Jesus Journey - Part 3 - Mark 1:21-2:12

We are exploring in the Jesus Journey today the third installment, which we're going to be looking at the, uh, verses of Mark. We're looking at the book of Mark, by the way, for those of you who don't remember. Uh, Mark chapter 1, verses 21— verses 1:21, uh, to 2:12. And in doing that, um, I would like to introduce it by suggesting that you try something. I've recently run a Sabbath school class. This, this passage fit really, really well with the Sabbath school lesson just a couple weeks ago when it was on the mission to the needy. And so I used this, and before I started, I said, I'm going to read this passage, and I'm going to read it so that you can just listen to it, and I would like you to have a summary ready at the end. Summarize the passage. And for those of you who are watching this not live, you can pause and actually write down or even film your summary and put it as a comment, um, because it will help in the rest of the discussion. So in the Sabbath school class, I chose two people, or two people volunteered, um, to do the summary, and then they each gave their summary right at the end of the reading before I went on with the lesson. And it was fascinating just to see how people— what people take in, what people do with, um, a passage of scripture and how it is meaningful to them. The two summaries were very different. So if you have your Bibles with you, um, Mark chapter 1, verses 21 into chapter verse 12, and it goes like this: Then they went into Capernaum, and right away he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and began to teach. They were astonished at his teaching, because unlike the scribes he was teaching as one having authority. Just then a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue. He cried out, "What do you have to do with us, Jesus Nazarene? Have you come out to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!" But Jesus rebuked him and said, "Be quiet!" Come out of him! And the unclean spirit convulsed him, shouted with a loud voice, and came out of him. Then they were all amazed, so they began to argue with one another, saying, What is this? Is this a new teaching? With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. News about him then spread throughout the entire vicinity. Of Galilee. As soon as they left the synagogue, they went into Simon and Andrew's house with James and John. Simon's mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. So he went to her, took her by the hand, and raised her up. The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When evening came, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all those who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. The whole town was assembled at the door. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons. But he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place. And he was praying there. Simon and his companions were searching for him. They found him and said, 'Everyone's looking for you.' And he said to them, 'Let's go to the neighboring villages so that I may preach there too. This is why I have come.' So he went into all of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. Then a man with a serious skin disease came to him on his knees and and begged him, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched him. "I am willing," he told him. "Be made clean." Immediately the disease left him and he was healed. Then he sternly warned him and sent him away at once, telling him, "See that you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priests and offer what Moses prescribed for your cleansing." as a testimony to them. Yet he went out and began to proclaim it widely and to spread the news, with the result that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly, but he was out in deserted places, and they would come to him from everywhere. So that's the passage. That's Mark 1:21-2:12. If you want to pause it right now, do that, and Record your summary. Summarize what you just heard. So the two men that I had summarized in Sabbath school just happened to be men. There were women there too. One of them, the first one, he started— I said, 'Dove, would you start with your summary?' And he went into this depth. He said, 'This passage, if, if we were there'— and he went into like first person, and he didn't say 'if we were there.' He said, 'We are standing witnessing a person who is not just a person, a person who is speaking words of God like so many people we've heard before speak the word of God, but he's speaking it differently. He's speaking it with authority, and he's doing things with this authority. He's, he's driving out demons. He's, he's healing people. He's healing sick women in their bed. He's also healing people that come with shriveled hands and deformities from the, from birth. 'Who is this man? Who is this man?' And that was his summary, or something akin to it. And then the other man said a really succinct summary. He actually went through, and it was almost like he had memorized or was just reading the titles of the sections. So he kind of said it like this: 'Well, it's about his ministry in Galilee. He drove out unclean spirits. He healed Peter's mom. He preached in Galilee. And then he cleansed a man with leprosy. And yeah, and then he forgives and heals. Like, he went around forgiving and healing lots and lots of people. And I thought he was going to stop with his conclusion there, but then he said, but really what stands out to me is what Jesus did in the middle of all this, where even though he has all this, like the last guy said, this epic ability to do more with the power of God than anyone before him and to make the word of God come to life with authority and to heal He actually needs to get away and have quiet time. And he read the verse again. He said in verse, um, verse 35 of chapter 1, very early in the morning while it was still dark, he got up, went out, and made his way to a deserted place. And he was praying there. Simon and his companions went searching for him. They they found him and said, everyone's looking for you. You probably know what that's like when everyone's looking for you for one reason or another, and you need to find— or what this man said is, you need, we need to find that quiet time. Even if we're using our giftedness exactly as God wants us to, we're perfectly maturely representing our faith before others, we still need to get away and recenter ourselves with God through prayer. It's actually fascinating in that little, uh, point that it makes about Jesus going and finding a deserted place. The word that it uses for a desert place is the same word in the temptations where he goes to the desert. And some scholars have suggested that it's because it's trying to get us to connect this idea that he was suffering, that he was, he was struggling with something. And it's, it is interesting that in the book of Mark there's there's only 3 times where Jesus— oh, where it just talks about Jesus overtly praying, and all 3 of them are in times when he's struggling with his purpose, his identity, his maybe even struggling with the idea of taking the easy way out. There's the Garden of Gethsemane where he prays, take this cup from me, but not my will, thy will be done. And there's when he goes up on the mountain after he's fed the 5,000, he sends the disciples across the lake and he goes up and he prays. And, and we know that that discussion was about John the Baptist 'Why? Why did John the Baptist have to die? Isn't there another way that I can do what you've called me to do without anyone having to die?' Perhaps that's what he was thinking. But here, what is he struggling with? We've seen this litany of miracles that Jesus has done. It's so close to the beginning of Mark. Like, Jesus is baptized, he goes through the temptation, and then boom, He's miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle, healing, healing, healing, um, driving out demons. It's like Mark just backs them all up against each other to give this kind of real push of this is what Jesus was on about. But then Jesus stops Mark, or Peter if you think of Mark being written through the— he's writing Peter's story— that Peter, Jesus stops him and he says, this is not why I've come, all this healing and all these miracles and and all of this, um, driving out demons. Sure, Jesus can do these things, but he saw there was an easy way to set up his kingdom right then and right there. Heal everyone, feed everyone, care for everyone, and the kingdom is— the kingdom is. But he knows that that's not the way for the kingdom that defeats sin, the kingdom that overwhelms the devil with love instead of hatred. That kingdom can only be— only through death can sins be atoned. And Jesus knows that this is not why he's come. He hasn't come to do miracles. He hasn't come to set people free from the oppression of demons and from their sicknesses, even though he could and he did. It was not his main mission. And when Peter comes to him and says, hey, everyone's looking for for you. He actually comes back with, we should go find somewhere else, go find other towns quick, let's go there. This is why I've come, to share the story of the kingdom of God. And so Jesus puts himself back— he doesn't put himself back on task, he goes, prays through the Holy Spirit to the Father and says, put me back on task. I need to be doing what I'm doing on purpose and staying on purpose. So in this passage, there's a lot of really cool stuff that comes out, and it's because Mark is launching his narrative. Two kinds of narratives that he's really— are messages that he overwhelms the reader with as you're reading. One is this, the secrecy of the kingdom of God. Go and don't tell anyone. Like, you'd— like, you're gonna do that right after you've been healed, you know? But Jesus says it multiple times in the book of Mark. Yes, this happened for you, but don't go and tell everyone because I don't want the crowds to come rushing at me just to be healed. I don't want the crowds to come rushing at me just to have demons driven out. I want people to gain access to the kingdom of God through the endgame, through what I'm going to do on the cross. And so Mark is building to this, and he builds it by putting all these miracle stories because that was what impressed people about the ministry of Jesus. And so Mark goes, Man, he was doing miracles left, right, and center. He was doing miracles. And I don't know if you think about this every— ever, but each book of the Bible was written by a person, right? And it's their experience, and they're putting it together through the inspiration of God. They're writing it, but they're— it's them coming out through their way they're telling the story. And I think there's this little favorite story of Peter's, because you kind of wonder— there's all these huge miracles, And then there's this one tucked in there where Jesus comes in and he's in the house of Peter or Peter's mom. And Peter mentions this story to Mark and says, you gotta write down the story about when Jesus came into my house and my mom was sick, remember that? And she was sick and he just went in and he just said, rise up. You know, the word it actually uses when it says, that he, uh, he raised her up. It's the word resurrection. Um, Mark's like giving us this little tidbit, tidbit. Everybody's going to be resurrected. There's this resurrection coming when you meet Jesus, when he walks into your house. There's a resurrection even when you're on your deathbed. There's a resurrection. And the resurrection Jesus provides isn't just one from your sicknesses that may come but it may be only after the resurrection from sin, you know, after the death and the cross and the death of us and then the resurrection of the— of Jesus and the resurrection of us, that then that miracle happens of being raised up. But in this instance, he raises her up, and so Peter gets to say, Jesus resurrected my mom. And so I think it's probably Peter's favorite story to tell about Jesus. Personal story, and so anyway, you get this story, and then Mark builds into it something I'd never seen this before, and this is really— I love doing this when I'm reading a passage of Scripture and going, whoa, wait a minute, I've never seen that before. There's this description. He raises her up, and we always focus, and then she gets up and serves everyone, and you're like, oh, that's not very nice, you know, she's been sick all day and you come in, you heal her so she can feed you. That's not the point of the, of the passage. Listen to the passage and listen for the point, because the point is the one where, where it's what's driving the passage. Okay, she gets healed. Um, so he went to her, took her by the hand, and raised her up. The fever left her, and she began to serve them. When evening had come, after the sun had set, they began bringing to him all those who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. The whole town was assembled at the door. This is still at her house, right? The whole town's at the door now. And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, drove out many demons, but would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. There's this little— we know that he healed that man in the temple, obviously on the Sabbath, because they're in synagogue on the Sabbath, right? And then he goes to their house for the Sabbath afternoon. And they have lunch together, they spend the afternoon together, and the people who were at synagogue go home. And they go home and they see their sick mothers lying in bed and they say, we— I wish we could have taken mom to church today. And if we would have known Jesus was going to be there, he would have healed her. Maybe we could take Jesus to her— to Jesus now. And then father looks, you know, he doesn't have a watch, does he? But he looks outside and looks at the sun and goes, well, we've got a few hours till the Sabbath's out, so Let's get mom ready. Another house, there's a little boy who's really sick, and the parents come home. They say, yeah, when we were at synagogue today, Jesus healed somebody. We think he can heal you. We want to take you to him, but yeah, the Sabbath is almost out. When the Sabbath's out, we'll take you to Jesus and he can heal you. And the whole town stopped because it says they all arrived at the door. Not all of them needed healing, but everyone came to watch. The whole town comes to the door after the Sabbath hours are closed I just wonder how upset it made Jesus to know that the Sabbath, which was given to the people at creation, the Sabbath that was created as a reminder, you know, way back in Genesis when it says, um, he rested on the seventh day and he blessed it because it was the day upon which he had rested. The word rested in Hebrew is Sabbath. So people that say, oh, the word Sabbath isn't in there yet, it is twice in that one verse. So he Sabbath on the seventh day, and on the seventh day, because in all the work that he had done of the 6 days he sabbathed from his work. So Jesus, from the very beginning, the Sabbath had been this day when people were supposed to be able to be resurrected in him. People were supposed to be able to be renewed. Sabbath was a day that was the end of a week of chaos. Chaos was undone, and then in that week one, and then Sabbath was rest because all was right in God. And they were to come to God on there to spend that day with him. And he said, I've separated this day from time now so that from now on you can always come Come to me and you can be renewed and you can be recreated. And the recreation of the Sabbath is, is not a lazy day. It's a day of recreation. And the entire village of Capernaum that's waiting for the Sabbath to come out so they can bring their sick to Jesus— how that must have hurt Jesus' heart to know the Sabbath was now a stumbling block because the way the scribes and the Pharisees Gnostics had translated the Old Testament and the Sabbath laws and the Sabbath experience. It had become this: not now, we can't ask God to help us now, we have to wait until after the Sabbath. And Mark makes a real thing of it, the way he says, um, the whole— sorry, when evening came, after the sun had set, like, he's like, what day do you worry about that on? Only on the Sabbath. When evening came, after the sun had set, they began to bring him all those who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. So I just think, you know, when it says at the beginning where the people say, this, this Jesus, he teaches with authority, not like the scribes. You know, the scribes did their authority— it wasn't that they didn't have authority, it's where they got their authority, the way it was different. The scribes would always quote someone else or read the passage and say, and this is what I say, or this is what so-and-so has said. And they would back up their sayings, their interpretation with, yeah, 3 of us, we all agree on this. Or, you know, Shemuel, he taught this. And they all backed up what they were saying with witnesses, with other people who agreed, or people from history that it was written. And so therefore this is the meaning for this passage. But Jesus just, but I say, you know, he just, just read the scriptures and told them, this is what it means, this is coming to fruition right here in your, in your presence right now. Um, and Jesus just had a different kind of authority, and it was because he was, you know, he was the, the, uh, the man of scripture. Um, in, uh, the end of this passage when it says that, uh, the Son of Man, uh, The Son of Man is seeing the faith. Jesus told him, um, but so you know, verse 10 of chapter 2, but so you may know that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins. I didn't read that far. I wanted to go all the way to, to there. Um, so chapter 2, when they entered Capernaum and— sorry, verse chapter 2, verses, uh, 1 1 to 12. Did I read that? When he entered— it doesn't hurt to read scripture again, does it? When he entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway. And he was speaking— remember the door from before, everyone's standing outside there. Now there's not even room in the doorway. Um, and he was speaking the message to them. Then they came to him bringing a paralytic, carrying— carried by 4 men. Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where he was, and when they had broken through, they lowered the man on which the— the mat on which the paralytic was laying. Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.' But some of the scribes were sitting there thinking to themselves, 'Why does he speak like this?' He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sin but God alone? Right away Jesus understood in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves, and he said to them, why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to a paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up, pick up your mat and walk? But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He told the paralytic, I tell you, get up, pick up your mat, and go home. Immediately he got up, picked up the mat, and went out the front. Now there's room, everyone's parted the way like Moses parting the water. So, um, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all— they were all astounded. I wonder if that includes the Scribes. They were all astounded and gave glory to God. Would that include the scribes? This could be a bit of exaggeration by Mark to draw this idea. This was overwhelming. Everybody was doing it. Everybody was amazed. Everybody was praising God, saying, we have never seen anything like this. Jesus was in the house. They'd never seen anything like this. So when Jesus says, but so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. It's the first time he uses the Son of Man title in Mark, which he loves. He uses it dozens of times. And we know in Daniel, Son of Man is talking about the Messiah to come. But in general, um, Old Testament usage, Son of Man just meant a human. It meant a son of mankind, a human. And so Jesus loves this title, and it— he calls himself the Son of Man all the time when he could have said Son of God. He could have just said, "God." But like Paul says, he doesn't pride himself on his identity in God. He doesn't go around touting himself, "I am the Son of God. You know, everyone should bow to me." He's always about other people, and so his favorite title for himself is, "I'm just a guy. I'm the Son of Man." And the question that it leaves to the reader, and I think what Mark is building with all these miracle stories, one after the other after the other, is, Is this just a man, or is this the man? The Son of Man has just changed what it means. It's gone from being about all mankind to being about one man who defines the new mankind. And it's a— it's an invitation really to us to think about our lives. Are we just the man? Are men— are we just humans, or are we the man? Are we the one God has called us to be? Are we allowing his, um, spirit to work through us? And our giftedness will be different than Jesus's giftedness. Of course, you probably don't have the ability to cast out demons or to heal people from the sick, but, but if you do have gifts, and when you use those gifts, Jesus is giving us a model in this this passage of recognizing, recognizing that you using your gifts is not what you were created for. You were created to glorify God and to follow his plan and shape the world based on the— build the kingdom based on the mission of Jesus, the mission of God, that all might see the resurrected Savior, that all, you know, lift— if If I be lifted up, all men will be drawn to me. Our mission is to lift up Jesus. And so we may do that through the ability to speak well, or the ability to heal if we're a doctor or we're a nurse, or, or we have, um, the counseling skills or something, you know, we can provide healing to people, um, or through the ability to, to pray for other people and to share that gift of prayer. And any of the spiritual gifts, we may have those gifts, but The purpose of those gifts is not those gifts, but the purpose that God has given us of lifting Christ up so that all men might be drawn to him. And Jesus models this in the middle of this passage where he says, this is not why I've come. Yes, I can do all these things, and yes, I will do all these things. And people flock to him because he could do all those things, but he was constantly slipping through the crowd and disappearing when they tried to build his kingdom based on those things, because he'd come for one purpose, and that was the salvation of mankind. And he wanted to stay on task. He wanted to live on purpose and stay on the purpose that was given to him. And so this passage, Mark 1:21-2:12, is sandwiched really interestingly. If you look just before it, you've got Jesus calling the fishermen and saying, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. And then right after this passage of all these miracles, bang bang bang, with Jesus's mission in the middle of it, or his statement his identity statement of saying, I'm here to do God's will, not mine. Um, there's another disciple story of being called— Matthew's called in, um, from 2:13 and following. So Jesus sandwiches in the middle of the calling of disciples, the middle of your life and my life, here's all the giftedness a disciple may have, here's all the, the buildup of what a kingdom identity looks like, And here's the core of it in the middle, that it's all about God and about his will and about his purpose. But disciples are called and shaped by following. And so Jesus, um, helps Mark when he's, when he's putting this together. You know, the Holy Spirit comes and says, you need to put all these healing stories right at the beginning, show that Jesus was amazing and he stood out and he had authority. Way different than anyone else. But his authority was powerful because he put himself in second place to the will of God. And he was able to do great things, yes, but he did them and then reminded himself by getting away and re-centering— what is God's purpose in my life? And then he made his disciples, uh, well, his disciples became like him because they copied him. They saw the way he lived, and they recognized— I'm sure the disciples many times would have said, but Jesus, you can do all these amazing things. Why do you keep humbling yourself? Why do you keep backing off from the power that resides inside of you? You, you were made for greater things. You can imagine Peter said it once, but you can imagine the other disciples thinking it. You can't do this. You can't talk like this. You can't be like this. But Jesus recognized even in his own self. He was saying the things— I could do all of these things, but they're not the way that I'm going to accomplish God's will and God's purpose. The way I do that is by staying on task and living on purpose by God's purpose. Um, so this passage is, is kind of the framework of a disciple. You may be called before you see all the miracles of Jesus. You might be called after after. You see the miracles of Jesus and called to follow, called to come after Jesus, to follow me as I follow Christ. If you're following another Christian, like Paul said, if you have a struggle because Jesus isn't here anymore and you struggle to see who he is, then follow me as I follow Christ, because I've got a good bearing on who he is and where he's going. And Paul was able to say that even though he called himself the chief of sinners. You know what I do? What I know I should do, I don't do, and what I know I shouldn't do, I do. And I just wish that I could stay on purpose and follow God's purpose in my life. That was Paul's plight, Paul's push in his life, and that was his discipleship. He found himself with great giftedness in between calling disciples and having disciples follow him and shaping people. The process of discipleship Disciples are always following someone, and they're always being followed by someone. Once you are a disciple, you are a disciple maker because you are modeling, uh, the life that God gives, and you're modeling a life that is about finding your purpose in God, not about finding your purpose in your skills, your talents, your power. And you go back to the center, and you go back to God, and you say, how can Jesus be lifted up? Today and what I'm doing. Help me not to be so fascinated with myself that I forget to live on purpose for your purpose. Let me have a look at my notes and see if there's anything else I wanted to throw in about this. Um, I think I'd like to leave you with the question that I posed at the end of the Sabbath School lesson that I taught on this topic, and that's, um, is there a particular person you feel impressed to share part of this study with? If there is, who is it and why them? And then, will you? Will you share with them? Will you disciple them, follow so that they can follow you as you follow Christ? Perhaps it's the person you're following and you want to go and empower them by telling them what what they've done in your life. Perhaps it's some person young in the faith that you think they could really benefit from having a disciple maker to follow, and you go and offer your services, not because you're anything great or anything wonderful, but because God is great and God is wonderful, and you're following him through Christ, his death, his resurrection in your life. You're being raised up like Peter's mother, and you can raise others up. It's just a beautiful passage of scripture that really sets up the book of Mark, uh, really nicely. And I'm looking forward to studying the rest of it with you. Thank you. And let's just pray before we finish up. Dear Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that you inspired people to sit down and write it down. Mark and Peter and all the other disciples would have been so busy just telling their story and going from place to place, but Here, some 30 years after you went back to heaven, Mark decided, probably Peter's request, we need to sit down, we need to write this down, and we need to tell this story so that it can be shared and read. And how are we going to write this down? And they spent the time to craft it well. Help us to read it well. Help us to spend the time investing in asking questions. Why? Why did they put these stories here? Why did they sandwich it between disciples? Why did they— disciple calls— why did they put you and your struggle with your miraculous abilities, why did they put that right in the middle of this passage of scripture? Help us to do that, uh, kind of study, that kind of pondering as we look at your word, every time we look at your word, so that we might gain more from knowing where it's come from, who it's come from and then apply it to our lives and how we can best represent you as your disciples and disciple-makers. Thank you for being glorified among us. Help us to follow you so that we might lead others into your presence. In your name. Amen.