Mark 6:7-13

“Notice what you notice.” Today is Mark’s account of Jesus sending out the twelve apostles – much shorter than Mathew’s!! Matthew has a long teaching session by Jesus as He sends out the twelve; Mark and Luke have only a few verses each. But Mark (and Luke) has closure that Matthew does not include: So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. (Mark 6:12-13) Why Matthew does not include these results is a mystery. In Mark the twelve are following Jesus “to a T” – preaching repentance, casting out demons, and healing the sick.

I can’t imagine what it would have been like to be sent out by Jesus as one of the twelve. Watching Him in His ministry is one thing, but doing the same things themselves is another matter completely! So if I had been one of the twelve, I presume that I could have done the preaching (albeit, much less powerfully than Jesus), but trusting in my faith to cast out demons and heal the sick – that would have been a stretch for me! Yet Mark reports that these twelve did just that. And still I wonder – six pairs of people… Were all six pairs successful in their ministries? And if so, presumably their faith would have been so strengthened that they could never have backslid, as would be reported later in the Gospels. But they did.

A weird tidbit from this numbers guy… Jesus sends the twelve out two-by-two. Today is #128 in our readings; 128 is equal to 2 to the 7^th power. Bottom line: There’s power in Christian “pairs”.

Slava Bohu!

Matthew 9:35-10:15

“Notice what you notice.” A number of observations… First, it’s not clear where today’s account takes place. Matthew, Mark, and Luke (presumably) have Him in Galilee, while The Chronological Study Bible most recently had Him in Jerusalem. However, going about in the “cities and villages” (v. 9:35) is more consistent with Jesus’ operations in Galilee than in Jerusalem (or even Judea).

Second, in Matthew’s list of apostles, if you check your footnote, Simon the Zealot is also translated as Simon the Cananite in some translations. Apparently the Greek is confusing. Still, the implication is that this Simon may be from Cana, where Jesus performed His first miracle. And could it be that “zealotry” was found as far north as this city in Galilee? Intriguing!

Third, Matthew mentions healing three times in these 19 verses (Mt. 9:35, 10:1, 10:8), clearly an important item in Jesus’ early ministry. Matthew also mentions the crowds and Jesus’ compassion on the people, but this compassion was different than His feelings for their illnesses and death: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (v. 9:36) With Jesus commissioning the twelve immediately thereafter, it almost sounds like that commissioning is a direct response to the compassion He felt for the crowds.

Looking at our world today, I expect that Jesus has that same compassion – that people are lost, “harassed and helpless”. I’ve often heard Mark Bruner say that “Jesus is not up in Heaven wringing His hands” over this world. Mark knows that Jesus has it under control. Still, I believe Jesus’ response today would be the same as it was two thousand years ago: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (v. 9:37b-38) Do I hear Jesus calling?

Slava Bohu!

John 5:31-47

“Notice what you notice.” Continuing with Jesus back in Jerusalem in John’s Gospel and the healing at the pool of Bethesda… So Jesus has four witnesses as to His divinity – John the Baptist, His works (miracles), His Father, and Scripture. Jesus responds directly to three of these. As to John the Baptist, Jesus says that if the Jews had believed what John was teaching, then they would have believed in Him and been saved, but they did not. As to His Father, Jesus pointed out that they had neither seen the Father nor heard Him; however, the Father had spoken at Jesus’ baptism, and they did not hear. The Father had also spoken of Jesus in the Old Testament, but the Jews could not see it. As to Scripture as a testimony, Jesus tells the Jews that Moses, himself, is their accuser, for Moses spoke of Him. Jesus does not comment further on His works / miracles. But He takes care of that in John’s very next chapter, the feeding of the 5,000.

Jesus spends a lot of words in this section rejecting the glory of men: v. 34, Not that the testimony that I receive is from man…; v. 41, I do not receive glory from people…; v. 43, If another comes in his own name, you will receive him…; and v. 44, How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Jesus did not seek the praise of men, only the praise of His Father. And He sought those who would seek Him on the basis of His words, not on the miracles that they saw Him perform.

So we close this healing at the pool, and we ask, to what end did Jesus perform this miracle? Was it for the man’s earthly comfort? That doesn’t seem likely, although compassion is certainly a part of Jesus’ personality. It seems more reasonable that Jesus uses this miracle as a “platform” to speak His words personally to Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. They had heard what He had been doing in Galilee, and they used Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath to challenge Him and to test Him further. But their testing Him turned out to be their own condemnation of themselves. Simply put, a moral of this story – don’t put Jesus to a test!

Slava Bohu!

John 5:24-30

“Notice what you notice.” Continuing with Jesus back in Jerusalem in John’s Gospel and the healing at the pool of Bethesda… Today’s first verse is one of those verses that David alludes to when he says that we can know that we are saved: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (v. 24) David is correct – the verse is clear, especially the present tense: “has eternal life”.

For the next few verses Jesus speaks of Himself in the third person, which is hard enough to follow for those of us reading it today – it must have been even more confusing to His first-century hearers. And if the Jewish leaders are already marveling (and angry) at Jesus equating Himself with His Father, they must be boiling at His claims of the dead hearing His voice and living again: …an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live (v. 25) and …an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out (vv. 28,29a). I wonder if these last words refer forward to His own crucifixion: And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:51-53)

Jesus in John’s Gospel appears much more cognizant of Who He is than in the Synoptics. My thoughts.

Slava Bohu!

John 5:16-23

“Notice what you notice.” Continuing with Jesus back in Jerusalem in John’s Gospel and the healing at the pool of Bethesda… I readily confess that Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel leave me confused. Today is no different. So often Jesus seems to go “off topic”. In yesterday’s and today’s readings the Jews were persecuting Jesus because He was healing on the Sabbath. So Jesus’ response to their charges is to begin a discussion of “His own Father”, which infuriated the Jews even more! So is there a sentence, a thought, a connection in Jesus’ mind that He does not speak? Is He explaining the healing miracle by saying that’s what His Father would have done? That’s the only connection that I can make.

Beyond that first confusion there is a very interesting line in Jesus’ words: For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. (v. 21) In the first half of that statement, is Jesus predicting His own Resurrection – For as the Father raises the dead…? Or is Jesus referring to us meeting His Father when we ourselves pass from death to life when our mortal lives end? And in the second half of that statement, is Jesus reflecting back on His raising Jairus’ daughter or maybe looking forward to Lazarus or some other occasion down the road, seeing life-giving miracles being done at His own hand? Then in the very next sentence, the topic changes again to judgment: For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son… (v. 22).

So in these few verses the topic has moved from (1) healing on the Sabbath to (2) Jesus referring to God as “His own Father” to (3) a discussion of He and His Father raising the dead to (4) the Father turning judgment over to the Son. How could we not be confused??!! Carol says this is a logical progression – but she is a lot smarter that I, and she will explain that tomorrow when we gather. We wait.

Slava Bohu!

John 5:1-15

“Notice what you notice.” Today we go back to Jerusalem in John’s Gospel. Jesus asked the man at the pool, “Do you want to be healed?” Time and again I have read Jesus’ question and wondered why Jesus would ask that. Surely the man would want to be healed, having spent 38 years lying there. But my Study Bible thought it was a reasonable question. Maybe the man’s illness (and excuse: “…while I am going another steps down before me”) was his best way for dealing with his situation. Not unlike “scam beggars” today, maybe this man did better with his illness than if he had to work his way through life.

The sick man did not know Jesus either before or after his healing. Only when Jesus recognized him in the temple did he finally truly meet his healer. So he rushed off to tell the Jewish leaders that his healer was Jesus, in my mind thinking that he was doing Jesus and the Jewish leaders a favor. I can see the joy in his eyes as he reported this news. And I’m sure the Jewish leaders’ response left him more confused than ever!

Jesus is not limited to asking questions about healing. What might He be asking me (or you) today?

Slava Bohu!

Mark 6:1-6

“Notice what you notice.” Today is Mark’s account of Jesus’ return to his hometown, Nazareth. And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. (v.5) It’s almost like Mark has really high expectations for Jesus, seeing no “mighty works” in Nazareth except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them, no small feat in itself! However, most recently Mark has reported on the calming of the storm in chapter 4 and the healing of the Gerasene demoniac, the raising of Jairus’ daughter, and the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage in chapter 5. So he (Peter?) had seen some “mighty works” at Jesus’ hand, but not in Nazareth.

So I wonder if I’m a “mighty works” sort of person, discounting “everyday” miracles. And although I reported a few days ago that I had never witnessed a healing (beyond normal medical intervention), I have, in fact, claimed up to a dozen “miracles” that cannot be explained by my normal understanding of life and the world around me, including six that I consider extraordinary. Plus I recognize that there are dozens (or even hundreds when we are driving) of daily deliverances of which I am completely unaware. So yes, I’m a miracles person. And if I had been at Nazareth with my current faith, I think I would have appreciated and applauded those “few sick people” that Jesus healed.

Slava Bohu!

Matthew 13:53-58

“Notice what you notice.” Today is Matthew’s account of Jesus’ return to his hometown, Nazareth. And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” (v. 57) I can’t remember when I first read this verse or heard it read, but I do recall early-on spending serious time trying to uncouple the “triple negative” and understand what Jesus said. So eventually I simplified and translated it as “A prophet has no honor at home.” So yes, I now understand the verse, but I love the original “triple negative”.

So yeah, this verse always jumps out at me. But today, the intro to that verse caught me, that “they took offense at Him”. And that caught me because I have felt some “lack of honor” in my own family. Coming from my rural roots it should be no surprise to anyone that I was the only child out of nine in the family to have even a college degree, let alone a PhD. And yes, I received “honor” from a number of my siblings. However, I clearly recall two occasions when one brother and one sister effectively ridiculed my education or my position as a college professor. Although I dismissed one of those comments as more jealousy than anything else, the second was more hurtful and has stayed with me to this day.

So I might be able to relate a bit as to how Jesus felt about being rejected at home. I doubt He stayed there long. And the good news is that at least one of his brothers (James) eventually embraced faith in Jesus’ resurrection and Messiahship. In addition, His mother Mary was with Him to the bitter end and was one of the early witnesses to His resurrection. So, all’s well that ends well? Maybe not. What about the other brothers and sister(s)? And there are still lingering disappointments.

Slava Bohu!

Luke 8:49-56

“Notice what you notice.” Today is the second half of Luke’s account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter. And her spirit returned and she got up at once. (v. 55) I have often heard the phrase “body, soul, spirit” applied to humans as a person’s physical body, personality, and life, respectively. These words from Luke confirm that ordering. Jairus’ daughter was not breathing and had no heartbeat, so the friends and relatives naturally would presume that she was dead. In fact, she WAS dead, except that Jesus understood our human ordering far beyond his peers. Her spirit WAS gone – otherwise it could not have “returned”. But Jesus’ taking her by the hand and speaking to her brought her spirit back and she got up. By bringing back her spirit Jesus brought her back to life.

So, every living human being on earth is also composed of body, soul, and spirit. I think of that iconic “holy grandmother” whose last words fully reflect her personality before she dies – before her spirit passes on. We are all spirit beings – until we die. But are we “Holy Spirit beings”? Are our lives transformed by the Holy Spirit working within us? If you were not in church this past Sunday, go online and listen to Tim Tennent’s sermon. It’s all about the Holy Spirit, effectively about how little “press” the Holy Spirit gets, but how powerful He is. Dr. Tennent opens up the Holy Spirit for us, in the Old Testament and the New. It’s a powerful message! Or come to this Friday’s “First Friday Prayer and Praise” service (6:30 pm), where we will be “Experiencing and Sharing the Transforming Power of the Holy Spirit”. God has us on earth with a job to do. We need to be “Holy Spirit filled” Christians to get that job done!

Slava Bohu!