-37).
These were exactly the kind of miracles predicted in the Old Testament for the time when the Messiah, the Christ, the promised Savior came. (See Isaiah 29:18-19 and 35:2-6. Note that “the poor among mankind would exult” in the one true God (29:19). The Savior, Jesus was coming to help all peoples, as He was demonstrating in helping non-Jews, too, on this trip outside Israel. This too had been predicted. See Isaiah 42:1, 5-9 and 56:7, for example.)
This care for non-Jews shows itself again in Chapter 8 of Mark. Jesus was most likely still in a non-Jewish area, when a great crowd gathered and listened to Him for three days. The people had run out of any food that they brought with them, and still they wanted to keep hearing more from Jesus. Jesus was concerned about the people, that they might become ill and faint before getting back home. He asked his disciples about this, and as before, they say, “How can one feed these people in this desolate place?” They had seen the feeding of the 5,000 men, plus women and children, by Jesus; but they can’t even seem to remember or to turn to Jesus for help.
As before, Jesus had the people sit down and took the seven loaves of bread and a a few small fish, gave thanks to God and blessed that little bit of food, and fed about 4,000 people. In this case, again, the crowd was mostly Gentiles, non-Jews; yet Jesus helped them all with His spiritual and physical food. Seven baskets of food were left over.
Numbers often have some symbolic significance, too. Some think that the seven baskets represent God’s care for the seven Gentile nations around Israel, while the 12 baskets at the feeding of the 5,000 Jews represent God’s care for the 12 tribes of Israel. Clearly, Jesus was caring for both Jews and non-Jews. That means that He cares about us, too, no matter who we are and where we come from.
Jesus dismissed the crowd and quickly went back across the Sea of Galilee to a part of Galilee that we cannot identify for sure. This is the only mention of Dalmanutha in the Bible, and we don’t know where it was. Next week, we will hear how Jesus was quickly confronted with the same problems he had earlier, among His own people. He faithfully carried on His ministry, though, in spite of many challenges; and he did it for us all.
Sunday Apr 25, 2021
Sunday Apr 25, 2021
Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Easter, based on:
Sermon originally delivered April 29, 2012
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Monday Apr 19, 2021
Some call Mark 6:53-56 a kind of summary of the ministry in Jesus in Galilee, in the northern part of Israel. He had come across the Sea of Galilee again to Gennesaret, a small, fertile area along the Sea, and as before, people recognized Him and began bringing sick people to Him, placing them in marketplaces wherever He went. He continued to go to “villages, cities, and countryside,” preaching and teaching, and the healings continued, too.
At this time, He allowed sick people to touch even “the fringe of His garment,” and they would be healed. (Jesus wore an outer garment with fringes or tassels on each corner, as each faithful Jew was expected to do. See Deuteronomy 22:12. Jesus did not make a big show of this, with huge tassels, as some did; but the tassels were a helpful way for people to touch his garments and more to be healed, before His ministry in Galilee would soon lessen. He continued to care about His people and their spiritual and physical needs.)
As Chapter 7 of Mark begins, Pharisees and scribes “gathered to Him,” including a delegation from Jerusalem. They seem to have come to challenge Jesus and were looking for ways to criticize Him. They quickly saw that Jesus’ disciples did not do the proper washing of hands before they ate. (The Greek text literally says, “before they ate bread.” “Bread” sometimes referred not just to bread, as we think of it today, but to the food, the meals they ate. When Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread,” He meant all that we need to eat and live and survive.)
The religious leaders were not talking about washing hands for sanitary and physical health reasons, like we wash hands before meals or for 20 seconds, very carefully, in these Covid days. They were talking about their own prescribed ceremonial washings, developed over time by previous Jewish elders and teachers, in case people were spiritually unclean by contact with spiritually unclean people or things. (Mark explains in Mark 7:2-3 a little of what this meant. Remember that his Gospel was written especially for non-Jews, and he needed to give some of these explanations as God inspired him to write.)
The Pharisees were concerned with “holding to the tradition of the elders” and the many traditions they had developed as a kind of “fence” to protect people from violating God’s will, as they saw it (v. 3-4). They had 613 specific rules, plus some others over which they argued. If people kept all these rules, they should be following God acceptably. Many of these rules and traditions were not in the Old Testament, but were still required by the Pharisees and scribes, and over time, became more important than the Scriptures themselves. Sometimes, as Jesus said a little later in this passage, the traditions could even cause one to disobey clear Scriptures.
The one issue the scribes and Pharisees were raising here was about ceremonial hand washing. Their view seemed to be that if they allowed people to get by with breaking even one of the traditions, then all the traditions were in danger. They blamed Jesus because He was the leader and let His followers break the traditions (v.5). The “marketplace” was mentioned in v.4 because it was very likely that Jews could bump into non-Jews who were "unclean” and anything they touched and all sorts of other things considered unclean.
Doing a regular ceremonial cleansing of hands was therefore very important to these Jewish leaders. It had to be done properly, too, in just the right way. The Greek text of v.3 literally speaks of “washing with a fist” - though we do not know today exactly what that meant. Were you to use a fistful of water or apply water only to the parts of a hand involved in making a fist?
Mark mentions that there were many other washings, too, of household items that might be unclean. The Greek word in v.4 for washing is literally the word for “baptizing.” Some understood that word only to mean immersing something in water. But how could one regularly immerse big items like a dining couch on which people would lay down to eat their meals? This later became an issue for Christians. How much water is needed for a proper Christian baptism? Some said only immersion was allowed. Others said that the amount of water did not matter, because the Scriptures do not clearly tell us how much water must be used. (That is our Lutheran view, though we can’t get into this more right now. We simply try to follow what is clear in Scripture.)
Jesus, as he answered the question raised in v.6, pointed to what the Scriptures actually said and required. He quoted a passage from Isaiah 29:13 in the Old Testament, where God accused His people of teaching and following humanly-made commandments instead of what He commanded in Scripture. These Jews spoke highly of God with their lips and words, but their hearts were far from God and what He really wanted for them. Jesus accused the religious leaders of His own day of doing the same, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men” (v.8).
Jesus used the example of making vows. The Scripture cautioned about making vows involving God, but the Jewish leaders encouraged people to make vows to give money and other things to them for their support or to help the temple in Jerusalem or synagogues. The gift was then “Corban,” that is, “Given to God,” even if it had not actually yet been given. If parents had an emergency need then, the religious leaders would not allow any of that money to be given to help the parents, even in a very dire situation.
Jesus said that their man-made rule was violating the clear Scripture, “Honor your father and mother” and other passages that talk about helping family and others (v. 9-12). You are “making void the Word of God by your tradition that you have handed down,” Jesus said. “And many such things you do,” He added (v.13). The Word of God alone was key - and now that Word interpreted by Jesus, as He brought in the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
In Mark 7:14-23, Jesus used His authority as the Son of God to make a definite change from the Old Testament, the Old Covenant between God and His people. Jesus followed the will of His Heavenly Father to declare that under the New Testament and the New Covenant He was bringing in, all foods were now clean (v.19). Under the Old Covenant, pigs and pork were unclean and not to be eaten. Now we have great freedom about what we eat or do not eat, including pork.
It is not really foods that we consume that make us spiritually unclean, Jesus said. Those foods just go in and out of our bodies. It is what comes from within, from our sinful nature and sinful hearts, that defiles us and others. Jesus went on to give a long list of attitudes and actions that are sinful and flow from our sinful hearts (v.21-23). These are things that God clearly calls wrong in His Word. These are to be our concern, not how we wash our hands and so many other traditions of the elders that we are not bound to do.
The real problem is our sinful nature and our sinful hearts. Here are just a few Scriptures that speak of the corruption of our hearts and minds, ever since the fall into sin by Adam and Eve. (These are Scriptures I was struggling to find to give you, if you listened to the podcast, this week. Many more could be mentioned, too: Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21, Psalm 51:5, Psalm 58:3, Ecclesiastes 9:3, Jeremiah 17:9.) Only Jesus could overcome these spiritual problems for us. That is what he came to do, in love for us all, as our Savior.
The scribes and Pharisees were even more opposed to Jesus now, as He had rejected their rules and traditions. His fellow Jews in Galilee were also becoming more focused on His miracles and healings and less concerned with the Gospel He came to bring. We will see next week how He spent more time in non-Jewish areas for a while, showing His concern for all nations and people.
Sunday Apr 18, 2021
Sunday Apr 18, 2021
Sunday Apr 11, 2021
Sunday Apr 11, 2021
The 12 chosen disciples of Jesus had been with Him for some time now, hearing Him preach and teach and seeing His amazing miracles. As Mark 6:7-12 begins, Jesus chose to send these 12 apostles out to help spread His message and to get some practical experience in sharing the faith with other local people, before they would be sent out to the world in full-time ministry later on. They were sent out in pairs, so that they could help and encourage each other. They were to take very little with them in material possessions - to learn to depend upon the Lord and the help they could receive from others who would listen to them. They were to stay where they were welcomed and not look for better situations for themselves. They were also to expect opposition and people who would reject them and their message.
In turn, Jesus promised to give them power over evil spirits and the ability to heal some people; and He gave them the message to speak - calling people to repent and to trust the Good News of God’s coming kingdom, in the promised Savior (Mark 6:7-12). When they returned, they were able to report that they had been able, by God’s power, to share the message and cast out demons and heal some people, along with anointing them with oil, a medicine of the day. (Mark 6:13,20. See also Isaiah 1:6, Luke 10:33-34, and James 5:14, for example.)
Meanwhile, we have a flashback to what King Herod had done with John the Baptist, after he arrested him and put him in prison, in Mark 6:17-29. John had been arrested because Herod’s wife, Herodias, was very angry with him (John) for criticizing their marriage. It had been a very evil time for a very troubled royal family. Herodias had been living in Rome with her husband Philip, who was actually also her uncle. Herod was also married, but made a trip to Rome, leaving his wife behind, and then deciding to elope to with Herodias, stealing her away from Philip. Philip and Herod were actually brothers, so that meant that Herodias was now living with her former husband’s brother. Herod was also a half-uncle to her. This meant that two marriages were broken up in the process and all sorts of Old Testament laws were broken about whom one could marry and how close a relative one could marry. I don’t know if you could follow all that, but it was a terrible mess. John the Baptist had to speak up about this, and Herodias hated him for it and wanted him dead.
Herod was not really a king, but was really a tetrarch of one fourth of an area controlled around Israel by the Romans, and just used that title of king. He had some respect for John the Baptist, though. He knew that John was “a righteous and holy man.” He “feared” and protected John and liked to listen to him, though he was “greatly perplexed” by what John said. Like his father, Herod the Great, (who was leader at the time of the birth of Jesus and was responsible for the killing of all the babies in Bethlehem, as he tried to kill Jesus Himself) this Herod was partially Jewish, but was not a faithful Jew.
This was also evident in a birthday party Herod then threw for himself and invited the influential people around him, who helped keep him in power as ruler. There was a great banquet and probably lots of drinking and then Herod’s latest wife, Herodias, sent in her own daughter to dance before all these men. It was likely a very immoral and lascivious kind of dancing, but Herod allowed his daughter to do this, and he and the others were pleased. Again, likely drunk, Herod began to make all sorts of promises, saying things he could never deliver on, but saying he would give Herodias’s daughter whatever she wanted. She consulted with her mother and quickly came back to Herod, wanting the head of John the Baptist delivered to her on a platter. Herod did not want to do this, but because he had made “vows” to her and the guests had heard them, he gave the order and John was soon dead, with his head on a platter (Mark 6:17-29).
Herod was haunted by this event, and when he heard more and more about Jesus, he thought that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead, who had come back to give him more trouble. Others said that John was the Elijah predicted by Malachi 4:5-6. But we have already heard in Luke 1:17 and from Jesus Himself in Matthew 11:7-10 that John was the one promised but came only “in the spirit and power of Elijah.” He was also more than just another prophet of the Old Testament (Mark 6:14-16).
When His own disciples returned from their mission trips, Jesus took them by boat to a desolate place, so that He and they could get some rest and have time to eat. Others saw Jesus, though, and hurried on foot around the Sea of Galilee to find Jesus. A huge crowd had gathered before Jesus and his disciples arrived. It was no longer a place of rest; but Jesus cared about all these people, probably mostly Jews, “because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus was the Good Shepherd promised in the Old Testament and He spent the whole day teaching these sheep many things (Mark 6:30-34). See also Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34:11-16, as examples of prophecies Jesus fulfilled.
It was getting late in the day, though, and the disciples asked Jesus to dismiss the crowd, so that the people could go find some food for themselves. But Jesus said to His disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Maybe he was hoping that they would just turn to Him for His help, after all the other miraculous things He had done. Instead, they try to think of what they could do, coming up with no good answers. A denarius was about a typical day’s pay for an ordinary person’s work. Even if they had eight month of pay, 200 denarii, that would not be enough. They themselves had only five loaves of bread and two fish for themselves (Mark 6:35-38).
Jesus knew exactly what He would do, though. He had the people sit in an organized way. He took the bread and fish they had and prayed and asked a blessing over the food (as we have also been taught to pray and thank the Lord for our food, before meals). Then He began to break up the loaves and then the fish and had His disciples distribute them to everyone, in a marvelous miracle. There was food for everyone and 12 baskets of leftovers, enough for all the 12 hungry disciples, too. 5,000 amazed men were fed, plus women and children (Mark 6:39-44).
This was a miracle like that of God, when He provided a kind of bread, manna, in the wilderness for His chosen people, along with quail, after they left Egypt. Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, also provided both spiritual food as He taught the people, and physical food, bread and fish for them, to show His fellowship with and concern for them. (Remember how the Pharisees criticized Jesus because He showed friendship and fellowship and ate with “bad” people like tax collectors and sinners. See Mark 2:15-17. (How sad it was, later, that Jesus was betrayed by Judas, Who “ate His bread” and received so much care and fellowship from Jesus. See John 13:18.)
Jesus immediately made His disciples start to go across the Sea of Galilee by boat again. Other Gospels tell us that people were thinking about seizing Jesus and trying to force Him to become their king. How great it would be to have someone who could miraculously provide free food for people every day, this way. Jesus did not want this or his disciples to hear this idea of the people and so He Himself dismissed the crowd and then went off to a mountain to pray and receive strength from His Heavenly Father. He also realized that the disciples were having a difficult time on the se again because the wind was against them.
Somewhere between 3-6 am, Jesus came to them, walking on the water of the sea. They could see Him, but thought He was a “ghost.” They “cried out” and “were terrified.” Right away, He spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And when He got into the boat, the wind ceased. The disciples were “utterly astounded” at all this - His walking on water and control of the wind. But again Mark tells us, “They did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”
His own disciples were still not getting who Jesus really was, even after such a miraculous day. Their hearts were still hard, resisting the truth about Jesus and not trusting Him as they should have. How much we need to keep seeing and hearing from Jesus, through His Word, also, in our own struggles and ups and down in faith! May we keep listening and learning, too.
Sunday Apr 11, 2021
Sunday Apr 11, 2021
Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, based on:
Sermon originally delivered April 15, 2012