Inland Empire: Riverside
Prediction, Misunderstanding, and Correction - Audio
[Music] Good to be with you guys. Let's pray if you would bow with me. God, we thank you for another week to meet again, to gather around the table and to eat the bread and the drink from the cup to be energized, snapped back into the reality which fades from Sunday to Sunday for us, God. But for the purpose of pouring ourselves out to you, God, I pray you'll give us gentle spirits, that you'll give us open minds, that we could hear your words, and that we would find encouragement from all that you say to us, God. Your words are dense and challenging. They oppose the propensity to opt for comfort that lives in us, God. And it's a propensity, at least for me, which opts out of true comfort for false versions, small, lesser loves than the great love that you call us to, God, for our own good. Thank you for the cross and the empty tomb, and Jesus, for your place at the Father's side, the intercession and the mercy and forgiveness which flows out of your act and out of your suffering and glory. Now we pray for this time in Mark's account of your life. And it's through Christ the Lord. We're going back into Mark. And I'm sure you recognize this handsome couple on the screen. Yeah, no. If you did, I would be super impressed and a little creeped out. This is, let's see, Joshua and Jerusha Hess. And they are a husband and wife film-making duo. Any guesses that their contribution to the cinema is unparalleled? No, no, way better than chosen. Like, chosen and then think like 10 steps higher and better and more inspiring. Maybe these brothers will ring a bell. Do you recognize these handsome men? Ignacio and Ronco Rico, two bachelors. Yeah, Joshua and Jerusha Hess are responsible for bringing in 2004 Napoleon Dynamite. And in 2006, Nacho Libre, who has not seen these? So we know, OK. I know what your homework is. [LAUGHTER] And if you go and watch these, my point will be taken by you. These movies came out, yeah, let's see. 20 years ago, 18 years ago, I watched Napoleon Dynamite shortly after it came out. And probably like most of you, you're asking yourself, what am I watching? Or even more, why am I watching this? There's not really a great plot. There's not an incredible character development. It's not suspenseful. It's just like weird people doing weird things. So I watched and I walked away from it. I'll never watch that again. I don't know what all the rage was about. The same thing happened when Nacho Libre came out. I went to the theater, and I sat through it, and I think I fell asleep. But I walked out thinking I'll never watch that again. Something inside of me compelled me to try again with Napoleon Dynamite. What do you think happened on my second take? Oh, man, it took over my life. I was like, how did I miss how amazing this film is? And the same thing happened with Nacho Libre. It was a slow burn. Do you know the experience? Or maybe it's a song for you. You hear a song, your favorite band comes out with a new album, and you listen to it, and you've been waiting for it forever, and it's a total dud, lead balloon. 10 years later, you return to it, and you think, wow, they're way ahead of their time. This is the best thing I've ever listened to. That happens to us. We have to do a double take. This is an incredibly stupid example. But with these movies, I had to see them twice to see the beauty. It didn't happen on the first viewing. And there's something like that unfolding and Mark's account of the gospel. We who are reading and those within the story who are hearing Jesus speak receive what he's saying, and it makes good sense, and it offers a lot of hope. But sometimes, as we think more about Jesus' teaching, it doesn't always land well. And if you want to call it a process, I suppose you could, but I don't know if that's the right language. But the life of faith doesn't come rushing in all in one moment. Have you noticed this? Sometimes you have to look again. Do I believe that, actually? Did I even understand how high the stakes were when I said I did believe that? Sometimes you get deep into the faith. And as you learn more and more about God's will, you're actually offended and sometimes reviled. And some people jump ship because of that. We see that happening over and over in Mark's account. But we are going to Mark, as you may have discovered. Now, today, we are going to get deep into this section of this book of the New Testament. And it's the journey from the north, where Jesus has spent heretofore, up to this point in Mark's account, Jesus and his disciples have been-- Jesus has been speaking, exercising demons, healing, the sick, raising the dead. And all of this has happened up north in the rural parts of the country, the parts of the country that would make most sense to me having grown up in rural Wisconsin. But now, Jesus is making his way to the capital city. He's going from Wisconsin to Washington, DC. He's going to the epicenter, the hub, the place where God has said to in some unique way, live, reside. Now, having read all that Jesus has taught and done, it would make sense that when he gets to the capital city where the chief priests live, where the scribes are in the temple, the holy city, the capital, the place where God lives, you'd think Jesus will be accepted there. But as it turns out, Jerusalem is the most dangerous place for truth speakers. All of the prophets had major run-ins when they brought their message to Jerusalem. Jesus is no different. Jesus' journey to Jerusalem, why it should be exciting because he's going there for the holiday, for Passover, it turns out to be in Mark's account this foreboding danger that sits on the horizon. The closer Jesus gets to Jerusalem, the more stress the story gives to all of us. And especially Jesus' followers. So this journey starts around the end of chapter eight. How are you guys doing? Today is going to be like, we're going to look at two whole chapters. This will be a literary approach to Mark's gospel. That sounds fancy, but we're just going to see these themes that develop in two chapters. Now, in this section, we're going to start where Scott started last week if you were here. I'm going to actually read that passage again today. Forgive me, if you were here last week, you're going to hear that again. This is like maybe part two of last week's sermon. But Scott read last week. Anyone remember what that was about? The major takeaway? This will tell me how important sermons are to people. Just kidding, I don't remember this morning. I only know because I've been preparing these texts this week. But it was the healing of a blind man in Bethsaida in a town. Jesus is making his way toward Jerusalem. He encounters a blind person. And if you remember, this blind person had to be healed two times. Do you remember that? Well, after that, we have this long section in Mark's gospel where Jesus is healing still and teaching. But in this section, something new happens in the story. Jesus begins to tell his disciples very clearly in a very plain speech without parables or cryptic sayings that he is going to Jerusalem and that the religious leaders, the church leaders for a reference point, the people who are supposed to know the truth will betray him, mock him, spit on him, drag him up to the hill, and execute him. And after he's executed, he will raise three days later. And of course, if you're one of Jesus's disciples, how does that sound to you? Like nonsense. But there are three different-- and if we had time, I could illustrate how there's even maybe a fourth. But there are at least three different times in this short section that you're looking at, chapter 8 through the end of chapter 10, where Jesus does this three times for his disciples. And he doesn't mix words. He's not telling symbolically. He's saying, no, I am going to Jerusalem and they are going to kill me, the elders. They're going to kill me. And they're like, gosh, Jesus, no. So he does this three times in this section. Now, how you doing? You get annoyed when I ask that, but I want to make sure, because we're looking at lots of sections. On either side of that story, this section where Jesus tells his disciples three times that he's going to die and raise, on both sides of those stories, are stories about blind men receiving their sight. Do you see that? Blind men, Jesus tells his disciples three times he's going to be executed. And then another story of blind men, and then Jesus arrives in Jerusalem. Now, so there you go. That's how it looks. Now also within this section, Jesus tells them three times I'm going to die, but three times his disciples don't understand what he's saying, even though he's speaking very plainly, and they reject it. They say you're wrong. You don't understand how this works. And then three times each time Jesus has to correct them and teach them what this means. OK, so we're going to recap, and then we're going to move on, OK? Three times Jesus tells them he's going to be executed. After each time his disciples misunderstand and reject what he's saying, and then three times after each time Jesus tells them, let me explain to you. And let me tell you what this means for you. So let's look at the passage we looked at last week. See if we can stitch some of this together. Mark chapter eight, if you have a Bible, I don't have slides for you, my apologies. Mark chapter eight, verse 22. We read this last week. They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. And when he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? Now, Mark is asking the reader that too. He's asking us, do you see anything? Jesus has touched you, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people? They looked like trees walking around. Once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes, then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home saying, don't go into the village. Jesus didn't want him going around telling everybody. Jesus, throughout Jesus is really trying to keep it on the DL, his ministry, what he's doing. He has a strategy. But here's a blind man who's healed by Jesus. But his journey from being blind to 2020 vision is a journey. It isn't instantaneous. He doesn't move from, I'm blind, meeting Jesus, and then all the lights are turned on. Do you see that? Do you see that in your life? Do you see how becoming a follower of Jesus if you've tried? And I like that language of try. I try to follow Jesus. All the lights didn't turn on for me right away. And I suspect there's something like that for you too. There's a journey from blindness to partial vision to 2020 vision. Now here's what I love about the Christian Bible, the Scriptures. It's very honest. Over and over, who are the ones that are made to look like they're not doing so great? The people of God. The disciples throughout, especially in Mark, but you could think of Israel as well. The disciples are constantly failing. You'd think if you were going to start a religion, which I don't think that was the major goal of these stories, it was to start a religion, but you would not present the charter members of your religion as being failures and struggling to believe. You think you'd present them as strong and faithful in an example for everybody to follow, and they are. But they're not always on their game, right? They struggle to see. They've been with Jesus for a long time and like this man who only got partial sight initially, so could they only see partially. They're with Jesus, and when he tells them here's what's going to happen, it's like they can't see it. They can't see what Jesus is saying. It doesn't compute with their understanding. Now these are the disciples, these are the apostles. If anyone needs to get what Jesus is saying, it's us. Why do you think Mark was so honest about their failures to grasp Jesus's teaching? Think about that. Why would Mark be so honest about the apostles in ability? Because we have in abilities. This is written for the people of faith. This is written to church. So that we would see in the apostles the same journey that we go through and be warned about how easy it is to think we see super clearly when in reality we're just certain about what we think and we don't actually see. Sometimes seeing, the light is so bright, it hurts. There's something like that I think Mark is after here. So this little story about the blind man is not just a story for Mark about an isolated situation where Mark heals a blind person. This story about this blind man needing to be healed two times kicks off a section in Mark's Gospel that you can see. It's as if he says, here's a story about a blind man who needs to be healed two times. Now watch everybody, see if you see any parallels with the apostles because they too continue to need Jesus to give them sight and he is patient with them. They continue to fail and he still keeps his will and plans in the world through their inability and through their lives. That's deeply encouraging to me. I hope that makes sense to you. Let's read just one of these instances because we can't look through all these. I'd be insane. Let's just look through one. Let's look at the one in chapter eight where Jesus tells them they misunderstand and he corrects them. This is awesome. Mark 831. In verse 31, he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this and Peter took him aside to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan," he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." And he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." What good is it for a man to gain the whole world yet forfeit his life? Or what can a man give an exchange for his life? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the son of man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his father's glory with the holy angels. And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." Did you see what I mean by he tells them, they misunderstand, he corrects them? He says they spoke plainly. I'm going to Jerusalem, they're going to kill me. And Jesus, Peter, Peter, the Apostle Peter, right? This is the one. In fact, some, even early interpreters of Mark's gospel connect Mark's whole message to the Apostle Peter, which makes me wonder why would Peter want himself to look so bad? But here Peter, the great Apostle does not see with 2020 vision, he does not see clearly. And he takes, does he takes hold of Jesus? You picture this, the son of man. That's technical language for one who has all of God's authority. You could see that in the book of Daniel in chapter 7, if you're really interested. But he says he grabs the son of man and he pulls him aside. He says, "Don't be silly. That's not what's going to happen here. You need to be afraid of the chief priests and of the Gentiles. We got your back. Like you're going to be safe with us." That's not how this thing goes down. And Jesus is not encouraged by Peter's loyalty. Sometimes loyalty can get in the way, believe it or not. He's not encouraged by his certitude, his certainty about how things are going to unfold. He says, "You're like the challenger. You're like the Satan. You're thinking like a man. You don't see. You don't get it. Like you're trying to stop what God is doing. But you think you're pushing it forward down the court. What a scary thought. We think we're being so loyal, so sure about what's supposed to happen. Peter has expectations of how the thing is supposed to go. Don't you? Don't you have expectations about how it's supposed to go? And then when it doesn't go that way, who gets corrected? You are God. Well, you're a correct God because he's the one that's wrong. It ain't you. It ain't me, right? That's what we do. But it's an indication we might not. We might only be seeing with one eye. Or maybe with like 20/40 vision. Do the numbers get worse as you go up? I don't know how that works. But we're not seeing clearly. But this is what's really haunting about what Jesus does. So he challenges Peter back. Obviously, Peter doesn't fully grasp who he's talking to and what's going to happen. He doesn't get it. You don't pull God aside and correct him. He doesn't get it. That's fine. We don't get it too. Not being mad at Pete here. But then Jesus says, I want to come here. Everybody, come here. Disciples say, I want you all to hear this. No, I'm going to die. And if you're going to come after me, or the text says specifically if you're going to come after me, I suppose the idea here is to follow me. If you're going to follow me, you're dying too. You can't hold on to your life and follow me. Pick a lane. Now, 2,000 years later, and this is an appropriate interpretive move, we read that passage and what we say is, you see Jesus says whoever's going to follow him has to be up for a life of self-denial. That's perfectly true. To follow Jesus is to not always honor the things that you want first and foremost. That's not love. That's not allegiance to Jesus. That's selfish, right? But Jesus isn't setting out here some lifestyle or metaphor for following him for these people, listening to him. When he says, if you're going to come after me, he means I'm going to Jerusalem and I'm going to go into the temple, out of the temple and up to the hill, and they're going to nail me to a tree. And if you're coming after me, you're going to be there. If you're going to follow in my footsteps, you're going to follow me there. That's another way of saying they're going to kill you. You can't follow me and not die here. This is not some metaphor for it's hard to be a Christian. I hope you're ready to be radical. That's not what he means. He means you'll die if you follow me. And guess what? They did. To follow Jesus was to put yourself in great harm's way, in harm's way. So he turns his teaching about him going to Jerusalem, which they can't fathom. And he spins it out of me and says, you too. You too. Not just me. It scares you that I'm going to die. You're dying too, buddy. We're all going down. If any of y'all want to follow me, this is what it means. Now again, he's writing this for the church. What do we take from that? I'm not going to try to tie that up. But maybe that's something we should think and talk more about. Why would Jesus speak like this? And why would Mark include it? He obviously wants us to think about what we think about Jesus. Because do you know what's tempting to think about Jesus? That if you follow him, your wildest dreams will come true. It's tempting to think about Jesus that the thing you want most, if you follow him and you are loyal, you'll get what you expect. And that gets in the way of what we might call discipleship or following Jesus. I think some of Mark's point here is to tell all who read. If you want to follow Jesus, you better focus. You better ask him to touch you again. You better look again. You better go to the theater and see Nacho Libre one more time. You better focus and see what he's saying because you too. So what's the way of Jesus? What's the way to Jerusalem? What's the way of the kingdom of God? What is it? It's the way of the cross. There's not some other way. There's not some like power way. There's not some hijacking power and wealth and becoming awesome and slick way. The only way to follow Jesus is the way of the cross. It's a cross shaped path, which means to say as the people who follow Jesus, we die because we trust him. What does that look like to die? Now, this ain't some weird late 90s like suicide cult. Like we're all supposed to go die, right? That's not what he means, to literally die. But he's talking about the way we live our lives. To put what God wants first and it could cost us. In our case, it's unlikely that we'll die for the faith right now in this country. But we could if we happen to be born in China, right? Certainly could. Our lives could be in danger. But it'll probably cost us some popularity, some respect from some people. It might cost us some money and some time. But to follow Jesus is not just a theory or a lifestyle or just a name. I followed Jesus and I deny myself and I got radical faith. That's all born out by following him through this way of dying. All right. How are we doing? Good enough. All right. Let's close this section and see how Mark closes it and then we'll have the Lord suffer here. Turn all the way to the end. I don't think I have slides. I don't. Look at Mark 10, verse 46. So this what we just read and additionally some other cool stories happen. But this happens two more times in that section and then this is how Mark wraps it up. This is just before the very next verse Jesus is in Jerusalem. Verse 46 of chapter 10. Then they came to Jericho. And as Jesus and his disciples together with a large crowd were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus that is the son of Tameis, was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was, that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me. So they called to the blind man, cheer up on your feet and he's calling you. Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. What do you want me to do for you Jesus asked him? The blind man said, Rabbi, I want to see. Go, said Jesus, your faith has healed you. Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. See how this section ends? It begins with a blind man needs to be touched two times. It ends with a blind man who before he even gets his sight, it seems like he sees. Did you see that? There's an old James Brown song, blind man can see it. I don't expect you all to know it, but it is a treasure trove for samples in early 90s, late 80s hip hop, doesn't matter. Blind man can see it. The blind person can see it. He can't see, but so far it seems like he sees the best. Do you see that? He can't even see Jesus, he's just son of David. So a king, Jesus, heal me. He's lamenting by the side of the road, calling out for God to help him. And Jesus bring him over here. And he knows what Jesus can do. That's why he's calling out. Not everyone else can see clearly, but this blind man can. And what does he do? He leaves his cloak. If you're blind, how wealthy are you likely to be? Probably not much, he's begging, right? He leaves what he has. Just before this, there's a story about a rich young ruler who refuses to leave his possessions to follow Jesus. Yet this blind person jumps up, leaves what he has there on the side of the road and follows Jesus and receives his sight. What could Mark be saying? What could Mark be saying to his readers? Because coming to Jesus is almost to make yourself blind first. Because as someone who's been in the church, I've been around religious texts a long time. I've been to countless church services, mentor times, discipleship groups and partners. I've taken classes, I've got a couple of degrees in the Bible. I did everything I could to understand the Bible. And sometimes for all that I've learned, I can be blind. There's something here about what it means to become a person of God. It's more than just knowing the information. It's more than just walking with Jesus. You could be walking right next to him in church every day. Sure, you see it all clearly. But be careful, become blind to begin to see. Question your certitude and be open to what God might say. I think that some of what Mark is trying to get across. So I think this is something to think about for the week. I'll just recap very quickly, story about a blind person. The apostles grappling at least three times with Jesus telling them what's going to happen in a story about a blind person. We've covered a lot of ground tonight. But what does Mark intend? I'd ask you, what does he intend, what does God intend for me to hear from Mark here? Because I can tell you for me, it makes me want to be much more humble about how sure I am about what God's will always is. And sometimes with all of my certainty, and I'm sure about how it's supposed to go, and this is the direction we're supposed to head. Sometimes I think I'm pushing what God wants further down the road. But it could turn out I'm not listening to God at all. I'm only seeing partially. The good news is, this is the life of faith. This is what it looks like to be a Christian, to see, to see partially. One day what does Paul say, "We shall see him as he is." No longer darkly. No longer shrouded in mystery. We shall see God as he is. Right now we see partially. At the cross, the first person really to fully grasp who Jesus is in Mark's gospel. Well, not the first, but maybe the most important in terms of the story. He sees Jesus die and he says, "This is God's Son. This is Son of God. It's a Roman soldier. Roman soldiers get it in Mark. Blind men get it in Mark. Kids get it in Mark. Foreign women get it in Mark. Shurian and synagogue rulers get it in Mark. But you know who struggles to get it? The apostles. So let's look at the cross and open ourselves up to the mystery that we may only see partially. Pray with him. Father, we thank you for calling us to trust and faith. Calling us to sight. Calling us away from blunt blindness. That we might see you as we are. God, we want to see just like that song we sang to open our eyes. And to see you exalted, to see your glory. I think some of what we mean when we say that, when we pray that as we want to know your will, we want to walk in your ways. We don't want to be overly certain. And certainly God, we don't want to doubt. But we pray, Father, that we can look to you and accept these challenging teachings. We thank you that the way of your kingdom comes not through violence, not through skill or ability that everyone can participate in your kingdom merely by trusting you. And even though it demands much, I pray God that we could be like Bartimaeus. And if we need to leave our cloak at the side of the road to follow you, grant us insight into these passages, into these chapters. And we know all that Jesus has taught them is about the cross, which to this day is offensive and horrifying and hard to accept. But on the cross, God, you extinguished the flame of the evil one. You took away the power of death, you overcame, and you gave forgiveness to all who come to you. We thank you for this meal, for the bread, and the body, for the cup, the blood, for the assurance, the covenant, for the hope. Grant us more hope as we eat together, God, and it's in Christ the Lord. Amen.
Inland Empire Church of Christ