Sermons

The murder of Jesus was not a just event. His accusers show up in the middle of the night to arrest him. Jesus proposes a wise question: "Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to capture me? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me" (vv. 48-49). These men did not have the courage to arrest Jesus in the day; they waited until no one else was around so that the darkness might hide their deeds. They also brought excessive weapons to arrest Jesus; maybe they remember him overturning the tables in the Temple and don't think their manpower would be enough to restrain him. Either way, their actions are cowardly. These events feel more like a city mugging or a schoolyard brawl than an arrest.

The road to the cross is a difficult one. Sometimes, we can get so caught up with Jesus' divinity that we forget his humanity. In this passage, all the events that have been predicted numerous times are now starting to take place. Jesus knows that his friends are not going to be steadfast in his time of trial. Jesus knows that his friends are going to make bold promises about their loyalty to him and pathetically under-deliver. Jesus knows that he will have to endure hell in the next hours at the hands of Gentile dogs, religious hypocrites and his own disciple.

Every week at Stone's Throw, we break off a piece of bread (trying not to pick the spot that results in you taking half of the loaf for yourself) and dunk it in some grape juice (trying to make sure you aren't the guy whose finger touches the juice, disrupting the holiness of the event for everyone in line). In this passage, we see the introduction of that practice. In the parallel account in Luke 22, we see Jesus command us to do this when we gather in remembrance of him. When we take communion each Sunday, the truths of this passage should enter our minds as we remember Jesus.

In this scene, a woman interrupts a dinner party. She breaks an expensive bottle of ointment open and anoints Jesus. A denarii was the average daily wage during Jesus' time period, so 300 denarii is in the neighborhood of the average yearly wage for a Palestinian. We can understand why some disciples are upset that this bottle is being "wasted" on Jesus. Their argument makes sense; imagine how much good you could do for the poor if you had a year's worth of salary to spare.

In theological circles, eschatology is known as "the study of last things." One thing I think we can all agree on is that eschatology can get very, very weird. The study of the end times can get very muddy between some terrifying biblical imagery, some whack-job pastors making gloom and doom predictions, hilariously bad Christian movies and books that are written for entertainment. This next section of Scripture is called the Olivet Discourse; that is because Jesus and his disciples are sitting on top of a mountain overlooking the temple. There are hundreds of interpretations of these upcoming verses, but the central truth is that Jesus is the omniscient, omnipotent God who knows and controls all the events of history.

God is faithful and He has made His church fruitful. He is changing people and saving people. We celebrate what God is doing in our midst and what better way than under a Big Tent! Complete with outdoor worship, a baptismal tank, BBQ, and moon bounces!

Who is the most spiritual person you know? If you asked that question to a Jew in Jesus' day, they probably would have pointed to a scribe or a Pharisee. The most religious people memorized large chunks of the Bible, could pray for an hour out loud and sat in the front of the church. We do the same thing today; our religious hero can school any atheist in apologetics, give tons of money to orphans, wear a face microphone and carry a heavy study Bible. But our hero can perform all these tasks and still be spiritually dead. Jesus breaks down these misconceptions.

Jesus is a master at knowing how to respond to questions based on who he is talking to. He is a good listener. Sometimes, he chooses to not answer (11:33); elsewhere, he blatantly corrects (12:27). In this situation, he answers directly and encourages a teachable scribe. The question asked in this passage concerns the heart of the Laws of God. The answer is known as the Shema (meaning "listen" from Deuteronomy 6). It boils down to "love God with everything and love others."

Through his three year ministry, Jesus had made a lot of enemies. In this passage, yet another group is revealed to have quarrels with Jesus' teaching: the Sadducees. They rejected the teaching of resurrection and believed that the soul and body perish at death. However, Jesus has taught multiple times about the resurrection at the final day, and about his own resurrection following his brutal death. The Sadducees try to use the Tanakh (The Law, the prophets and Writings) to disprove the resurrection. Jesus' response is quite simple: "you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" (v. 24). What a crazy claim! Jesus just told the guys that had memorized more scripture than most of our local congregations put together that they don't know the Bible!

Jesus' enemies are swarming around him just as he had predicted on three previous occasions. The shadow of the cross is looming large over his ministry. Over the next few sections of Mark, we see the Pharisees, the Herodians, the Sadducees, and the scribes all aligning together to oppose Jesus. These groups are not friends with one another, but they are embracing the saying that, "your enemy's enemy is your friend." They have a common interest in the death of Jesus. By killing him, they believe their institution, religion and way of doing things will be left alone. For his enemies, Jesus is simply a nuisance rather than the Son of God.