Being hardheaded

 

But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, or they are not willing to listen to Me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.  Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads.  Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead.  Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.  --Ezekiel 3:7-9

 Author and business leadership guru Peter Drucker once wrote, "Over the years I have made a career out of studying the most challenging management roles out there.  After all of that I am now convinced the two most difficult jobs in the world are these—one, to be President of the United States, and two, to be the leader of a church."

It's easy to compare the two. The US President makes half the nation mad at him with every decision he makes, gets many of his quotes taken out of context, and just about everyone thinks they could do a better job.  A Pastor or church leader is criticized and misquoted and belittled in much the same way.  The President is elected by the people, overseen by Congress, limited by the Courts and bound by the Constitution.  A Pastor is called by God, managed by a Board of Elders or Deacons, hemmed in by a limited budget, and bound by the Bible.

When God called Ezekiel to take His message to the nation of Israel in Ezekiel 3, he warned that the people were going to be hard-headed.  God told Ezekiel to stand his ground, to be even harder-headed in defense of the Word of God.  "Behold," He says to Ezekiel in verse 8, "I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their foreheads."  The point is emphasized again in verse 9.  "Like emery harder than flint I have made your forehead."

The word translated "emery" in the English Standard Version is difficult to convey in English.  You all know that an emery board is a kind of nail file.  Emery is made with a mixture of corundum and magnetite, used for polishing, smoothing, or grinding.  This translation conveys the purpose, but not the true meaning.  The New King James Version translates this word with an archaic term, "adamant stone."  This term refers to a legendary rock or mineral to which many, often contradictory, properties were attributed, formerly associated with diamond or lodestone.  We now know that diamond is the hardest naturally occurring mineral on earth.  In essence, God is telling Ezekiel that the people have hard heads, but I'm making yours harder, so that you can withstand their falsehoods and wear them down with God's truth.

This is what a Pastor is called to do: preach the Gospel, and stand for Truth.  It may not be popular in this day and age to take a Biblical stand against abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and a host of other sins, but a true minister of the Gospel will hold up Biblical standards.  To do so will undoubtedly hold him up to ridicule, which is why Spurgeon said a Pastor must have thick skin.

Many Pastors try to grow the congregation by pandering to people or watering down the Gospel message. They measure success by the size of their congregation rather than the adherence to the word of God.  Megachurch pastors who preach about "living your best life now" are described in Ezekiel 13:10-14

Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, "Peace" when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall!  There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out.  And when the wall falls, will it not be said to you, "Where is the coating with which you smeared it?"  Therefore thus says the Lord God: I will make a stormy wind break out in my wrath, and there shall be a deluge of rain in my anger, and great hailstones in wrath to make a full end.  And I will break down the wall that you have smeared with whitewash, and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation will be laid bare.  When it falls, you shall perish in the midst of it, and you shall know that I am the Lord.

If you try to sugarcoat the Bible, it is like putting whitewash on a condemned building.  It may look good on the outside, but inside it is rotten; when it tumbles, what good will the whitewash be?  A good coat of paint will not hold up a collapsing building.  If God calls your Pastor to tell you the building is collapsing, wouldn't you rather have a leader who will tear down the rotten substructure and help you rebuild it from the ground up?  Yet the world loves to hear a message that tickles the ears.  They prefer to be fed pabulum rather than the hard truth. 

Lest we forget the heart of God, we must remember that God is gracious.  His purpose is to rid us of sin, not to obliterate us completely.  There is always a remnant, a small group of faithful men and women who are chosen by God to take His message to the next generation.  Ezekiel 11:17-20 speaks to this.  He gave this message to Ezekiel, the one He called to Pastor His people:

Therefore say, "Thus says the Lord God: I will gather you from the  peoples and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."  And when they come there, they will remove from it all its detestable things and all its abominations.  And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.  And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

We are heard headed and hardhearted, obstinate and impudent.  God may have to call a harder man to wear us down, to break the chains that weigh on us, but His purpose is redemptive.  He wants to replace a heart of stone with a heart of flesh.  He wants to take away our hardhearted nature and replace it with a tenderheartedness so He can have fellowship with us.

Support your local Pastor.  If he is doing what God has called him to do, he will get enough push-back from outside the church; he doesn't need to get grief from within the church too.

Doing the work of the Holy Spirit

 

Can two walk together without agreeing where to go?  --Amos 3:3 (Berean Standard Bible)

Last month my sister was watching her two grandsons, while visiting with the boys' other grandmother.  The conversation drifted to preparations for the upcoming Thanksgiving celebrations.  "What are you having for Thanksgiving?" the woman asked innocently.  

"Well," my sister sighed.  "This past year my brother and his wife moved to Wisconsin.  My niece and nephew moved to Colorado.  Both of my children got divorced.  I'm not sure that Thanksgiving dinner will be anything like I wanted it to be."

The other woman smiled meekly.  "I meant what will you be serving?"

The past year may have been a trial for you, as well.  Maybe you lost a loved one, or lost a job, or had problems with health or finances or had any number of other issues.  in John 16:33, Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world."

This morning I attended a men's prayer breakfast, and the young pastor read 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.  For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ out comfort overflows. (Berean Standard Bible).  

 There are two themes in these three verses: suffering, and comfort.  We all know about suffering.  The Greek words used for "troubles" and "sufferings" can mean tribulation, affliction, trouble, anguish, persecution, and burdens.  In short, sin's curse leaves us in a world of hurt.

Praise be to God, those of us who know Him also know His comfort.  The Greek word translated "comfort" comes from the root word parakaleō, "to comfort", or the noun form paraklēsis, meaning consolation, exhortation, or comfort.  It brings with it the idea of coming alongside.  

In fact, the same root word is used for the Holy Spirit.  Jesus called Him "the Comforter" or paraklētos. The idea of a "paraclete" is one that comes alongside to be a helper.  It also carries with it the idea of an advocate, pleading our case before a judge or higher authority.

Read our text again.  "Blessed be God...the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort."  When we have trouble, when we need comfort, our souls reach out to God, who is our source of consolation.  Jesus said to His disciples, "My yoke is easy."  Animals in a double yoke are forced to walk the same directions, so they can pull the load together.  If we are yoked together with Christ, He will help us bear the burden, provided we do not try to go our own way.

If we submit our wills to Him and walk with Him daily, He will bear our burdens.  Similarly, we are called to walk alongside others, to encourage them and give them hope and comfort.  This does not mean we should be led astray by them--rather, we should show them the Way.  We can do the work of the Holy Spirit best when we help bear one another's burdens, submitting to the will of God and agreeing to walk in His ways.

We can also do the work of the Holy Spirit if we pray for one another.  Romans 8:26 says, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."  As we intercede for other people, we are helping them in their weakness by advocating to the Father on their behalf.

Paul's advice to a young pastor in 1 Timothy 2:1 includes praying for others.  "First of all, then," he says, "I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people."  Isn't that what the Holy Spirit does for us?  We can be a comfort to other people in their suffering by praying for them.  There is no better way to exhort one another than to truthfully tell someone that you are praying for them.

James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail."  That power comes from the Holy Spirit as we do His work with Him.  We cannot prevail over sin, suffering or strife without His help, and the help of other people.  Lift up one another, therefore, so that in so doing we can walk in the way of God the Father, in the grace of Jesus the Son, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Auspicious Mark

 

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.   --Song of Solomon 8:6.

I have never been to an Indian wedding, but I have heard that Hindu brides make elaborate markings on their bodies in preparation for the wedding.  Getting a henna tattoo, or mendhi adorned on her palms and feet means much more than basic tradition: it is marked as the symbol of solah shringar, which means, "the auspicious mark."

If you have ever been to a traditional wedding setting in India or seen one, you would notice how henna plays a significant role in their marital bliss. The night before the wedding, a Mehndi ceremony takes place. All the guests from both families gather in the home of where the bride and the groom will live, in all dressed in an attire called the “binalli” while the bride puts on a red veil. According to their belief, the darker the henna the more love develops in their marriage. Either a Mehndi artist or a relative applies intricate designs on the bride’s palms and feet while the names of the groom are somewhere hidden in the mehndi designs. (Guardian Nigeria, 27 September, 2020)

No one knows for sure when this Hindu tradition started, but it may have its roots in ancient Middle Eastern religions.  In fact, the prophet Isaiah alludes to it in our text today:

Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing!  FOr the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted.  But Zion said, "The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me." 

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.  --Isaiah 49:13-16

The majority of commentaries I consulted said that this idea of "engraving" on the hand refers to tattooing.  This indelible marking means that every time He raises His hand to do anything, the image and name of His people are visible to Him.  Perhaps this gives new meaning to John 10:28-30:  "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.  I and the Father are one."

His grasp on us, His people, is not tenuous.  His hold on us is not like an earthly father lifting a child with his hands, with some danger (although ever so slight) of dropping them.  Isaiah tells us that His grip on us is even stronger than a human mother cradling her child to her breast.  There is yet danger of that mother dropping her child, or even forgetting the child, putting her out of mind.  Yet God will not forget us.

Another commentary, MacLaren's Expositions, says this:

When Israel came out of Egypt, the Passover was instituted as ‘a memorial unto all generations,’ or, as the same idea is otherwise expressed, ‘it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand.’ Here God represents Himself as doing for Israel what He had bid Israel do for Him. They were, as it were, to write the supreme act of deliverance in the Exodus upon their hands, that it might never be forgotten. He writes Zion on His hands for the same purpose.

If you are a Christian, it should be obvious to all that you are set apart, that you are different.  Your name is written in the Lamb's book of life, and His Name is written on your heart.  Revelation 2:17 says, "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it."  This is a reference to Moses, to whom God gave the manna, and to the stones which Moses carried on which the Law of God was written.  Just as God wrote on the stone tablets with His own hand, He promises to write your new name on a stone that only you and He know.  The relationship He seeks is that intimate, and that lasting, for no one can break the stone, or erase the name written on it by God's own hand, just as no one can scrub the name He has tattooed on the palm of His hand.  Your name.  My name. 

Auspicious mark, indeed.

Eureka!

 

As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.  --Christian Nestell Bovee

Over the last two weeks in my study of Isaiah, I have felt like a California prospector in 1849.  Usually having limited resources, a gold prospector used a simple pan or sluice to extract gold from the sand.  He would scoop up a small amount of sand from a river or stream, and let water run over it to wash away the lighter minerals.  Gold was heavier, and would be left in the bottom of the pan when the sand and other minerals would be washed away.  Panning for gold was a process used as far back as Roman times, and was used by Spanish conquistadors in their conquest of South America in the 1600s.

A great deal of sand and other minerals would have to be sifted and washed downstream before gold was found.  However, whenever a miner or prospector found gold, he knew it was precious and valuable.  Finding nuggets of gold while sifting through tons of sand and washing with thousands of gallons of water made the whole process worthwhile.

Isaiah chapters 13 through 23 contain a series of pronouncements or prophesies concerning the enemies of Israel.  Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus (Syria), Egypt and others were warned by God that they would be judged severely for their sins.  Ironically, these nations had all been used by God to bring judgement upon Israel.

At this time, Israel was feeling oppressed.  Using an agrarian term, they were being threshed like wheat.  For those of us who did not grow up on a farm, in order for grains such as wheat and barley to be used for food, they must be harvested, and then the grains must be separated from the plant stems.  The most efficient way to do this without modern tractors and combines was to violently strike the heads of grain against a threshing floor, and then blow away the chaff, or remove anything left that was not grain.

2 Kings 13:7 described some of the persecution that Israel had endured. "For there was not left to Jehoahaz an army of more than fifty horsemen and ten chariots and ten thousand footmen, for the king of Syria had destroyed them and made them like the dust at threshing."  A variant spelling of the word threshing is the term thrashing, which usually describes corporal punishment or a severe loss at the hands of an opposing team.  Israel felt like they had been taken behind the woodshed and had endured a severe beating at the hands of their enemies.

Reading about the judgment of God, the wrath of God being meted out to His people--well, it's not fun.  It may bring to mind unpleasant things that have happened to us in the past: beatings we have taken (either deserved or undeserved), trials we have endured, or that we are going through currently.  Many of us may feel that we are being buffeted about by forces beyond our control.  After we are broken to pieces, then a storm comes with hurricane force winds, and all we can think is, "God, why?  Why me?"

It is at this point we need a Eureka moment, a gold nugget of scripture to give us hope.  Isaiah provides one.  Isaiah 21:10 says, "O my threshed and winnowed one, what I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you."

Stop.  Read that verse again.  Threshed is violently pounded and broken into pieces.  Winnowed is the removal of useless or unwanted debris (aka "chaff") so that all is left is the grain, the kernel of who you are and what you were meant to be useful for.  If you feel you have been threshed and winnowed, God has a message for you.

Isaiah 26:3 says, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."  You can have peace in your suffering if you keep your eyes on God.  If you remain faithful, God will overcome your enemies and will bring to pass His purpose for you.  To Him, you are more precious than gold, but even gold and silver must be refined by fire, so that the dross can be removed and the precious metal purified.

God will overcome, and His people will be used greatly by Him.  Micah 4:11-13 says, "Now many nations are assembled against you, saying, 'Let her be defiled, and let our eyes gaze upon Zion.'  But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand His plan, that He has gathered them as sheaves to the threshing floor.  Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; and shall devote their gain to the Lord, their wealth to the Lord of the whole earth."  Jeremiah 51:33 says, "For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:  The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come."

Eureka.  The time will come, and may now be, when God will use you for His purpose, and you will be purified for that purpose.  Psalm 30:4-5 says, "Sing praises to the Lord, O you His saints, and give thanks to His holy Name.  For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime.  Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."  Take heart, my friend.  Joy is coming.

God gives grace to the humble

 

And will not God give justice to His elect, who cry out to Him day and night?  Will He delay long over them?  I tell you, He will give justice to them speedily.  Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?  --Luke 18:7-8

A musician who had been a lead guitarist for a well known rock group in the 70s used to tell the following story:  I was playing at a recording studio and Ry Cooder (a legendary guitarist--Google him if you don't know who he is) walked in.  Ry Cooder listened to my playing, and when the track was over he came and asked, "Can I have a look at your guitar?"  Flattered that the great Ry Cooder wanted to check out my guitar, I handed it over.  Ry played a few notes thoughtfully, handed the guitar back and said, "No, it wasn't the guitar..."

What a humbling moment.

Many of us are humbled quite often.  We are brought low by an expectation that we failed to meet, by words spoken by others, or by any number of other things.  Without some kind of encouragement, humility gives way to humiliation, and that gives way to defeat, destruction, and dissolution.  When we lose faith in ourselves, we often lose faith in our God. 

The nation of Israel had been humbled by God many times.  They had fallen into sin, and had received God's judgment.  Yet God always gave them hope.  This week I have read chapters in Isaiah that were meant to give them hope.  These messages of hope for Israel came in the form of God's warnings to those around her.  Yes, Israel had been defeated by her enemies, but it was God that had given them the means.  It was not Babylon's military power that had led them to victory over God's people, but rather it was God's hand that used Babylon to bring a measure of justice against Israel, and it was God's mercy that always brought Israel back.  "For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob." (Isaiah 14:1)

The prophet Isaiah had many things to say about Israel's enemies.  In Isaiah 14:12-14, he attacked their hubris.  "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!  How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!  You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High'."

Many believe this passage actually describes Satan, as some translate the name Day Star as Lucifer, a name given to the devil.  I think it could have a double meaning, as many Bible passages do.  God may have used Isaiah to recount the fate of the fallen angel in his prophecy against Babylon and all of Israel's enemies.  "But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.  Those who see you will start at you and ponder over you: Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?" (Isaiah 14:15-17)

In subsequent chapters Isaiah specifically calls out the nations that came against Israel from the north (Assyria), from the west (Phiistia), from the east (Moab), from the northeast (Damascus), from the Southwest (Egypt) and from those who sent mercenaries from afar (Cush).  When you read these accounts in Isaiah 14-19, you may not be familiar with the geographical regions, or the leaders that are called out by name.  What you should look for is the encouragement God gives for Israel.  

In the oracle against Moab (chapters 15 and 16), God says, "When the oppressor is no more, and destruction has ceased, and he who tramples underfoot has vanished from the land, then a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness." (Isaiah 16:4b-5).  In the oracle against Damascus (chapter 17), God says, "In that day man will look to his Maker, and his eyes will look on the Holy One of Israel.  He will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, and he will not look on what his own fingers have made, either the Ashirim or the altars of incense." (Isaiah 17:7-8).  In the oracle against Cush (chapter 18), God says, "All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, hear! For thus the Lord said to me: I will quietly look down from My dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."  In the oracle against Egypt (chapter 19), God continues the cloud metaphor, saying "Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud." (Isaiah 19:1).  He further says, "Those who are pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved." (verse 6), predicting economic collapse.  Yet even to Egypt there is hope: "And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and He will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them." (verse 22).

Just as God gave a warning to Babylon, comparing it to Lucifer in its impending doom, I believe each of the verses of encouragement in these passages look forward to a coming Messiah that will sit on a "throne established in steadfast love," will exhibit "faithfulness in the tent of David," and who "judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness."  Does this not describe our Lord and Savior Jesus?  When we look to our Maker, and our eyes behold the Holy One, do we not see Jesus? Peter preached of Him in Acts 3:13-15, "The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.  But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead.  To this we are witnesses."

And aren't we eagerly awaiting the return of Jesus "riding on a cloud" when "a trumpet is blown"?  1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 says, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God.  And the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  Therefore encourage one another with these words."

Be encouraged, so that your humility does not turn to despair.  Stay humble, seeking both justice and mercy, for this is the will of God concerning you.

Use me as You will, O Lord

Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?  As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!  --Isaiah 10:15

I came across this verse in my daily Bible reading today.  Several thoughts crossed my mind, not all of them worth sharing.  However, for the purpose of this essay, I will share them anyway.

If a Hollywood exec came across this verse, he might think that it touches on all three genres of Action films:  Drama about an axe murderer (The Axe Made Me Do It!); Horror films (insert the word "Saw" with any Roman numeral behind it); and Kung Fu movies, where quarter-staff wielding ninjas fly through the air as if magically lifted by, well, the staff.

Okay, that's not what the verse means.  Let's move on.

A logical person might use this Scripture as a proof text against gun control.  "A gun is just a tool.  The tool is not evil.  Only the person who would use it for murder is evil."  Sounds good on the surface, but not really what the prophet Isaiah was trying to get across. 

Let's look at the verse in context:

When the Lord has finished all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, He will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.  For he says, "By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have understanding; I remove the boundaries of peoples, and plunder their treasures; like a bull I bring down those who sit on thrones.  My hand has found like a nest the wealth of all the peoples; and as one gathers eggs that have been forsaken, so I have gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved a wing or opened the mouth or chirped."  Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?  As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!  Therefore the Lord God of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under His glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire.  The light of Israel will become a fire, and His Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day.  The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the Lord will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away.  The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.  --Isaiah 10:12-19

 God had used the king of Assyria to punish the evil deeds of Israel.  Shalmaneser had marched against Israel and conquered them, taking the best and brightest away into exile and leaving a remnant, weak and exposed.  Then the king took credit for his achievements.  We have all heard the expression, that it was so easy, "it was like taking candy from a baby."  This is a similar turn of phrase: he said it was like taking eggs out of birds nests, and the birds made no sound--no chirping, no flutter of wings, they didn't even open their mouths.

Many of us remember Julius Caesar, who said of his own conquests, "Veni, Vidi, Vici": I came, I saw, I conquered.  In this case Shalmaneser boasted of his own military prowess, not realizing that God had not only allowed him to conquer Israel, but that He had directed the king's hand and given him the victory.  What this means to us is that we should not glory in ourselves and in our own works, but humbly admit that God works all things for His glory.

I also think it is not too big a stretch to say we should not always assume God will protect us from harm or from evil.  Sometimes bad things happen to good people, either to bring us back under His authority and leadership, as He did with errant Israel, or to make an example of us to other people, like He did with the martyrs.  When He gives us success, it should not go to our heads.  Luke 17:7-9 says, "Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come home from the field, 'Come at once and recline at table'?  Will he not rather say to him, 'Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink'?  Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded?  So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

Sometimes we get so caught up in the world's vision of Jesus--love your neighbor, judge not, it's okay to associate with prostitutes and sinners since Jesus did--that we tend to overlook the concept of God's wrath.  Jesus said in Matthew 10:34-36, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth.  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.  For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.  And a person's enemies will be those of his own household."  If we are faithful, it will not always be sunshine and daisies for us.  It may tear our hearts out to dissociate ourselves from family and friends, but we are called to be faithful to Him, not to them.  Matthew 19:19 says, "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for My Name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life."  His promise is eternal reward, not necessarily rewards on this earth.

God is not a puppet that we can manipulate.  He is not a divine Santa Claus.  He is Lord and Master, and whatever He has for us we must humbly accept, for our good and His glory.

The prosecution rests; there is no defense

 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.  --2 Timothy 3:16-17

Some people like to collect the dying words of celebrities.  Bob Marley, before his untimely death, told his son, "Money can't buy life."   Winston Churchill, before slipping into a coma and expiring nine days later, said, "I'm bored with it all."  And Ludwig von Beethoven is said to have uttered these words just prior to his passing: "Friends applaud; the comedy is over."

The last recorded words of Jesus were not just prior to His death, but were spoken after His resurrection, and just prior to His ascension into heaven.  Many of us can quote by heart the Great Commission as told in Matthew 28:18-20: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

The events leading up to this final utterance are seen in our final passage of the book of Mark.

Afterward He appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and He rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw Him after He had risen.  And He said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.  And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My Name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."  So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.  And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.  --Mark 16:14-20

Last week we discussed the evidences of the resurrection of Jesus.  In this passage Jesus rebukes the disciples for their initial disbelief, when the Old Testament Scriptures had foretold it, the teachings of Jesus during His ministry had prophesied it, and then there were witnesses testifying of it.  The reproof of Jesus is seen further in Luke's gospel:

As they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!"  But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.  And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Touch Me, and see.  For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."  And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.  And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"  They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate before them.  Then He said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled."  Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you.  But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."  --Luke 24: 36-49

In Mark's account, a progression can be seen: the Lord appeared to one (Mary Magdelene), then two (the disciples on the road to Emmaus), then to the Eleven.  When He appeared to the Eleven, he chided them for not believing the two, or the one.  In Luke's expanded account, the rebuke was extended to include their disbelief of the Scriptures.  Matthew 28:17 says, "And when they saw Him they worshiped Him, but some doubted."  Perhaps that is why Luke gave the details of Jesus showing the nail scars in His hands and feet, and His encouraging them to touch Him, to prove He was flesh and blood, and His even going so far as to eat a piece of fish in their presence.

When you look at all the accounts together, the command to to and tell is more organic.  When an elected official is administered the oath of office, that is a turning point: from this point forward, you will swear to uphold the Constitution, or to protect and serve the people.  In this case, Jesus seems to be saying, "As you go, tell; and when you tell, explain."  He further seems to be saying that the explanation should meet people at their point of disbelief--if they doubt the Scriptures, then explain the Scriptures to them; if they doubt the physical resurrection, remind them that He was with them in flesh and blood, and that He ate in their presence.  Then, once they believe, disciple them as Jesus did--walking beside them, teaching them His words, showing them His power.

The last few verses of Mark seem to summarize the book of Acts: the Apostles did in fact cast out demons, and speak in tongues, and handled serpents, and drank poison without being hurt.  These are thankfully not signs that show repentance, so it is not necessary that you and I handle snakes or speak in tongues.  These signs did accompany the spread of the Gospel so that some would believe, and that the church would grow in its infancy.

The good news of the Gospel is found in John 3:16, but the message is expanded further in the verses penned by John just following the most quoted verse in the New Testament.

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be save through Him.  Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.  And this is the judgment: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the Light and does not come to the Light, lest his works be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes to the Light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. --John 3:17-21

Better to suffer a light rebuke by the Son of God for disbelief than to experience eternal condemnation and separation from Him.  Repent, and believe the evidence He has shown you, so that you may live; and in living, you may walk in the Light, as He is in the Light.  

Evidence of the Resurrection

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.  Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.  --1 Corinthians 15:3-8

 We all grew up with stories of men bigger than life.  King Arthur with his Knights of the Round Table is one.  Robin Hood and his Merry Men is another.  Unfortunately, we tend to lump the Bible and stories of Jesus and His Disciples in with these myths and legends.

History tells us that King Arthur probably never lived, but that the legend grew from a series of poems from Welsh and Breton sources dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries.  Then in the 12th century a man named Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a fictional work called Historia Regum Brittanniae or "History of the Kings of Britain."  The Historia included tales of Arthur warding off Saxon invaders, and other stories grew out of this work.

Robin Hood was probably based on a real person who lived in the 12th or 13th century, but whose actual life was not as glamorous or romantic as the legend or stories or movies make him out to be.  The stores that grew out of his life were mythical, speaking to the needs of later generations.

Unfortunately, many biblical deconstructionists view Jesus in the same way.  He probably never existed, they say, or if He did, there is no real evidence of the miracles He performed or that He was actually physically raised from the dead.  They convince themselves that, like King Arthur and Robin Hood, the stories surrounding the life and death of Jesus were made up out of whole cloth, and that the mythology of His divinity has evolved over time.

I submit that the writers of the Gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke and John--were all actual people, and that they wrote history, not just biography and certainly not mythology.  They were eyewitnesses to the events that they recorded, and that their testimony is true.

Continuing our reading of Mark 16:

Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had cast out seven demons.  She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept.  But when they hears that He was still alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it.  After these things He appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country.  And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them.  --Mark 16:9-13.

If you read the fine print in your Bible, and take a look at the footnotes in most modern translations, you will see that some of the earliest manuscripts do not include these verses.  They were likely added later and may not have been included in Marks original Gospel account.  Critics will look at this and show it as proof that the story of Jesus is myth and legend, and that each retelling of His life added more to the original story.  However, they tend to ignore the fact that Mark's account does not in any way contradict the other Gospel accounts of Jesus.

Let's explore the mention of Mary Magdalene.  She was first to see the empty tomb, and John 20:11-18 fills out her story.  She was clearly distraught that Jesus's body was not where they had left it, and she wondered who would steal the body, and why.  She turns and sees Jesus standing before her, but does not recognize him through the darkness and her tears.  He speaks to her, and it does not register who spoke or what He said.  Wrapped up in her own grief and sense of loss, she confesses that she is seeking Jesus but does not know where to look.  Jesus spoke her name, and her eyes were opened.  When she realizes to Whom she is speaking, she falls at His feet and clings to His garment.  Jesus tells her to stop clinging to Him, and to go and tell the others where to find Him.

Laying aside the spiritual ramifications for a moment, that if we seek Him then He will make Himself known to us by opening our spiritual eyes, let's look at this narrative as an eyewitness account of one who saw Jesus alive after He had been crucified.  The previous narrative was that the tomb was empty, but that did not prove the resurrection as much as an eyewitness account of seeing Him alive.

One eyewitness was not enough, not in a Jewish court of law.  That may be why the disciples did not believe Mary Magdalene when she told them.  It was not until Jesus appeared to them in the flesh that they actually believed, and Thomas would not believe the testimony of 10 witnesses--he had to see for himself.

As for the two men travelling from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus, about seven miles away: they were two men who could testify in a Jewish court that they had in fact seen the Savior.  Jewish law required two independent witnesses in any trial, and these two men fit the bill.  They had heard the testimony of Mary Magdalene and the other women who had seen that the tomb was empty, and had heard the angels testify of His resurrection, but these men were not sure what to believe.  Jesus appeared to them on the road, and explained the Scriptures to them.

Sometimes I wish I could know exactly what Jesus said in the parts of the Bible that do not go into such detail.  In this case, Jesus took the Old Testament, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."(Luke 24:27).  I would have liked to hear that sermon, and see what Old Testament verses He shared that proved He was the Messiah.  I would also like to know what He told Peter when He appeared to him personally.  We know that Jesus appeared to Simon Peter exclusively, because when the men rushed back from Emmaus to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard, "they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, 'The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!'"  These words were not recorded; and if the story of the resurrection was a myth, certainly other authors would have later expanded the narrative to include what was said in these meetings--that's how legends work.

Do not doubt the Scriptures, for they speak Truth in our times.  Do not be like Thomas or like the modern biblical critics.  Repent and believe.  God will open your eyes to see Him.

 

All heaven broke loose

Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  --Luke 24:11-12

Bible critics have long held that the Bible is untrue because, they say, it contradicts itself.  Today we will look at an event, one of the most critical events in Christian theology, and try to reconcile some of those apparent contradictions.

All four Gospels address this narrative from a different perspective, and the details seem to vary widely.  We have been studying the book of Mark, and in our focal passage today it says that three women brought spices to anoint the body of Jesus early on the first day of the week, just after the sun had risen.  They found the tomb unexpectedly open, and an angel was sitting in the sepulcher.  However, Matthew says it was before dawn that they went, and Luke says there were two angels.  John says Mary Magdalene went by herself while it was still dark.  After finding the stone already rolled away from the tomb, she ran to get Peter and another disciple (probably John) to investigate.

Here is Mark's version of the story.

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices, so that they might go and anoint Him.  And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.  And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back--it was very large.  And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.  And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has risen; He is not here.  See the place where they laid Him.  But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you into Galilee.  There you will see Him, just as He told you."  And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.  --Mark 16:1-8

Last time we talked about the women, and how they intended to prepare the body of Jesus for burial.  While some of them went to purchase spices and oils, the other women stayed at the cross to see what would happen to the body.  When Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus took the body to a new tomb hewn out of a rock, the women who had followed them went back to meet the others to tell them what they had seen.  Then sunset came, marking the beginning of the Sabbath, so they had to wait to go and do what they had intended to do.

Early on Sunday, after the Sabbath ended, they took the spices and oils to anoint the body.  Some commentaries say that they took the spices to cover the smell of the decomposing corpse, assuming that they knew the men had already prepared the body for burial.  I think they didn't know, and were going to perform this very Jewish ritual of respecting the body after death.  In any case, all four Gospel accounts agree that when they arrived, the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty.  The devil is in the details.

If we study the details carefully, and don't get caught up in the critics detracting distractions, we may can make sense of it all.  The late David Hocking, radio evangelist, Bible teacher and author, said that all four narratives pick up on little details but don't dwell on them because they are getting to the main point of the story--that Jesus Christ is alive.  The solution to the apparent discrepancies, he says, is to show that all kinds of people were coming and going, to and from the tomb at all hours of the day and night.  This was not a single group of women who all went together at the same time, confronted one or more angels, saw that the tomb was empty, then left together to tell the men, who didn't believe them until Jesus appeared to them in the flesh later.  No, each one of them had their own story to tell, and none of the four Gospel accounts takes time to flesh out each individual story.

Let's start with Mary Magdalene.  She probably went to the tomb first.  John 20:1 says that she was there "early, while it was still dark." Matthew 28:2 says there was an earthquake, and that an angel of the Lord "descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it."  The Roman guard that had been assigned to stay nearby and stand watch were so afraid that they fainted dead away.

Was it the earthquake that woke Mary Magdalene, and caused her to go to the grave and see what was happening?  Perhaps, or maybe she just couldn't sleep.  Maybe she was walking nearby, crying out of guilt or loss or mourning.  She saw the stone rolled away and the empty tomb, but no angel was there to explain to her specifically.  That may be why, when she saw Jesus and assumed Him to be the gardener, she asked "where have they taken Him?"

Matthew goes on to say that more women showed up, and that they were greeted by an angel who said, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, for He has risen, as He said.  Come, see the place where He lay."  They may have followed the angel into the tomb and found him sitting on the right side, as Mark said in his account.

After the women left, Peter and John ran up.  There is no evidence that they saw the women when they arrived at the tomb.  John said they went back to their homes without talking to any angel.  They may have passed another group of women headed toward the tomb.  Luke tells of some women being greeted by two men "in dazzling apparel."  David Hocking says that these two men may not have been angels at all, but rather the two witnesses spoken of in Revelation.  These two men testified of what Jesus had said: "Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise."

At this point the differing narratives converge, saying that Jesus would go before them to Galilee.  Remember that Galilee was where it all started.  Jesus' ministry began at Cana in Galilee.  Since we were studying Mark's gospel, we will remember that in Mark 1:14 it says, "Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."  Jesus called the disciples back to where they began, where they could start again.

You may be thinking, why does any of this matter?  Either you believe the gospel, or you don't.  Those of us who believe do not need convincing.  1 Peter 3:15 says, "But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect."  If anyone comes to you with a question of why do you believe the Bible, even with all its apparent contradictions, then you should be able to explain the gospel to them in a way that makes sense.  The Scriptures are reliable, and should be taken by faith, but not by blind faith.  We should always be prepared to make a defense, as the skeptic may be persuaded with reason leading to a saving faith.  This is the good news, after all, and it should be presented in a clear and convincing fashion.

 

What's the plan?

 

His body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.  You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.  --Deuteronomy 21:23

It was Preparation Day, the day of preparing for the Sabbath--and not just any Sabbath, but also the beginning of Passover.  Any self respecting Jewish woman would be home cleaning her house and preparing food for the Seder.  There was a ton of work to do.  Yet four women stood at the foot of the cross, waiting to see what would happen to Jesus.  Why the Sanhedrin would have chosen this day, of all days, to deliver Jesus up to the Romans to be crucified, no one knew.  They must have been out of their minds.

From noon until three Jesus hung on the cross, in apparent agony.  Shortly thereafter, He breathed His last.  The women made a plan.  Since sundown was the official end of the day and the beginning of the Sabbath, they had to work fast.  They apparently divided up into two groups: Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of Joses and James the Younger would stay there and see what became of the body.  Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome would go and buy spices to prepare the body for burial.

Who would get the body down from the cross for them?  How would they carry Jesus, and where would they lay Him?  The Biblical command was that the burial take place as soon as possible after passing, and it was strictly forbidden to leave the deceased unburied overnight unless it was for his honor  (that is, to perform a proper washing and purification, obtain shrouds, arrange for a burial plot, etc.)  Maybe John, the disciple to whom Jesus had given charge of His mother, might be able to help--the other disciples were scattered to the wind.  Their plan was not complete, but at least they had the beginning of one. 

Then something unexpected happened, as we read in Mark 15:42-47:

And when evening had come, since it was the Day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Pilate was surprised to hear that He should have already died.  And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether He was already dead.  And when he learned from the centurion that He was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph.  And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking Him down, wrapped Him in the linen shroud and laid Him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock.  And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.  Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where He was laid.

According to Jewish law, a Jew is to be buried as he was born--complete with all his limbs and organs.  The human body is considered as sacred in death as it was in life as it contained a Godly soul.  Moreover, many Jews believe in a bodily resurrection, and their feeling is that the body must be complete in preparation for the new life in heaven.

John's gospel says that when Pilate was asked to ensure that the men crucified that day would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, he sent soldiers to break their legs to hasten their death.  Crucifixions generally took 36-48 hours, but some held on for up to a week.  The soldiers broke the legs of the two thieves on either side of Jesus, so that they could not push themselves up with their feet to get a good breath.  With broken legs, they would suffocate.

When they came to Jesus, He was already dead.  To be sure, they stuck a spear in His side, the tip of which was the breadth of a man's hand--this would be a fatal wound by itself.  When they determined He was already dead, they did not break His legs.  To the faithful, this coincides with the Jewish command about the preparation of the Passover Lamb.  Numbers 9:12 commands, "They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones.  According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it."  The same care was taken with Jesus' body that was taken with the Passover lamb.

So the centurion reported to Pilate that Jesus had already expired, and Pilate granted the corpse to Joseph.  The Greek verb translated here"granted" is only used one other time in the New Testament.   2 Peter 1:3-4 says, "His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire."  Pilate did not require a bribe or a monetary gift of any kind from Joseph, but rather granted him the body of Christ freely. In the same way, God freely gives us all that we need to live the Christian life.

A traditional Jewish burial includes three things: a Tahara, or a washing and purification of the body; a Shomer, which is a Jewish person to stay with the body until burial; and Tachrichem, which are traditional shrouds along with a Chevra kaddisha, the act of ensuring that the body is prepared for burial and is protected from desecration, willful or not.  It would appear that Joseph and Nicodemus (who according to John's gospel brought spices to prepare the body, along with the fine linen shroud that Joseph had purchased) took care of all that, at great cost to themselves.  Not only did they buy these things with their own money, but by coming in contact with a dead body, they knew they were going to be ceremonially unclean for 7 days.  Therefore they could not take part in the Passover celebration.

Apparently when Mary Magdelene and Mary the mother of Joses saw that these men had taken Jesus' body to a tomb, they left before observing the ritual cleansing and the preparations for burial that Joseph and Nicodemus had done.  They met Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome, and reported what they had seen.  These women planned to observe the Sabbath and then take care of the washing and purification on Sunday, the first day of the week.  We will read about their plans being foiled next time.

If these men and these women, who apparently did not know each other because their efforts were not combined and their plans conflicted--if they took such pains to prepare the body of Jesus during the Day of Preparation, we must ask ourselves: what preparations do we take to meet Jesus face-to-face?  What do we do to prepare for a time of worship?  What's the plan?

The great breach

Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.  --Isaiah 53:11-12

The word of the day is breach.  As a noun, it can mean an act of breaking or failing to observe a law, agreement, or code of conduct, as in "a breach of contract."  It can also mean a break in relations, as "a sudden breach between father and son."  It also means a gap in a wall, barrier, or defense, especially one made by an attacking army, as in "a breach in the castle wall."

In Mark 15:33-41, we see how the death of Jesus, the Son of God, caused a breach in the natural order, the spiritual order, and the levitical order.

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"  And some of the bystanders hearing it said, "Behold, He is calling Elijah."  And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to Him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down."  And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last.  And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  And when the centurion, who stood facing Him, saw that in this way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!"  There were also women looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.  When He was in Galilee, they followed Him and ministered to Him, and there were also many other women who came up with Him to Jerusalem.

We often look at the Passion narrative and see Jesus as a passive participant, allowing Himself to be mocked and spat upon, and submitting Himself to death.  That's all well and good, but there was a lot going on there that we don't often think about.  As the Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges says, "A veil hides from us the incidents of these three hours, and all the details of what our Lord, shrouded in the supernatural gloom, underwent for us men and for our salvation.”

A breach in the physical universe

It was midday, from noon to three, when the sun is known to be at its brightest.  Yet darkness was upon the whole land.  According to the Pulpit Commentary:

An account of it is given by Phlegon of Tralles, a freedman of the Emperor Adrian. Eusebius, in his records of the year A.D. , quotes at length from Phlegon, who says that, in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad, there was a great and remarkable eclipse of the sun, above any that had happened before. At the sixth hour the day was turned into the darkness of night, so that stars were seen in the heaven; and there was a great earthquake in Bithynia, which overthrew many houses in the city of Nicaea. Phlegon attributes the darkness which he describes to an eclipse, which was natural enough for him to do. The knowledge of astronomy was then very imperfect. Phlegon also mentions an earthquake. This brings his account into very close correspondence with the sacred narrative.

It could not have been a lunar eclipse, because the Jewish feast of Passover is always held during a full moon.  When the moon is full, it cannot intervene between the sun and the earth.  The darkness was doubtless caused by the immediate interference of God.  The God of creation, who had spoken light into existence, could not allow light in this context, where as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."

A breach in the spiritual realm

During this period of darkness, Jesus cried out, saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  God literally turned His back on His Son, as the sin of the whole world was laid upon Him, because God cannot countenance sin.  Again, from the Pulpit Commentary:

We are not informed precisely how far the darkness extended. Dionysius says that he saw this phenomenon at Heliopolis, in Egypt, and he is reported to have exclaimed, "Either the God of nature, the Creator, is suffering, or the universe dissolving." St. Cyprian says, "The sun was constrained to withdraw his rays, and close his eyes, that he might not be compelled to look upon this crime of the Jews." To the same purpose St. Chrysostom, "The creature could net bear the wrong done to its Creator. Therefore the sun withdrew his rays, that he might not behold the deeds of the wicked."

Jesus quoted the first verse of Psalm 22, which hit agonizingly close to home.  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?"  The answer is that God could not look upon sin, yet Jesus became sin for us so that we could become righteous before God.  He took our sin and clothed us with His righteousness.  God punished Him so that we might be rewarded in heaven.  This is what I thought of when I saw the definition of breach to include a breach between a father and son.

A breach in the Levitical Law

Mark says that the veil in the temple, a curtain of thick material separating the priests from the Holy of Holies, was torn in two from top to bottom.  It was as though God had torn up the first covenant, the Old Testament if you will.  The Law could not be kept, so God mercifully breached that contract and replaced it with a New Covenant.  This New Covenant is one based on grace.

One of my favorite passages in Scripture is Zechariah 3:1-5.  The name Joshua means "God is deliverance."  Also, I believe that when the Old Testament speaks of the "Angel of the Lord", it is a reference to the pre-incarnate Christ.  With this in mind, look at the narrative here:

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.  And the Lord said to Satan, "The Lord rebuke you, O Satan!  The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!  Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?"  Now Joshua was standing before the Angel, clothed with filthy garments.  And the Angel said to those who were standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him.'  And to him He said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments."  And I said, "Let them put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments.  And the Angel of the Lord was standing by.

The prophet Zechariah was painting a beautiful picture of the New Covenant, where a sinful man stands before God, clothed in nothing but his own sin.  Satan comes to accuse him, to brand him as condemned, abandoned, forsaken by God.  Yet Jesus stands in as defense attorney, and removes the man's guilt and shame, and clothes him in His righteousness.  This is the Gospel  This is good news!

Mark's narrative goes on to list the witnesses to this new contract, the New Covenant that replaced the Old Testament Law.  The centurion declared that this man was the Son of God.  The women who had attended to Jesus during His earthly ministry were witnesses to the new contract sealed by the blood of Jesus.  One of the women was Mary Magdelene, who had been a prostitute.  She was now clothed in His righteousness, not identified with her past failings.  We, also, can put aside our old sinful nature and stand before God in Christ's righteousness. 

Mocking and ridiculing Jesus, then and now

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.  --Luke 6:22-23 

Human nature is cruel.  From our childhood we crave acceptance from our peers, yet we learn early on to tease one another and mock each other, trying to make ourselves feel superior to others.  This universal human trait of verbal abuse is honed and sharpened through adolescence into early adulthood, when it is used as a weapon of choice for separating ourselves from someone strange and different, for ostracizing the out group while seeking approval from the in group.

In our passage today, Jesus is vilified and disparaged by three different groups of people.  We will take a look at those people, and see what Jesus went through in the hours leading up to His crucifixion.

And the soldiers led Him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion.  And they clothed Him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.  And they began to salute Him, "Hail, king of the Jews!"  And they were striking His head with a reed and spitting on Him and kneeling down in homage to Him.  And when they had mocked Him, they stripped Him of the purple cloak and put His own clothes on Him.  And they led Him out to crucify Him.  And they compelled a passerby, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry His cross.  And they brought Him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull).  And they offered Him wine mixed with myrrh, but He did not take it.  And they crucified Him and divided His garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take.  And it was the third hour when they crucified Him.  And the inscription of the charge against Him read, "The King of the Jews."  --Mark 15:16-26

The first group of people we see mocking and deriding Jesus are the soldiers.  Now most professional soldiers are supposed to keep their thoughts to themselves.  They are supposed to follow orders without inserting their own ideas or words into the scene.  These Roman soldiers, however, had a heyday with persecuting Jesus.  Perhaps some of them had been assigned to crowd control whenever Jesus came through the streets with throngs of followers behind Him.  Maybe they had tried to keep order when Jesus had taught in the local synagogues or from someone's home.  

The followers of Jesus did not respect order--remember when Jesus was teaching and the crowds were so large that a group of four men climbed up on the roof and tore it open so they could lower their paralyzed friend down to where Jesus stood?  Hoodlums.  Vandals.  Heathens.  These were the types of people who followed this lunatic called Jesus.

And now the soldiers were given a the order to crucify Him for crimes against Rome, and the placard they were supposed to post above His cross said, "The King of the Jews."  It was all too much.  They thought they might have a bit of fun at His expense.  They stripped Jesus, and put a purple robe on Him.  "You think You are a king?  I'll show You what a king looks like."  They fashioned some thorns into a crown and placed it on His head.  They picked up a reed and shoved it toward Him.  "Here's your scepter, your Majesty," I can hear them smirking.  When He did not take the reed, they beat Him with it.

When all the fun was over, they led Him out to be crucified.  When He fell under the weight of the cross, the soldiers grabbed a random man out of the crowd, an out-of-towner and father of two, to carry His cross.  The procession went down out of Jerusalem (which was built on a hill called Mount Zion) and up another hill called Golgotha.  They nailed Jesus to the cross, along with the inscription, then continued to mock Him.  "Wine, my liege?"  Jesus turned away from the noxious blend they offered Him.

And with Him they crucified two robbers, one on His right and one on His left.  And those who passed by derided Him, wagging their heads and saying, "Aha!  You who would destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross."  So also the chief priests with the scribes mocked Him to one another, saying, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself.  Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." --Mark 15:27-32a

The second group of people to mock Jesus that day were the religious leaders.  They were the ones who passed by in front of the cross, hurling insults up at Him.  They had heard Him teaching and had seen His miracles.  They thought that His comments about the Temple were nothing but heresy, so they tried to throw His own words back in His face.  These were the religious leaders who saw Jesus healing the sick and raising the dead, and then demanding more signs from Him whenever they confronted Him.  Nothing was ever enough for them, and even now they demanded another sign, another miracle.  "Show off Your divine power," they were saying, "and rescue Yourself.  Escape the nails holding Your hands and feet, and heal Your own wounds, if You're so high and mighty."

Those who were crucified with Him also reviled Him.  --Mark 15:32b

The third group of people to mock Jesus were the thieves who had been convicted to die with Him there that day.  Now we know from other gospel accounts that one of the condemned repented, and sought mercy from Jesus.  Mark doesn't mention him, but this account may indicate that there were perhaps more than three crosses on that hill that day.  We don't know for sure, but we do know that at least one of the robbers ridiculed Him.  In his human condition, the robber saw Jesus as no better than himself--a mere human, condemned to die, outcast from society and convicted of a crime.  After all, why else would He have been there hanging from his hands and feet, slowly bleeding out and dying of exposure?

These three groups of people represent lost people even today.  There are those who believe Jesus to be merely human, no better than themselves.  They seek to elevate their own humanity above Jesus' divinity, and ridicule any attempt to humble themselves or to elevate the Christ.  There are also those who were raised in the religious community who are always seeking signs and wonders.  They elevate Jesus to celebrity status as long as He entertains them, feeds them or meets their physical needs.  When Jesus is silent, however, they seek out other false teachers who uphold their own orthodoxy and meet their emotional needs in other ways.  Finally there are those who absolutely abhor all that Jesus stands for.  They kick Him and spit on Him whenever they can.  They hurl verbal abuse at Jesus and all who follow Him, trying to make themselves feel superior.

A few years after Jesus was crucified, we hear about a man named Paul.  He himself was a religious leader, a Pharisee who would have ridiculed this man who called Himself the Christ.  Not only that,  Paul had been a zealot, physically persecuting and putting to death any and all who followed Jesus.  After Paul's miraculous conversion to Christianity, however, Paul preached Jesus to all three of these groups.  He preached to religious leaders, to commoners, to prisoners, and even to Roman prison guards.  You see, no matter which group you fall into, you are not beyond forgiveness.

Maybe you are an adult who has made fun of other people to make yourself feel better.  Maybe you have made fun of Christians for their beliefs, for their blind faith.  Perhaps you have physically persecuted someone for his or her religious beliefs, or perhaps you think of Jesus as just a man, no more than a myth or a legend.  I pray you would consider the evidence, and humble yourself.  I pray you would come to Jesus and learn from Him.  When you hear His voice, I pray you would respond positively to His calling.  It could change your life.

A glorious plot twist

Every story ever told can be broken down into three parts:  The beginning; the middle; and the plot twist.  --RL Stine

According to the literary site ReedsyBlog (blog.reedsy.com), "A plot twist is a story development that readers do not expect in which either something shocking happens or something shocking is revealed.  Generally, the storyteller will set up expectations and then 'twist' those expectations by revealing new information through subsequent plot points.  The criteria for a plot twist tends to be made up of the following:  It must be narratively sound, it must be unexpected, and it might be foreshadowed.  To no one's surprise, plot twists are particularly prevalent in mysteries, thrillers, and suspense fiction.  However, the twist takes no prisoners and has reared its head in almost every genre out there." 

At certain points in history, we see those "plot twists" in the historical narrative that might give you whiplash if you lived through it, but that in hindsight we know to be true.  In the same way, the Gospel story as told in Mark 15 takes on a few plot twists of its own.  Here is the beginning of the story.

And as soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council.  And they bound Jesus and led Him away and delivered Him over to Pilate.  And Pilate asked Him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"  And He answered him, "You have said so."  And the chief priests accused Him of many things.  And Pilate again asked Him, "Have you no answer to make?  See how many charges they bring against you."  But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.  (Mark 15:1-5)

Think of a Venn Diagram with two overlapping circles.  The first circle represents the Jews, with their religious beliefs, their ethical laws, and their expectations.  The second circle represents Pilate and the Romans, with their pagan beliefs, their Law and Order, and their own expectations.  In this narrative, Jesus is in the space where these two circles intersect.

The Jews, especially the Jewish leaders, arrested Jesus and accused Him of claiming to be God.  They did not have legal authority under Roman rule to execute anyone, so they brought Him to Pilate for sentencing.  At the consultation with Pilate, they changed the charge from blasphemy (claiming to be God) to treason (claiming to be King of the Jews), knowing that Pilate would not care about their religious laws but would be bound to prosecute a purveyor of a political uprising.

Pilate was no friend of the Jews.  He was bound to look at the accusations from a group of Jewish zealots with some suspicion.  History tells us that Pilate simply didn't like the Jews, and that he believed they were a stubborn and rebellious people.  For this reason, whenever they brought him a prisoner for execution he immediately expected that there was a hidden agenda at work.  Nevertheless, he was bound to give Jesus a hearing, and to make it appear fair and reasonable.  He heard the accusations of the Jewish leaders, and then asked Jesus to make a defense. "Are you the King of the Jews?"  Jesus' answer was passive yet positive.  "You have said it."  Pilate expected the prisoner to beg for his life, and was amazed that there was not a more passionate or vigorous defense.

Let's now look at the middle of our narrative.

Now at the feast he (Pilate) used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked.  And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.  And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them.  And he answered them, saying, "Do you want for me to release for you the King of the Jews?"  For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered Him up.  --Mark 15:5-10

The Jewish leaders, the chief priests, Scribes and Pharisees, did indeed see Jesus as a threat to their authority in things both spiritual and political, insofar as their sphere of influence was in jeopardy.  They had put their best case forward to Pilate, making a convincing case that Jesus should be executed.

Pilate, on the other hand, saw that they were jealous of Jesus.  He decided to put them to the test.  It was the season of clemency, and Pilate found a true insurrectionist in the Roman prison, one called Barabbas.  Perhaps to gauge the support that Jesus had among the Jewish people, that is to see how many of them might follow Jesus as their king, he offered to set Jesus free.  If they truly though of Him as their King, then there may be something to the charges brought against Him by the Jews, and Rome would release Him and then keep an eye on Him.  The other choice Pilate gave them was a true criminal, a murderer and insurrectionist who would most certainly be arrested again if set free.  Ironically, the man was called Barabbas, meaning "Son of his father".  Jesus had called Himself the Son of the Father (God).

Here comes the plot twist in our story.

But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead.  And Pilate again said to them, "Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" And they cried out again, "Crucify Him."  And Pilate said to them, "Why? What evil has He done?"  But they shouted all the more, "Crucify Him."  So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified.  --Mark 15:10-15

The Jewish leaders had expected Jesus to be convicted and executed on the charges they brought against Him.  They did not expect for Barabbas to be a part of the bargain.  Their eyes were so blinded by evil and their hatred of Jesus that they were willing to swallow this bitter pill, the parole of an evil lawbreaker, just to make sure that Jesus was killed.

Pilate had expected the crowd to come to Jesus' aid, to have Him released rather than the convicted criminal called Barabbas.  I don't believe he woke up that morning knowing he would have to quell a near riot over this One with the reputation of peace and healing and forgiveness.

I also don't expect that the man known as Barabbas had any expectation that the One known as the Son of Man would die in his place, yet that is exactly what happened.  Pilate was not the only one amazed at this turn of events, for no one could be as surprised as Barabbas.  He was accused; he was convicted; he was forgiven, and saw Jesus take on the punishment that he himself deserved.

It is the same with you and me.  Yes, all of us, dear friends and readers, stand accused; we stand guilty; we deserve death and eternal separation from God.  But we can look up the One who knew no sin, who became Sin for us and sacrificed Himself for our sin, to be our Savior and Redeemer, the One who took our place.

That, my friend, is a glorious plot twist.