MAKING SENSE OF THE BIBLE:

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Griselda Porter
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1 MAKING SENSE OF THE BIBLE: Four Views of One Life. First United Methodist Church/The Open Door (Bloomington, IN) June 28, 2015 Dr. Mark Owen Fenstermacher There are certain pictures that speak to our heart and maybe our head. We see them and there is something about the photograph, the colors and composition and angles and subjects, that clicks with us. Our son, Bryan, is a gifted photographer. He has this way of finding beauty in ordinary moments. He has this way of discovering a new or different angle from which to take a picture. Last summer I was driving the family speedboat across Lake Webster just as the sun was about to set, and Bryan leaned over the side of the boat, held his camera down just above the surface of the water, and took a picture of the sky and the water and the boat and me, steering us west. I love that picture! Other people took other pictures of life at the lake, and many of them are good pictures, but there is something about that picture that speaks to me. The French artist Monet had this thing about painting pictures of water lilies. He produced multiple pictures of ponds with water lilies. Giving different perspectives. If we had the ability to project images in the sanctuary, we d look at some of those. One painting is titled Japanese Footbridge over the Water Lily Pond in Giverny. Another painting is titled simply Water Lilies. It s a picture of water lilies and water done in that shimmering, full-of-light-way that is so Monet. There is another painting of the pond and the water lilies titled Monet s Garden. The artist painted over 250 different paintings of water lilies! Most of them are done from a different angle, or a different time of the year, or are painted later or earlier in the day so the intensity of the sunlight is different. There are great similarities but each picture gives us something different from the others. One is intentionally a bit out of focus, one has bright flowers in full blossom in the background, one seems to have something like moss hanging down off the branches of a tree that stands near the pond. The Gospels I thought about pictures or photographs that offer a different perspective of the same scene as we come to this conversation about the New Testament Gospels. The word gospel means to announce or bring good news. The four Gospels in the New Testament are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Synoptics The first three are often referred to as the synoptic Gospels. The word synoptic is a compound word based on the Greek words with and to see. Matthew, Mark and Luke tend to see with one another. There is a great deal of material they share together. Those three books tell many of the same stories, they include many of the same lessons and parables Jesus taught, and they tend to share the same chronology of Jesus life and ministry. In those three Gospels Jesus spends most of his ministry up in the north, in Galilee. When I was a student at Duke, we used a book titled Gospel Parallels (Nelson Press). It s a slender volume in which the editor prints out similar passages from the three Gospels sideby-side in three columns. Some stories and lessons in Matthew, Mark and Luke are identical. Some are similar with a slight change in the wording. Then, there are some stories, lessons and parables that are unique to each book. Scholars believe Mark was the first Gospel to be written, probably in the late 60 s or just after 70 A.D. So it was written about 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. 1

2 It s the shortest of the Gospels. Mark was written in Rome where Mark was the interpreter for Simon Peter. Peter was under arrest there, awaiting execution, and the writer of Mark would have been writing down many of the stories and lessons about Jesus that Simon Peter remembered. Matthew and Luke were next in terms of authorship. Both used Mark s Gospel for much of their material. However, both Matthew and Luke have material that is original to them. So some scholars believe Matthew and Luke used material from Mark as they wrote down their account of the life and ministry of Jesus, and that each author had another source they were using. The Gospel of John The last Gospel to be written down was John. John has a very different way of telling the story of Jesus. Whereas Matthew, Mark and Luke describe most of Jesus ministry taking place up in Galilee, John places much of the life and ministry of Jesus down in the south around Jerusalem. The first three Gospels really focus on the activity and the sermons and the miracles of Jesus. They give you an account of what he did and what he said. If you want to know who Jesus really is, if you want to know what his life means, if you want to know the significance of his life, then you look at John. John is a beautiful book, a mysterious book, a book that clearly has been influenced by Greek philosophy and understandings of God. John talks about Jesus as the true Light coming into the world, and John speaks about Jesus as living truth. Matthew, Mark and Luke show us a Jesus who spoke, often, in parables. Jesus, in the Gospel of John, teaches using metaphors. Jesus, in John, talks about how he is the gate for the sheep (10:7). He describes himself as the bread of life (6:35) and the light of the world (8:12). In 10:11, Jesus says I am the good shepherd. In John 15:1, he says I am the true vine. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke Jesus speaks in parables stories. In John, Jesus uses metaphors. Opening the Books - Mark It s not enough for you to sit there and listen as I talk about, or describe, the four Gospels of the New Testament. I d like you to open up your Bible, or take a Bible out of the pew in front of you, and open it to the Gospel of Mark. Look at those first verses in the opening chapter: The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ, God s Son, 2 happened just as it was written about in the prophecy of Isaiah: Look, I am sending my messenger before you. He will prepare your way, 3 a voice shouting in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight. Mark jumps right into the ministry of Jesus. Unlike Matthew and Luke, Mark doesn t include any kind of a description of the visit of the angel to Mary, the trip to Bethlehem and the birth narrative. It takes Luke four chapters to get to the actual start of Jesus ministry, but not in Mark. Mark just jumps right in. In that first chapter the writer of Mark quickly mentions the preaching of John the Baptist, includes a bare bones account of the baptism of Jesus by John, and by the time we get to the 14 th verse Jesus is preaching! And it was written during a time of great persecution. One scholar said as you read the Gospel of Mark you can almost sense the anxiety of the author. As he writes down the stories he is hearing Simon Peter recall the stories and sermons of Jesus from some thirty years before, it s like half-expects to hear the Roman secret police banging on his door. 2

3 Mark is the shortest of the Gospels. It s kind of a stripped down book that tells us the essentials. It is a Gospel that isn t very poetic or beautiful, in terms of its construction, but it is a Gospel that stresses action. Jesus is always on the move. Always doing. By the time we get to the 14 th verse of the first chapter, he is preaching. A few verses later he is calling the disciples, and before we get to the end of the first chapter he has thrown a demon out of a man who is screaming in the middle of a worship service in the synagogue. Jesus is an action figure in the Gospel of Mark. He is a source of power. There is an extended collection of sermon stories and teachings in Matthew and Luke. Matthew calls his The Sermon on the Mount and Luke sets his on the flat ground The Sermon on the Plain (Chapter 6). You ll not find this long, extended collection of sayings or sermons in Mark. Oh, Jesus teaches, but it comes out in an almost staccato form one parable and lesson following the other. You get the feeling even Jesus is in a hurry! As you read the Gospel you may even feel like you have to pause to catch your breath. The action is nearly non-stop. The Gospel of Mark begins in a hurry, with action, and it ends abruptly. Look at the story of the empty tomb in the 16 th Chapter. Three women go to visit the tomb, to anoint the body of Jesus, and they found the stone has been rolled away from the entrance. Going into the tomb, they find that it is empty. A young man is sitting there and he tells them Jesus has been raised from the dead. According to many scholars, the Gospel of Mark ends with this verse: Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. That is how the story ends. Abruptly. Almost as if the writer was out of time. Mark is short. A Gospel of action. Written to people who are living under a Roman government that is becoming increasingly heavy-handed. The Gospel of Mark reminds that generation that there is a power greater than the power of the Empire. Opening the Books - Matthew If you look at the opening chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, you ll find the Gospel writer begins by going into great detail about the genealogy of Jesus. I ve always thought that was a terrible choice. If you were wanting to preach a sermon that would grab the congregation right from the start, you would be well-advised not to begin with 16 verses of genealogy! Matthew, though, was intended for an audience of Jewish Christians. And, by the way, he is writing a book and not preaching a sermon! The reason Matthew includes the genealogy where he does is because he wants to show that Jesus is a good Jew, the Anointed One, who comes not only from King David but all the way back to Abraham! The genealogy is a who s who of Judaism! Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills the prophecies. Jesus is the Messiah who stands within the Jewish tradition, breathes new life into the covenant community, and presents God to the whole world. In the Gospel of Matthew the visitors to manger aren t shepherds but royalty from a distant land. Then, after telling about the visit of the magi, Matthew reminds people that Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to flee Herod by entering Egypt. This part of Jesus early life would have reminded the Jewish Christians that their own people had once had to flee down into Egypt, during a time of famine. Like the Jews who escaped Egyptian slavery, Jesus -the Messiah, the Good Jew- also came up from Egypt and entered the promised land. Over and over again Matthew refers to Old Testament scripture, and points out how in Jesus that scripture has been fulfilled. In Matthew 1:23 he points to Isaiah 7:14, during the birth narrative, quoting the Jewish prophet who said a virgin -or young maiden- would give birth to a son and he would be called Emmanuel. Matthew points out how Micah 5:2 said the shepherd of Israel would come from Bethlehem. When Jesus begins his preaching ministry in Matthew 4:12, 3

4 Matthew quotes Isaiah 9:2 where the prophet said alongside the sea, in Galilee, the people who lived in the dark would see a great light. And, of course, is Matthew there is this beautiful, powerful, extended collection of Jesus teachings we know as The Sermon on the Mount. Matthew is all about how Jesus is the Anointed One whose coming the Jewish prophets foretold. Jesus establishes, in the church, the new Israel. Opening the Books Luke The Gospel of Luke was written by a missionary partner of the Apostle Paul. Luke was not a Jew, unlike Matthew, but he was a Gentile. So you ll discover how amazed he is that in Jesus God reaches out to, loves, befriends, offers life and healing to, all sorts of people. Not just the people who have bloodlines that go back to Abraham, not just to people who are respectable and who always color inside the lines, but people out at the margins -and beyondof society. Luke is the Gospel for everyman everywoman. So, in his telling of the birth of Jesus (Luke 2), Luke doesn t report the visit of Persian royalty but he tells us that the angels brought the message of the birth to shepherds. Shepherds were regarded as unclean, more likely to be dim than bright, and suspect. They had the status of modern-day carnival workers who follow the county 4-H Fair circuit. So the first group of people who hear the message of the birth of the Messiah are shepherds! In the 3 rd chapter of Luke, the writer of the Gospel details the genealogy of Jesus. Unlike Matthew, who traces the family tree of Jesus back to Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people, Luke goes all the way back to Adam. The last line in genealogy says this: son of Enoch son of Jared son of Mahalalel son of Cainan son of Enos son of Seth son of Adam son of God. Luke wants to make sure that he traces the ancestry of the Messiah to Adam because this is a Messiah, a Savior, for all people all nations! In the 7 th chapter of Luke, the writer tells us the story of a woman who enters the home of a Pharisee and anoints the feet of Jesus with perfumed oil. In the Gospel of Matthew the woman (26:6-ff) is simply described as a woman with a vase of perfume, but in Luke he makes a point of saying the woman was a sinner. Most of the town seemed to know about her wrecked life and choices. Luke wants us to know that the one who honors Jesus in this personal, beautiful, expensive, grateful way is a woman and she has been a spectacular sinner! When Jesus is headed to Jerusalem from Galilee, near the end of his ministry, Luke tells us (chapter 17) that Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. Jesus was always, Luke remind us, willing to travel through the border territory. Samaritans were to be avoided at all costs, but Jesus paid little attention to that cultural or tribal barrier. Jesus was always taking the truth and love of God to the borders of society and right past them. It s in Luke 19 that you ll find the story of Jesus walking th rough Jericho, and choosing to eat in the home of a little rascal of a tax collector named Zacchaeus. Opening the Books - John As soon as we open our Bible to the Gospel of John, we see that the life and ministry of Jesus are going to be told in a very different. The 1 st chapter of John is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing we have, I believe. It almost sounds as if John, who was heavily influenced by the Greeks and was written around the year 90, is continuing the story we read in the opening verses of Genesis. Remember those beautiful words at the beginning of the story of Creation? When God began to create the heavens and the earth the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God s wind swept over the waters God said, Let there be light. And so light 4

5 appeared. God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. God named the light Day and the darkness Night. John begins his Gospel, which is all about the deeper significance of Jesus life, and his offer of new life to all who will believe in him, with words that seem like they are telling us about a second creation: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being. What came into being through the Word was life, and the life was the light for all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn t extinguish the light. As soon as he begins the Gospel, John is telling us that Jesus wasn t simply a great prophet or teacher. John is telling us that Jesus was with God from the beginning, and that what we see when we come face-to-face with Jesus is God. Not only that, but John is announcing that in Jesus we are being offered life. What happens when we meet Jesus, let his love and way and words fill us, is life! It s a beautiful book with some of the most beautiful stories about Jesus and his ministry his love and truth and healing power. And, in John, just about everything has a deeper meaning. When John is talking about water or wine or bread or sheep he is actually talking about something much deeper. It s in John where you ll find the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (4 th chapter). There, in that conversation with the woman, Jesus announces that he is the Christ the one who will teach everything to the people. It s in John (6:35) where you ll find Jesus announcing I am the bread of life. It s in John (8:12) where you ll find Jesus announcing, I am the light of the world. One of the interesting things about John is that he sets most of the ministry of Jesus around Jerusalem. The other Gospel writers put most of the story up in Galilee. Also, when Jesus cleanses the Temple in Jerusalem that happens near the beginning of his ministry when the other Gospel writers include that in the final week of Jesus earthly life. Also, the other three Gospel writers go into great detail describing the Last Supper. John does not. John focuses on the washing of the disciples feet after the meal. Finally, John ends his Gospel with the resurrected Jesus meeting his friends up in Galilee where they are fishing. They have worked all night and not caught a thing, but this mysterious figure shows up on the shore and tells them to cast their net on the right side of the boat. They shrug and take the stranger s advice and soon the nets are full of fish! Simon Peter, who slipped away when Jesus was arrested and denied knowing him, realizes that the figure standing on the beach is Jesus. He jumps into the water and swims to shore. Peter can t wait to be reunited with his Lord! The others bring the boat into shore. When they count the number of fish in the net, they count 153 large fish. That number is significant. (Remember: in John just about everything has a deeper meaning ) Some scholars say that number represents all the nations of the world. There is room in this net, there is room in the church, there is room in grace, for all people, John is telling us. Jesus has a fire going on the shore. He is cooking bread and fish for his friends. The friends who had abandoned him after the arrest in the Garden? The friends who slipped away when he was led out to be crucified? The friends who never seemed to understand what he was saying, and who seemed more interested in being seated at the VIP table than becoming servants for God? Jesus feeds them. Jesus feeds them. Just as he only days before had washed their feet even the feet of poor, misguided, foolish Judas. Reasons to Believe There are these four views of one life. 5

6 Some would, I suppose, question the integrity of the accounts because they do not match in every detail. I think the opposite is true. If every one of the Gospels were identical, if they had everything in the same order, and told the same stories in the same way, I would suspect some kind of plot. The truth is when three or four people experience something, or see something, or hear something, there will be slight differences in what they saw and what they heard and what stood out for them. Do you believe in Jesus as the Messiah? Can you trust the reality of the resurrection? Well, it is worth noting that the people who preached the early Christian message about the resurrection, by and large, paid for that act with their lives. Ordinary people risked everything to tell others that there was a God whose love could overcome death! Do scores of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people, die for a lie? There is one last detail about the Jesus story. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, his followers were a terrified few. Staying in Jerusalem they locked the doors to the room where they were staying. They were worried they would be the next ones to be dragged off, put on trail, and nailed to a Roman cross. Then, the resurrected Jesus showed up. And everything changed. Those fearful, anxious, confused people suddenly became courageous and bold and filled with an invincible hope! In the words of a friend with whom I had breakfast this week, Something happened. That s also what Adam Hamilton says: Something happened. Four views of one life. I am thankful for each picture each different angle the rich themes that parallel one another and those stories unique to each of the four Gospels. I am thankful we have these different pictures. And I am even more thankful for the life of Jesus. In his life and words, his death and resurrection, we can know the God who loves us enough to come looking for us. I am thankful for that for him! 6

Harmony of the Four Gospels - Chart

Harmony of the Four Gospels - Chart Comparison of the Four Gospels in the Bible Harmony of the Gospels of Jesus in the Bible - shows the Comparisons of the Four Gospels of Jesus Christ in the Bible. All