This is a commentary on the gospel of Mark, which most believe was the first gospel written. It is divided by paragraphs, with both descriptive and devotional comments made.
They were on the
road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they
were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve
aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying,
"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be
delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to
death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on
Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise
again."
Jesus was heading toward Jerusalem, and that
disturbed the disciples greatly. The
leaders that came from Jerusalem already rejected Jesus, even calling him a
representative of Satan (Mark 3:22)! So
they knew that there would be some kind of confrontation in Jerusalem, which
they didn’t want to face. Jesus, however,
was confident, knowing that he would be rejected, condemned and then sentenced
to be killed. He knew that the leaders
in Jerusalem would do any manner of persecution to him—including mocking,
spitting, lashing and killing. But he
was also confident in God’s vindication of him as he is resurrected. The disciples, of course, was confident in no
such thing.
It is always good to rely on God's promises. God promises us that we will suffer. That's a promise. I've often wondered why people worry so much about the good suffering-- Jesus said it would happen, so why fret? Just enjoy the ride. And remember, God is always there to vindicate you when it is all done. After the storm comes the peace, never before.
Peter began to
say to Him, "Behold, we have left everything and followed you." Jesus
said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers
or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the
gospel's sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the
present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and
farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. But many
who are first will be last, and the last, first."
All the disciples are uncomfortable with the
conversation they have been having with Jesus.
They found out that it is difficult—almost impossible for rich people—to
be saved. And that everyone must sell
their possessions and give to the poor.
Peter then personalizes the issue Jesus brought up—“Well, Lord, we
haven’t sold everything we had. So we
haven’t obeyed you in this way. But we
want to be saved. And we have left
everything we had in order to follow you—is that enough?”
Jesus replies in the affirmative and speaks
of what those have given up will gain.
Those who have given up things for the sake of Jesus includes those who
have left their living spaces for Jesus, those who have left their family for
him, and those who have quit their jobs or their inherited land.
They who give up these things for Jesus, or
for the message of Jesus—specifically the message that the kingdom is coming
and everyone needs to prepare for the next age—will gain the following
things: First of all, they will gain
more houses. In Mark 6:10-11, the
disciples of Jesus who are proclaiming Jesus’ message will find other houses to
live in. Secondly, they will gain
additional family—many, many more family members. In Mark 3:33-35 this family are those who are
disciples of Jesus, who are obeying God’s word.
Also, Jesus says, they will gain persecutions. In Mark 13:9-13 Jesus says that those who are disciples of
Jesus will gain terrible trials and suffering before the end. But, Jesus says, in the end, they will gain
eternal life. Jesus is presenting a very
different idea of gaining God’s blessing—he is saying that one must surrender
everything he or she has—his whole life—and then receive only what God
provides, including persecution from those who do not understand God’s
ways. Only when one gives up on this age
will the next age be open to them. This
goes hand-in-hand with Jesus’ teaching on the cross (Mark 8:34-38), and his own
passion that he prophesied is soon coming (Mark 8:31).
In following Jesus, our whole value system turns upside down: We surrender what is most important to us to gain the unseen. We obtain resources we would have never thought possible.
We rejoice in the suffering that makes our lives difficult.
But if we do not surrender, we cannot enter. If we don't share, we gain nothing from others. If we avoid suffering, we never gain the benefits.
Following Jesus is taking the biggest gamble, for the greatest reward.
"Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me. And what you want to give me is love,unconditional, everlasting love."
And Jesus,
looking around, said to His disciples, "How hard it will be for those who
are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at His
words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, "Children, how hard it
is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye
of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." They were
even more astonished and said to Him, "Then who can be saved?"
Looking at them, Jesus said, "With people it is impossible, but not with
God; for all things are possible with God."
The man Jesus was just speaking with left sadly because
of the difficulty to follow the command, “Sell your possessions and give to the
poor.” This command is given to all the
disciples in Luke 12:33, and is also stated more obscurely in Matthew 6:19:
“Store up your treasures in heaven.” Now
Jesus tells the disciples privately an even more difficult saying—That most
wealthy people find it impossible to enter God’s kingdom. The disciples were so amazed that they didn’t
believe that Jesus could be saying it.
They were of the opinion, like most (even Tevya in “Fiddler on the
Roof”) that it is easier for a wealthy person to be pleasing to God. They have the luxury to pray whenever they want,
and also they seem to have God’s blessing already on them.
Jesus repeats his statement even more
strongly, and broadens it—that it is difficult for anyone to be pleasing to
God, but it is near impossible for a wealthy person to be saved. The camel through the eye of the needle
saying is a proverb for something that is
impossible, as Jesus states both before and after the saying.
The disciples were stunned and then wondered
aloud how is it possible for anyone to enter the kingdom of God. After all, if it is impossible for those whom
it is easier, then no one can be saved.
They haven’t yet understood that Jesus was saying that a wealthy person
has a harder time being pleasing to God.
Jesus allows them their concept, though, that almost no one can be
saved. He comforts them, then by stating
that with God’s help, anyone can enter God’s kingdom. This does not set aside the commands Jesus
stated above. Rather, he was saying that
no one can obey God’s commands without God’s help—including selling one’s
possessions and giving to the poor.
Thus, to gain salvation, one must ask God’s assistance to obey God’s
commands.
If we look at the perfection of God, none of us can compare. We all fail. If we look at the grace of God, we are all welcome. Everyone is able to enter God's presence. But one thing God never compromises: His love found in the hearts of men. If we don't have enough love to surrender our possessions for the sake of one who needs it, then we do not love enough for the presence of God. If we don't have enough love to forgive those who wronged us, we don't have enough love for the presence of God. If we don't have enough love to be gentle and kind with those who are below us, we don't have enough love for the presence of God. This seems like a pretty high standard. But if we ask the Lord, he is able to pull us to that standard. He may not be able to make us pure or holy enough for the church, but He can make us loving enough to rest in Him.
As
He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to him and knelt before him, and
asked him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God
alone. You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do
not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and
mother.'" And he said to him, "Teacher, I have kept all these things
from my youth up." Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to
him, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But at
these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who
owned much property.
An anonymous man shows great respect to Jesus by kneeling
before him and calling him “Good teacher.”
He is clearly one who is sincere in wanting to honor Jesus and
respectfully listen to his teaching.
Jesus responds to the man without much respect—disagreeing with him
being called “Good” saying that such a title belongs only to God. Perhaps Jesus thought that the man was trying to "butter him up" to give him a fair answer to his question.
But the question the man asks is sincere, and
comes to the point—although it was much disagreed with by many scholars of his
day—“how does one gain eternal life?” As
seen in the following discussion, this matter, “eternal life” could also be
called “having treasure in heaven,” or “entering the kingdom of God” or “being
saved.” They are all talking about the
same thing: gaining the promises and blessings of God after this age or life is
over.
And this man sincerely wanted to
know how to gain it. Jesus response is
the obvious one, one that all teachers would approve of, and that the man would have heard many times: “Obey the commandments.” Jesus gives a brief rundown of
five of the ten commandments, plus one additional, “do not defraud” (found in
Leviticus 19:13). What Jesus seems to be
saying is: “You know what the traditional teaching is. Why do you bother to come up and ask
me?” Again, it could be that Jesus answered this way because he didn't think the young man was sincere in asking.
Then the man pleads with the Lord,
indicating that he had always heard this teaching, and obeyed it, but he felt
that Jesus must indicate that there was something more. Jesus then changed his attitude toward the
man and had compassion on him, because he seemed sincere in seeking God, not
just the answers one receives from the local preacher. So Jesus responded with a fuller answer, that
the every day preacher did not say:
Jesus gave the man two additional commands that are not in the Law of
Moses—Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and become a disciple of
Jesus.
To give to the poor is a command
in Moses, even to the sacrifice of one’s own good (Deuteronomy 15:4-11). But to sell one’s possessions to give to the
poor is not found anywhere in the Law—it is an additional command given by
Jesus. Note, that Jesus is giving this
command as a requirement for salvation.
Jesus is not saying, “Just believe in me and you will be saved.” Nor is he offering an easy way to
salvation. Rather, Jesus is speaking of
sacrificing one’s own life in order to gain the next age—the same teaching he
gave when he spoke of carrying the cross (Mark 8:35ff.). This requirement is not just for this young man, but for all disciples, as Jesus gives the same command to disciples in Luke 12:33.
The man was more than willing to follow
Jesus, it seemed, but to sell his possessions was difficult, for he had many
possessions. We do not know what his
final decision was: to sell his possessions, and so to follow Jesus and gain
eternal life, or to retain his possessions and hope that the local preacher was
right in their idea of salvation.
In our day, possessions are easy to come by. We are taught to be consumers at a young age, and surrounding ourselves with possessions is a comfort. In the United States, even if we are poor, there are many who take pity on us and shower us with toys and gifts. We are as neurotic about our possessions as we are about sweets. If we don't have them, then we are stressed, in psychological agony. And even if we don't have many physical possessions, we might collect digital music or videos... we are addicted to obtaining. We are all rich young rulers, where even the homeless collect useless possessions as if their lives depended on them.
Yet possessions are not just something we have, they are something that possess us. The more stuff we have, the more time we have to take to care for them, or process them. And that time could be used for people, or for growing ourselves, or for any number of things. The collection of possessions is the least positive of our activities, but between shopping, gathering, organizing, cleaning, re-organizing, recycling, giving away and throwing away, we spend too much of our lives messing with things.
It would be best if we limited the amount of stuff we get. But Jesus' solution is simple: just give it away. Give it to people who might need it-- thrift stores, pawn shops, charities-- and if you gain any benefit from it, give it to the poor, don't keep it for yourself. If you get a tax deduction from it, take the money you save and give it to charity. This allows our stuff to be a benefit, instead of a hoard. And what we have is loaned to God, and so is a benefit for our relationship with Him. We love others and we love God, instead of loving our own comfort.
And this is something we don't do just once. We are possession magnets, most of us. Collecting is easier than saying "no" to ourselves. We should be regularly giving and giving and giving to those in need, not keeping for ourselves. This is one way in which we learn to be lovers, expanding the kingdom of God instead of our own.
And they were
bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked
them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, "Permit
the children to come to me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs
to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of
God like a child will not enter it at all." And He took them in His arms
and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.
Children, in the world of the first century
(indeed, throughout most of the cultures and history of the world) were
unimportant, a bother. They were the
lowest part of society and they were usually ignored, especially by men. The disciples were indicating that Jesus was
too important to be bothered with about the needs of children. Jesus was quite upset at the disciple’s
refusal, for he had already taught them that the one who welcomes, or offers
hospitality, to a child is welcoming Jesus himself. (Mark 9: 37) Thus, the disciples were
rejecting Jesus by indicating that he was too important to see children!
Jesus explains to them that children are
important because they are so humble.
The humble state of a child should be a point of connection between the
child and the disciple. For this reason
Jesus called the disciples names that would be given children, like “little
ones”. Jesus is saying that for one to
enter the kingdom of God—gain salvation—they must be humble like a child (Matthew
18:3-4). They need to be lowly, and part
of that lowliness is welcoming those who are lowly. Thus, the disciples, by turning the children
away, were doing the very opposite of what they needed to do to enter God’s
kingdom! Jesus, on the other hand, put
his hands on every one of the children and blessed them all. Mark, again, is emphasizing that it is the
“weaker” brother who is to be cared for, as he has since 9:33.
We need to welcome the outliers to our church, Jesus already taught us. But more than this, if we do not become humble, become weak, become insignificant like those outliers, those children, then we cannot enter God's kingdom.
This is a tough call from Jesus. We would like to think that it is enough for us to remain with the station we have, to be comfortably middle class, to know where we stand in our society. Jesus says, however, that if we are going to be a part of God's great second chance at life, we need to be distinctly uncomfortable with this one. We need to not know our proper station, not be sure if we are doing things right, to be told what to do and to be forced to listen.
The kingdom of God is only for those who don't fit.
Getting up, He
went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered
around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach
them. Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him
whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to
them, "What did Moses command you?” They said, "Moses permitted a man
to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." But Jesus said to
them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this
reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and
the two shall become one flesh’; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What
therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." In the house the
disciples began questioning Him about this again. And He said to them,
"Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery
against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man,
she is committing adultery."
As far as moral practice goes, this is one of the
toughest teachings of Jesus. Jesus
traveled to Judea, in southern Israel, closer to the heart of Judaism. In the days of Jesus, there was a debate
between Jewish scholars what the original intention of Moses was in his divorce
command. Some of the Jewish teachers
held that divorce should only be given for the sake of adultery. Another group held that a divorce could be
given for any reason, according to Moses’ law, because Moses did not make any
limitations for causes of divorce. The
Pharisees came to Jesus and asked him to give an opinion in this debate. In Mark, Jesus gives an extreme
position. He said that Moses was wrong
to allow them to divorce at all! Jesus
points out that before the law of divorce under Moses, God created marriage,
causing two people to be one entity, or a new family. Jesus then reasons that since God had created
the unity, then that union is indivisible.
Therefore, Jesus says, a human does not have the right to divide what
God had put together. Jesus says, then,
that divorce is always breaking God’s intention of union. Jesus explains this matter further with the
disciples, speaking not only of divorce, but also of remarriage. Divorce, Jesus says, usually is followed by
marriage to another person. But the
handing of a piece of paper to another does not dissolve the commitment of
unity between a man and a woman.
Therefore, Jesus says, that remarriage after divorce is the same as
adultery. To have sex with one who has
already been married is adultery. Since
the marriage is unbroken by the piece of paper, any remarriage is therefore
adultery, because the original couple is still married. This passage in Mark is connected to a set of
teachings about how to treat “weaker” believers. The message seems to be that divorce is one
of those situations which would cause destruction to a “little one” in Jesus. Matthew agrees in Matthew 5:32.
There
are a number of implications here, that are not openly discussed: a.
Are partners equal in marriage?
In the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, women could not give men divorce
papers—but Jesus said that this was possible, (which, in Gentile culture, they
could) although it was leading to adultery.
Also Jesus indicated that a man who cheated on his wife was committing
adultery, even though many Jewish teachers held that only a woman could commit
adultery, not a man. Jesus holds both
partners equally responsible to their commitment to marriage. b. What about if your partner commits
adultery first? Jesus does not
answer that question here, but he does in Matthew 19. Adultery breaks the marriage, so the contract
of unity is no longer binding. Although
if an adulterous spouse repents, the follower of Jesus must forgive them and
take them back (Luke 17:3-4), if the adultery continues, then the believer is
free to walk away from the marriage and get remarried.
c. What about marriages between pagans—are they joined by God? Jesus does not mention this issue, but Paul
seems to think of this as a separate issue from what Jesus spoke about. (I Corinthians 7:12-16). Paul seems to say there that two unbelievers
who are married do not have a commitment of union before God. However, Paul says, in order to bring one’s
spouse to the Lord, the marriage must be committed to. But if the unbeliever wants to dissolve the
marriage, then the marriage may be dissolved, and the believer may remarry.
One final note is that Jesus, as he does with all his teaching on the law, is simply applying the rule of love to marriage and divorce. Almost all marriages in Jesus' day were initiated by men, and the women had to suffer through terrible consequences, possibly including exclusion from society, homelessness, separation from their children and more. Jesus is not so much trying to create a new law to replace the old one, but trying to bring mercy to a heartless discussion.
It is so easy to look at this or that command in the Bible and to say, "Well, it's what the Bible says. We just need to obey it." It is interesting that Jesus never did this. He always put mercy and care into his discussions of the hardest of laws.
Jesus often would make a law more strict... but sometimes love is very strict, very tough. If I was a person who hurt others because of my drinking, I might think that it was harsh to stop drinking, but that is what love would require of me. If I was a person whose porn habit was hurting my wife, it might seem strict to give up my porn, but that's what love would require. Love is just as often strict as it is freeing.
Let us remain under the discipline of love, doing whatever mercy and compassion requires, no matter how difficult.
"Salt is
good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty again?
Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another."
Two final “salt” sayings are attached to the end
of the sermon about giving honor to the lowest. Jesus speaks of the nature of his
followers—that they are to be righteous.
But if the “righteous” have no righteousness, then they cannot be made
righteous. This is telling the disciples
not to be like the scribes and Pharisees—if you are so convinced in your
righteousness when you are doing evil, you cannot repent. Then Jesus tells them what this “salt” or
righteousness is—it is peace among each other.
The peace Jesus is speaking of is summarized in what he had just been
describing—Seeking to be the one of lowest honor; granting honor to the lowest;
openly welcoming “unofficial” disciples; and not causing the lowest to fall
away from the faith. This is peace among
the disciples.
Often we consider peace to be an experience of no stress. Or we might think of it as a lack of conflict or war. In the Bible, peace (Hebrew: shalom) is a community that supports each other, loves each other and is stronger together than apart. If we are to be at peace, the peace that Jesus commands, we need to stop rejecting those who don't fit into our idea of who "really" belongs. Sure, there are people who disrupt our order, but they are there to teach us that Jesus' true followers aren't of only one kind of order. God establishes a different order in different people. Sure, there are people who are sinners, but Jesus welcomed sinners so we could learn what is real sin and what just looks like sin, and to give the most severe sinners another chance to be with God. And another. And another. And there are people who are wrong about God. Very wrong. They can't discuss anything without being so, so wrong. And sometimes we are those people. And if we didn't include the "wrong" in our group, we would never learn how wrong we are. Jesus' peace doesn't look like peace by our definition. It might look like chaos, like a bunch of people who can't get their stuff together. But if those very people love each other and support each other and welcome each other despite their differences and sins and disagreements, then Jesus is reigning.
