Gospel of Mark, Session 4 & 5

Transcription

1 1 OPPOSITION MOUNTS Mark 6:1-29 Gospel of Mark, Session 4 & 5 This chapter has it all: royalty, sex and religion. It begins with the latter. When Jesus went back to his home region his religious teachings became the center of attraction. But instead of welcoming him, people took offense at hi (vv. 1-6). Why? (vv. 7-10) To multiply his ministry, Jesus sends out his twelve disciples in pairs. What is significant about the instructions he gives them. (v. 11) How are they to respond to being unwanted and why? How easy it would be, we naturally think, for knocking the dust off our feet to be an act of pique or petulance. Yet in the context of Jesus mission, there was no time to waste. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Mark s breathless Gospel focuses here on the disciples breathless mission; and if people won t have it, there s no time to lose. On to the next place, and woe to those who have missed their chance. It was a deeply symbolic act of witness to the Israel of his day as to what time it was in God s timetable of events. Part of Christian discipleship is the spiritual sensitivity and discernment to know when there is an emergency on, and what steps to take. There have been many time in recent years, in many places around the globe, when the church s task has been, like the Twelve, to go urgently out proclaiming and acting out the kingdom. Can you think of situations now that need urgent attention as the church s as God s agents of the kingdom? (vv ) When the king hears about Jesus and what he is doing, some think it is Elijah who, according to Jewish tradition, would return to get things ready for the final judgment (Malachi 4:5). Why would Herod think Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead? (vv ) Herod had arrested John previously because of John opposed Herod s marriage to his brother s wife. Why did John make such a fuss over this act, especially by one who claimed to be king of the Jews?

2 2 Then Herod hosed a birthday bash with scandalous goings-on. And there s nothing private about this story. It would have been round the palace within minutes, round the neighborhood by morning, and round all Galilee within a day or two. If It had happened today it would be all over the gossip channels. It s sordid, shabby and shameful exactly the sort of thing that everybody like to hear, however much they pretend otherwise. (vv ) The worst part of the party was Herod s daughter-in-law at her mother s prodding requesting the head of John the Baptist on a dish. Even though Herod feared and listened to John, why does he order his beheading? When does pressure to please people override our desire to obey God? Why does Mark place this story about John the Baptist right after the episode of Jesus sending out the Twelve? What are the costs or potential costs for us as we play our part as agents of God s kingdom? AMAZING COMPASSION After a period of exhausting, stressful work, followed by a piece of sudden, devastating news, it would be natural to think that we need a rest, a break, time to recover and regroup. After the disciples return from their mission and hear about John the Baptist being executed, a break is exactly what Jesus seems to have in mind for them. But things don t go as planned. When have important plans you ve had been interrupted and how did you respond? Mark 6:3 44. The short boat ride is the only time Jesus and the disciples have to themselves. But the time they get to the shore everyone else has gotten there first. Anyone in the people caring professions know that the work can often be so overwhelming. People s needs are incessant and they come at you from all directions. Contrast how the disciples respond to this fresh interruption with how Jesus responds.

3 3 Jesus has compassion and a plan. In churches our resources always seem so meager for the task at hand. When have you seen God use meager resources to meet a challenging situation? Here we are seeing a sign of new creation. Something was going on, there in Jesus public career, which was unleashing an explosive force into the world. It wasn t what we (or they) would call magic or the manipulation of the natural world t serve one s own needs. It was the power of a totally obedient life, a life given up to the kingdom of God, to God s sovereign and saving rule breaking in at last to take the connection between Jesus compassion for the crowds and his action with the bread and fish. What can we learn about God s coming kingdom from Jesus actions in this situation? Mark 6: It is about 3 A.M. when the disciples walking on the water. Put yourself in their place. How would you react? At this point, within the steady build-up of astonishing events, we hear a dark theme emerge, which is now going to run alongside the other events until it achieves an initial response in chapter 8. They hadn t understood about the loaves, says Mark of the disciples, because their hearts were hardened. It s the first time he s said something like that about the disciples, but we have heard the last of it by any means. What have the disciples not understood about the loaves that they should have? What cause our hearts to be hardened? Note that this chapter closes with a rerun of events. People were drawn to Jesus for healing, and he didn t turn them away even thought that wasn t his primary mission. Does this indicate how we are to show compassion and help others even when people interrupt our plans? THE HEART OF IT ALL Mark 7:1-37 All societies have purity laws of one sort or another. Children are taught from an early age to wash their hands at every opportunity. And woe be to any restaurant whose staff don t observe a strict code of hygiene. Even luxurious cruise ships

4 4 have to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent the rapid spread of disease organism. Israel is Jesus day had its own set of purity laws as well. Ritual washing of hands before food, and of cooking vessels, was one key part of a highly complex and developed system of purity laws. These were eventually codified and written down about two hundred years after Jesus day, but they were already well known, in the form of oral traditions, by his time. Mark 7:1-23. Suddenly Mark s stories about healing have stopped for a time, and we have a debate instead, focusing on a controversy about the interpretation and practice of Judaism by Jesus and his followers. What is the problem according to the Pharisees (vv. 1-5)? What is the problem according to Jesus, and how does he illustrate it (vv. 6-13)? Can you think of an example of how a body of believers gives verbal assent to something in the Bible but doesn t live by it? In Jesus time, some of the most well-known martyr stories were about Jews who had been tortured and killed for refusing to eat unclean food, particularly pork, during the Greek occupation. And Jesus has grasped something, a deep truth about the way humans are and about what God is now up to, which means that as part of his kingdom-message he must take a different line. In 7:14-23 what is radically different about Jesus teaching on what is clean and unclean? Is Jesus saying external things and physical things are irrelevant? How does Jesus say both that sometimes people don t take Scripture seriously enough and that sometimes they take it too far? How do people do that today? Mark 7: A hard passage to understand. Jesus knew that God s blessing to all the nations would come through Israel (Genesis 12:1-3; Matt 10:5-6, Roman 15:8-9) After Israel was redeemed, the rest of the world would receive God s saving blessing. Here he offers an early signal of what lies ahead.

5 5 Why does Jesus finally respond positively to the request of this Gentile woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit? Do you see the connection between this and the point about cleanness and uncleanness that he made just before? Although Jesus healed the deaf mute, he wanted to keep some things secret until a future time. But that hardly happened! This is a puzzle. Why would Jesus do things like this if he didn t want people to talk about them? Jesus accuses many of his fellow Jews of letting traditions that define their identity get in the way of being loving and compassionate toward each other. How might this be happening today? What is one thing we might do to keep our traditions from turning people away from God? MARK 8 With chapter 8 the course of Mark s gospel is changed. This is a time of evaluation, a determination if the disciples are comprehending their Lord s teachings. Time is short. Jesus is now setting course for his inevitable date with destiny at the cross. He begins to prepare for the long, slow, difficult journey to Jerusalem. His people have to be ready. 8:1-13: Feeding of the 4,000. Jesus feeds a multitude for a second time, again involving his disciples. Why do you think Jesus did the same miracle twice? The conversation with the Pharisees is interesting. Didn t Jesus just do a miraculous sign? Why then did he say no sign will be given to this generation? 8:14-21: What is this yeast of the Pharisees and Herod? Jesus tries to then get their attention off of physical bread and see the spiritual principle at work here. What do you think they still didn t understand? 8:22-30: The healing of a blind mad at Bethsaida. Here Jesus heals a man in stages. What is the lesson here for us?

6 6 8:27-30 Caesarea Philippi. What is Peter s confession indicate about the disciples spiritual maturity? This is the first time they confess Jesus as being the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One of God come to set Israel free. 8:31-9:1 Jesus predicts his death. This is the first time Jesus raises the subject of his death. It is a hard teaching. It goes against all the preconceptions of what the disciples believed about the nature and ministry of the Messiah. What are some hard teachings for the church today? Now Jesus tells the full scope of what it takes to be his disciple. It is nothing less than full commitment to following him. It would seem that only full, absolute commitment is sufficient for us to enter into the Father s glory. How does this fly in the face of so much teachings we hear in the church today?