The Challenge of Jesus

 As we have been reading (slowly) through Mark's account of Jesus' life, we have seen Jesus doing many things that show He is from God. For the most part, these unbelievable things have been mostly accepted. We haven't heard many negative reactions to Jesus up to this point.

As we get into chapter 6, though, that begins to change. Jesus goes back to Nazareth, where He was raised, and the people there doubt Him. After all, they had seen Him grow up. Who does this guy think he is? Isn't he the carpenter's son? And they didn't believe Him. These people that had known Him all His life didn't see how God was at work in His Son growing up right among them.

Then Jesus sends out His apostles, giving them some of His authority over illness and the spirits of this world. With all these things happening, Jesus was getting noticed, even by the rulers. Herod thought Jesus was John the Baptist come back to life, and then we get a quick aside as to how John met his end. Herod started to see something ominous in Jesus, and it didn't exactly make him want to get closer to Jesus.

Following that, we then get one of the more popular stories of Jesus' life, the feeding of the five thousand men (likely plus women and children) with a mere five loaves of bread and two fish. However Jesus brought this miraculous feeding about, it was definitely a reminder of how God had fed the Israelites with bread and meat (manna and quail) while they were in the wilderness. Jesus provides yet another connection back to what He was doing with and through His people even back then.

Then Jesus walks on water while the disciples are battling the wind in their boat, and people come flocking to Jesus to be healed once He reached the other side of the sea. Even in this, the disciples are unsure of what they see as they see Jesus walking toward them on the sea. They are being kept from recognizing all that God is doing while wrapped up in human flesh.

In this chapter, we see some of the challenge of Jesus. Jesus is hard to believe. How can someone who was born and grew up be doing these great signs from God? Is He someone that has lived before, a powerful man of God that has been raised as a sign to God's people? How can He feed so many people with so few resources, and why didn't Mark or the other writers of Jesus' story explain how those loaves and fish kept on coming? Why did people not believe, even when they had seen Him do the same thing for others?

The challenge of Jesus is no less for us now. Sure, we might think that if Jesus were walking around us, we might believe more readily. But given the sheer number of people we encounter in His stories who struggle with the challenge of Jesus when they witnessed these things, why do we think we would be different? I would dare suggest that this is why God has to be the one who creates faith, because we humans simply have a hard time believing anything that we cannot prove. Jesus was challenging then, and is no less challenging now, and that is why we cling to God's gift of belief and faith.

A day in the Life

 Moving into Mark 5, we have the opportunity to narrow in on just a couple of stories from Jesus' life that stand out. This is one of the features we see with the accounts of Jesus' life. They aren't autobiographies. They don't contain a lot of rich details that you might get if you were to read a modern day autobiography. In fact, that they only cover about three years generally is somewhat remarkable. Modern day biographies look at significant events in the life of the person begin portrayed, and really seem to dive into them. But to do this, they take pages and pages to describe everything.

So when we come to the accounts of Jesus' life, the details may seem somewhat lacking. But that is where we remember the reason behind these accounts. They are not to give blow by blow accounts of everything Jesus did. In fact, when John wrote his account, he makes a note that if he were to describe everything that Jesus did, it would fill several books. John wrote so that people would read and believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and would therefore have life in his name. And that really gets to the point of the stories.

So when you read Mark 5, and you see the account of the demon possessed man, as well as the two women Jesus heals, it's great to see how remarkable these miracles are. We often will want to see God do something similar in our lives. We read the miracles of the Bible and wonder why God doesn't do these things more often. After all, wouldn't people believe if they saw something unexplained? Yet, the biblical account also reveals a bit about what people believe after they see a miracle.

Many of Jesus' miracles were explained away with things like, He has a demon. Shoot, in the case of raising Lazarus, the leaders even tried to put Lazarus back to death because they didn't want to believe the miracle. The people coming out of Egypt saw God's mighty hand at work, and about a month later, doubted that God would take care of them. In all of these instances, we see that the miracles actually created more of an obstacle to faith than serving as a faith-building event.

Jesus would even say that his resurrection would be something that would not be believed. And yet, through the Spirit's work, there are those who hear the stories and believe that God can do such things, and did such things. These stories of miracles aren't to inspire us to greater faith so that God can do miracles around us. Rather, it's to inspire us to believe Jesus to be who he says he is. And then, by that believing, we have life.

May you be led to a greater belief that Jesus is the one who gives you life as you read today!

The Stories of Jesus

 A story grabs our attention. When that story has the power of God behind it, just imagine what it can do. As we continue reading through Mark, today we come across a chapter where Jesus turns into a storyteller. He shares a few short stories, stories with a great deal of meaning behind them. 

Jesus is no ordinary storyteller. When he tells a story, he is trying to make a major point about a person and their relationship with God. Jesus wants his hearers, and us as later readers, to know about God's attitude toward his creation and how he created them to live. We get a small flavor of that with the stories we encounter today.

As you read through the story of the sower today, it may seem a little different. After all, most of us aren't farmers. Even if we have some background with farming, the setting of the story is so different. Instead of sacks of seed to fling to the ground, we now pour bags of seed into plows designed to plant seeds with precision. There is no room for wasted seed, which would just be a waste of money.

That's what sets this sower apart, and likely part of what would cause the hearers to remember this story. This sower is like some young child having fun with a sack of seeds, tossing seed practically everywhere except for where it is supposed to go. There is seed in the road, seed in the weeds, and seed in the rocks. Oh, some did get to the field, but that's almost by chance, it seems. This sower would not be the one you would hire to plant your field, make no mistake about it.

And yet, Jesus is making a rather unusual comparison. The sower is the person who spreads God's Word. It's Jesus. It's God, letting people know about him. It's Jesus' disciples, telling others about him. That's where this story gets really strange. The intent isn't necessarily to be strategic in where that seed gets cast. It's that the seed goes everywhere. Sometimes that seed will end up in places where it is quickly taken away. Those who hear won't like it and will leave. Sometimes that seed will seem to take root, but will be short-lived. We are to nurture that new life as long as God gives us opportunity, but it is up to God to determine what happens with it. Some of that message of good news will be well-received, but will end up being choked out as people work through all the other matters of this world. Our hope is that we can help weed through it with them. Yet other seed lands and takes great root, and that's when we rejoice in God's growth and harvest.

That's the thing with Jesus' stories. He tells them with purpose, to explain God and His design. He tells us about ourselves, sometimes as God's children and other times as those who are wandering away. He encourages us to live out life as God's people. So may these stories draw you closer to Jesus, just as he wants. 

And suddenly, there they were

 Hello again everyone. As we venture through the reading of Mark, I am going to continue to put these together. But by way of letting you know what to expect, on Sundays we will take a break from reading. I encourage you to find a local place to go and worship and hear God's Word spoken to you. That act also keeps you engaged with God's story.

As we work into chapter 3 today, one thing you will notice is that people have already started to notice Jesus. The action keeps moving fast, and it seems as though Jesus' words and actions are going highly noticed. Already there are plots against Him, watching to see what He does, and planning what to do with this disrupter of their nice comfortable system of religion. That's one of the things with Jesus, though. He gets people out of their comfort zones, and that includes you and I. 

This is also the first time we see Jesus starting to get an intentional group of people around Him that He will work with in preparation for sharing His work with the world. Even as He gathers these men, though, we see that everything Jesus is doing starts to disrupt even His family. They don't like what He is doing. They think He is out of His mind. And truthfully, when we see some of the things that Jesus does, or listen to some of the things He teaches, they truly do seem crazy. Love your enemies and try to work for their good? Really? Choose one follower who sympathizes with the Roman occupation, and another who actively worked to get rid of the Romans? That doesn't seem wise. 

And then Jesus changes the meaning of things. Even as His mother and brothers try to get Him to come home and mind His own business, He states that all who do God's will are His brothers and sisters and mothers. And that is the thing we experience with Jesus. He challenges our human, flawed way of thinking. He changes our reality. 

As you read through Mark, one thing you should experience is a good deal of unsettledness. Jesus is going to challenge how you think and act. And that is to be expected. Since He is the one true God, He knows how we were created to operate. So He is going to point out how God's design and expectations are different from our own. He points these out so that we see what He designed us to be, but also to realize how much we need what He came to bring. We need someone to restore us to God and to His original design. That's what Jesus came to do. 

So as we read, we will be confronted. It may be painful to think through some of what we read. However, the good news always resounds. Jesus came to restore our relationship with God and to make us new. That's why His death and resurrection become so key for us. We can't become perfect according to God's design, so we need Him restoring us. And so we read to make our feeble attempts in that direction, while giving thanks that He has completely restored us. 

Well, that escalated fast

 If you are joining me on this journey to read through Mark's account of Jesus' life over the next couple of weeks, you might have finished chapter one by now. Good work!

As we move into chapter 2, you might notice something. Early on, it seems like the action is happening rather rapidly. One thing you probably came across a few times was the word "immediately." It's like, Jesus is here, and then immediately, he is there, and then this next thing happened immediately. It's fast action, hard hitting, and moving rapidly from one scene to the next. No waiting around, this is an action packed story.

That's one of the interesting things about Mark's account, and so it's worth tossing in a couple of interesting tidbits about him. First, who was Mark? He isn't found anywhere in the other accounts of Jesus' life. He may very well be the Mark that is written about in Acts, but the truth is, the Bible doesn't tell us who Mark is.

Yet, he obviously got to know the story of Jesus somehow. And we do have some basis for determining who he is. After John died around the year 90 in the first century, we have a few people who were second or third generation Christians who were writing about how the stories of Jesus had come together. One of them looked into Mark and made a note that he was someone who followed Peter around as he went telling others about Jesus. He wrote that Mark wrote down the accounts of Jesus that Peter was telling, and put them into order. So in a way, as we read through Mark's account, we're kind of getting Peter's view of how things happened with Jesus.

Along with being the shortest of the stories of Jesus in the Bible, many believe Mark is the first one who wrote an account of Jesus. While we may never know the full truth of that, there are some things that may seem to indicate that. You noticed that we come across John the Baptist early on in chapter 1, and it almost seems as though you should know who John is. He isn't introduced. He's just there, on the scene, and then, BAM, Jesus is on the scene. You'd tend to write a story like that when people are familiar with the main characters. So it may very well be that Mark wrote the first account of Jesus.

As we get into chapter 2, we'll see some more fast action, and sides being taken already when it comes to Jesus. More on that with the next post, though!

Do you have time for a story?

 In North America and the United States, we live in a very interesting time right now. We are coming out of a time period where many "knew" the basics of the Christian faith. They honored things like Sundays, and there may even have been a bit of a guilty conscience about not being regular at a church. However, those days are gone. Even Christians have a challenging time thinking about being regular at church, and we live among many who don't even know much about Jesus or about why we worship on Sunday. To them, it's just another day of the weekend.

That means that the story of God's work in this world is reaching a place where it is relatively unknown. People may know names like Moses, David, Jesus and Paul, but know relatively little about what the Bible says about them. Forget the parts where the inspired biblical authors describe faith and life, the story itself is not well-known.

Because we live in that context, it can make it challenging to carve out time to be reading God's story. Daily Bible time gets swallowed by the many opportunities for events and life that are ever-present around us. One of the great challenges for a Christian who wants to know more about God's story is simply finding the time to read it.

The past couple of days, I have introduced some short bible readings to help get us into a habit of reading. For the following posts, I propose that we start making some time for the story itself. It should take less than ten minutes a day to follow through with what I am suggesting, and I hope that it proves helpful.

We will start reading through the account of Jesus' life recorded by Mark. I am going to propose that we read a chapter a day. That way we aren't bogged down with too much, but as we work through it, we'll be continuous enough to get the flow of the story. As we walk through it, I'll also attempt to interject some facts about Mark and the story of Jesus that he tells. That way we not only get the story, but we get to know a little about what is behind the story.

I hope you'll join me on this journey. For just over the next two weeks, we'll follow Jesus on an interesting journey. You may even find that you have questions, and I encourage you to find some way to keep a record of them. If you are able, I'd love for you to pass them along to me. After all, the best stories are the ones we share and talk about.

So today, let's start with Mark 1. I'll even plan to keep this up over the weekend, so keep tuned in for those as well. 

The Story: Rome wasn't built in a day

 At one point when I was studying to become a pastor, the professor gave an assignment for the class to read through one whole gospel in one sitting prior to the next class. At the time, I was working the overnight switchboard, from 12:00 PM to 5:00 AM. That nice quiet time provided an opportunity to read through my assignment undisturbed. Sure, my eyes may have wanted to disturb that desire, but in the end, I did get through the whole reading assignment before my shift ended and I headed to my room for an hour of sleep before the next round of classes.

What I remember is that it took me, a fast reader, almost two full hours to just sit there and read Mark's gospel account of Jesus. Now, I will admit that I wasn't just reading through it quickly to say that I had. I was actually trying to track what all was happening, and then my mind would touch on some theological point that was made, and I had to get myself back on track. But I do remember that it took far longer than I thought it should.

Why do I share this with you? Well, for a couple of reasons. First, it is an acknowledgement that reading through God's story takes some dedication. Even the shorter sections of God's story may take a lot of time to actually sit and read through. And that's just to read, much less to work to understand what all is going on. So if you have ever tried to take on the challenge of reading through God's story, you likely know that it isn't exactly fast reading to get through it all.

A second reason I share this with you is to give you a bit of hope when it comes to reading God's story. Sure, it's great to read it all together and get a sense of the flow of things. The thing is, though, the Bible is written to inspire faith in God, and especially His work in Jesus. It isn't meant to convey a neat historical account, but rather to demonstrate that God truly does work in history. God did things that took place at a particular time. It is good for us to know how that story flows, but the real point of reading is to believe in what God has done and how He will continue to hold true to His promises.

So yesterday I challenged you to read through Psalm 100. That one is not very long. Today's challenge will be for a bit longer of a section, though still in the Psalms. It's Psalm 78. This Psalm is a summary of some of the time around Moses and God freeing His people from Egypt. Yes, it should take a little bit longer than the few verses of Psalm 100, but in some respects, we have to start seeing what we can handle as we engage God's story. So today will take perhaps 5-10 minutes, depending on how fast you read. It helps you get into the story a bit more. 

The reality is, no one will be able to read the whole account of God's story in one sitting. Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, you simply cannot read the Bible in one sitting, or just a few hours. It will take dedicated effort. And our small steps now are to help us develop the habits toward that effort. 

Learning God's Story

 As people, we dearly love stories. We like to read stories. We like to watch stories unfold on the small screen (TV) and the big screen (movies). There is just something about a story that captures our attention, draws us into a different place and time, and keeps us focused until the end.

God's story is much the same way, only on a much larger scale. It is a story that has a lot of drama in it, more than a few comedic places, and tension that grips us and keeps us on the edge of our seats. That story also explains a lot about why our world is the way that it is, and how we are best designed to live in this world and among other people.

One of the biggest challenges that we face is finding time to engage God and His story. At a conference I sat in on last fall, one remark that was made was that people almost need a step to take place before they start to read God's story in the Bible. That first step is to learn how to set aside the time to actually be able to read the story. And when we think about our busy schedules and everything that life throws at us, having a guide to help us learn how to even set apart that time is a necessity.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to work with this blog to help us think about ways to set aside a little bit of time to engage God and His story. I'm also going to be suggesting some easy entrance points to reading God's story and learning it. It will be a journey, and just like a journey, it will likely have its unexpected stops and detours along the way. That's okay. Be gracious to yourself if you are following along and find that the road is closed, or that you need to take a quick pitstop. 

To get us started, I want to suggest one thing. Let's start off with something simple. Something that is not too long to read, and that we can find engaging with our attention. I suggest that we start with Psalm 100. It's only a few verses long, and so doesn't take a lot of time to read through. Small steps are good to take as we get the journey going.

So for our first step, I'm simply going to suggest that you read Psalm 100 at some point today. Bookmark it, as we will come back to it as we get this journey underway. And if you find that God gives you a few extra minutes, read on ahead to the next Psalm. But for us as we take our first steps together, let's start small and work our way up. Then, let's check in tomorrow to see what our next step might be together. 

God and His Story

 At Lord of Life, where God has placed me at present to serve His people, we have been working through a curriculum called "The Story." This breaks down the biblical story into 30+ chapters, with a primary look at the lives of God's people in chronological order. It helps the reader to get a grasp of how God's story with His people unfolds. It does not seek to get into all the deep theological points, but rather presents the overview of His interactions with His people and their interactions with each other and the world around them.

Over the years, I have come to realize that there are many people who are faithful followers of Jesus, but perhaps miss how His life fits in with the overall story of God's people. We hear often of the different people of the Bible, but without putting them into their place in history, it can be challenging to place them, or to know who came first or who came later. This also has an impact when we hear God speaking to His people, such as through the prophets. Part of what makes their words impactful is the situation into which they spoke. That might mean that, at one part of history, God would have one message for His people, but at a different point in history, they might be doing something different, and so God spoke in an appropriate way for their current circumstances.

Understanding this history can help us get a growing perspective on just how patient and caring God is for His people. When you consider that, in a couple of different instances, God waited for hundreds of years to take action, it shows how long He is willing to wait, to give people a chance to change, to return to Him, and to remember what it means to be His people. A word from the old King James version sums this up nicely: long-suffering. God is willing to wait, far longer than you and I, to see His people change their hearts and minds.

That's why we look at the history of God's people. We also end up seeing ourselves reflected in their lives, even though they lived long ago and far away. We'll cover that in a future post. Until then, I hope you enjoy or make an effort to get to know God's story as it happened and learn from Him.

Christians and Wisdom

A common occurrence at the new year is for people to think about things that they want to change as the new year is ushered in. Some call them resolutions, others call them goals, but the point of them is that there is a desire to change something for the better in our life. We want to do these things for a variety of motivations, but the desire to improve is there.

There is wisdom in this desire to improve one's life and circumstances and situation. In fact, God speaks really highly of wisdom. In Proverbs 9, we have an image painted for us. It is of a lady named Wisdom, who cries out to the people who walk by her. She wants to be found by them. She calls for those listening to leave their simple ways and to walk in the path of insight and wisdom.

God created this world to operate in specific ways. He designed us human beings to live in certain ways when it comes to our interactions with each other. The wisdom that God gives, the wisdom that cries out to be found and embraced, is the wisdom of seeing God's design for life and then working to live according to that design. So when we see God laying out His commandments, we see God's wisdom at work. For example, when God says "You shall not steal," we see the wisdom of what God intends. We tend to get along better with each other when we aren't taking things that belong to others. God designed us to live in relationship with each other according to wisdom.

As you consider God's wisdom, where is God calling you to grow in greater wisdom? Is it in a specific relationship you have? Is it in handling some of what God has given you (such as your finances or possessions)? Is it in simply trying to learn more about how God designed you to live with others? Wisdom recognizes these areas where we can grow, and then adopts a way to address them. So my prayer is that you may grow in seeing and seeking God's wisdom in this new year.