Mark 6:14-29

“Notice what you notice.” Mark’s account of the death of John the Baptist…

Today I find myself wondering about Herodias, about her vendetta against John the Baptist. Earlier verses have John telling Herod, It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife (v. 18) and of Herod’s fear that Jesus was John’s “ghost” come back to life. What’s different for me today is in the following verse: For Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because he had married her. (v. 17, NASB) My confusion stemmed from the words “on account of” (same translation in the NRSV); I had always interpreted that phrase as “in connection with”. But today I saw that the NKJV, RSV, and ESV all translate that phrase as “for the sake of”. To me, “for the sake of” has the implication of Herod responding to a request from Herodias. So I wondered at Herodias being the instigator even of John’s imprisonment, not just his death.

So today, having read a different interpretation, “for the sake of”, I saw more clearly a few verses that made me wonder more at Herodias as the mover, the one more playing the lead in this adulterous affair. The first is in verse 19, And Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death. It’s a verse I’ve read many times before, but now with a different emphasis behind it. The next verse now also makes more sense to me in the light of this new understanding, …for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly. (v. 20) Herod kept John “safe”; in fact, it seems that John’s imprisonment served to keep Herod entertained.

Naturally Herodias’ vendetta comes home full force in the rest of the story when her daughter does exactly as Herodias had directed her and John is put to death.

I had to let this reading sit with me for a while before I more clearly understood what it was that had been confusing for me. And it took multiple reads of these same verses in multiple translations before I could unravel what I was thinking. That’s part of the beauty of having only a few verses a day to read. Mary Ann Duddy up in heaven must be smiling!!

Slava Bohu!

Matthew 14:1-12

“Notice what you notice.” The death of John the Baptist… There is a lot of reflecting someone could do about all the elements of this story. John speaking out and challenging Herod… The whole issue of Herod’s and Herodias’ relationship… Herod having the authority to imprison John, presumably without trial… Herod’s ability to have John beheaded – an awesome power to be able to command that and it be done as commanded… So many elements…!

But what struck me was the last sentence in this reading: And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus. (v. 12) It is not surprising that John’s disciples would take his body and have him buried; they must have been a devoted lot. But then, with their leader gone, what did they do? They went to Jesus. I could easily wonder that John could still have his own disciples after he had recognized and baptized Jesus and proclaimed Him to be “the One” (John 1:27). Why would John still have followers at all? Why would he not send them off to find Jesus? And did John continue preaching his baptism of repentance after baptizing Jesus? Yes, questions here also…

But the one bottom line is that John’s disciples went to find Jesus. No better place to go…!! And I’m guessing that since they had been following John, they would now become disciples of Jesus, a good outcome for them. Now flash forward a year or two – Jesus Himself is crucified. His disciples had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. They huddled together in a mass, fearful as to what would become of them. They didn’t have the option of going to Jesus that John’s disciples had; instead Jesus came to them! Just as He had comforted John’s disciples, He now did the same for His own disciples.

Jesus also covers our disappointments, our griefs. He has promised His Holy Spirit as our Comforter (Helper, Advocate, Counselor) so that we are not alone (John 14:16, ff). Whatever the world throws at us, Jesus offers us Himself. We are not alone…!

Slava Bohu!

Matthew 10:32-11:1

“Notice what you notice.” Today we again continue Matthew’s account of Jesus’ instructions to His disciples. And again, Jesus has some harsh words for them – not harsh toward them, but harsh toward the world and their enemies. This is especially true of the paragraph beginning with Jesus saying, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (v. 34) In many other occasions Jesus has preached peace, as in Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. (John 14:27) My guess is that His “peace” is within/between His followers and that the “sword” is between His followers and the world/devil.

Jesus closes out His instructions with some comfort for His disciples that very likely continues to speak to us today: Whoever receives you receives me…, The one who receives a prophet…, the one who receives a righteous person…, And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water… (vv. 40-42), with each of these “targets” ending with a positive blessing. Maybe that’s a word for our missionaries today or those of us who support missionaries. Or it could be that we ARE His missionaries and the blessings fall on those who receive us. But that’s only true if we are, in fact, sharing Him with the world around us. Blessings are there if we act!

Slava Bohu!

Matthew 10:16-31

“Notice what you notice.” Two days ago we interrupted Matthew’s very long account of Jesus’ sending out the twelve apostles so that we could read the more parallel passages in Mark and Luke. Today we continue Matthew’s account of Jesus’ instructions to His disciples. Although we might have imagined our own version of a “pep talk” that Jesus might have delivered, His actual words do not offer much encouragement except in two places: (1) But the one who endures to the end will be saved. (v. 22b) and (2) Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. (v. 31) Around those two verses Jesus cautions His disciples that they will face many tests in the world when they speak of Him. In fact, as I read the first half of today’s reading the apostle Paul came to mind. He was delivered over to the courts and flogged; dragged before governors and kings to bear witness before them and the Gentiles; hated by all for Jesus’ name’s sake; and persecuted in one town and forced to flee to the next. Jesus’ words came true in Paul’s life; I suspect that many of those twelve disciples came to many of the same outcomes.

The other item that came to mind today was in verse 27: What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. Carol and I and two of our children lived in Nitra, Slovakia during the academic year 2004-2005. There we became familiar with Ján Cardinal Korec, a Catholic Cardinal who also lived in Nitra. He had written a book, Night of the Barbarians, (1996) in which he described the 1950 Communist takeover of all the churches and religious schools and institutions in Czechoslovakia and the ensuing repression of faith throughout the country. Korec was studying for the priesthood during this time and had already written a number of theological articles while studying and was already well known for his writing. As a result he was immediately secretly ordained a priest. One year later he was ordained a bishop, at that time the youngest Catholic bishop in the world. In his book Korec described his continuing to secretly teach and ordain young men to the priesthood. What I remember vividly is his talking about whispering into a megaphone into these young men’s ears so that his words (and theirs) could not be heard by the Communist authorities. (See Jesus’ quote at the beginning of this paragraph.) His activities were eventually uncovered and he spent eight years in jail (1960-1968). His time in jail was the shortest chapter in his book. Please forgive my Wikipedia source for the preceding information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1n_Chryzostom_Korec

Slava Bohu!

Luke 9:1-6

“Notice what you notice.” Today is Luke’s account of Jesus sending out the twelve apostles – also much shorter than Matthew’s. My Study Bible points to this reading as beginning a new phase in Jesus’ Galilean ministry. In the first phase He travels Galilee with Peter, Andrew, James, and John (see Mark 1:1-20, 29, 35-38). In the second phase He takes all twelve apostles along with Him (Luke 8:1, ff.). Now in this third phase He sends them out two-by-two while He ministers alone (Mt.11:1).

One phrase stands out for me in Luke’s account: And He…gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases (v. 1). In Mark, He…gave them authority over the unclean spirits (Mk. 6:7), while in Matthew He simply says, Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. (Mt. 10:8) Luke’s clarification is in his use of two words together, “power and authority”.

Sometimes it’s hard to separate those two concepts. A police officer has power to enforce the law, but does not have authority outside her jurisdiction. Likewise, this same police officer has authority to enforce the law when she is not in uniform, but if she is in “plain clothes” her power may be substantially diminished. In Luke, Jesus has given the twelve both the power and the authority. The demons cannot challenge the twelve on the basis of the authority on which they are acting and they are certainly powerless to stop them!

As to this “authority”, two incidents come to mind. The first is in Mark 11:27b-28, And as He was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, and they said to Him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” Clearly the Jewish leaders were concerned about authority, not wanting their own authority diminished.

The second incident, I offer you in full, from Acts 19:11-16, And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. Authority is important!

Do we not have that same power and authority today? “I believe Lord, help my unbelief!” (Mk. 9:24)

Slava Bohu!

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!