Day 16

Jesus fed four thousand people today with seven loaves and a few fish. When Jesus stated His intention to feed the crowd, His disciples said, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” Of course God had fed Israel in the wilderness for forty years (not to mention that Jesus had recently fed five thousand people); but the disciples still did not really know who Jesus was — and they would not until after Jesus rose from the dead. Only by a revelation of the resurrection can we really understand who Jesus is.

After Jesus fed the four thousand He again encountered the Pharisees who were again disputing with Him and again Jesus sighed deeply in apparent frustration (see yesterday’s blog). This time the Pharisees demanded a sign from Jesus. Jesus regularly worked miracles, but the Pharisees wanted Jesus to perform miracles at their command. This is testing (or tempting) God. Jesus had settled this issue when He refused the temptation to leap from the pinnacle of the temple in order to display Himself irrefutably as God. Jesus bluntly told the Pharisees that no sign would be given to this kind (“generation”) of people. Previously Jesus stated that the only sign that would be given for the proof of His identity would be the sign of the prophet Jonah.

An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:39-40)

The confirming sign and validation of all that Jesus taught and claimed to be is His resurrection.

I want to make the point that the unbelief of the Pharisees was a dishonest unbelief. They did not want to believe. If Jesus was the Messiah, they would have to defer their authority to Him, and they were more interested in preserving their position than in discovering Messiah. Not to get ahead of our journey, but in an extremely revealing passage of scripture found in John 11:47 we read…

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation.”

There you have it. The Pharisees weren’t looking for Messiah, they were seeking to preserve their position. Unbelief regarding Jesus Christ is almost always dishonest. That’s why Jesus said to Pilate, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Blaise Pascal used to say of faith, “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” This is equally true of unbelief. Unbelievers are often fond of flattering themselves that their skepticism is rational. But my experience has been that “rational skepticism” is usually a facade for irrational unbelief. The irrationality of their unbelief is they simply don’t want to believe because they don’t like the implications of Jesus Christ being Lord.

On two occasions I have performed an online thought experiment with a group of unbelievers (many of them openly antagonistic to Christianity). I asked them, for the sake of discussion, to imagine that the basic claims of the Gospel are true: That Jesus is the Son of God, who died for our sins, rose from the dead, and is returning to set up His kingdom. Then I asked them if they like it. I was amazed to discover that the vast majority of them did not like even the idea of the Gospel…even if it meant heaven on earth. Do you see what is going on here? It’s not just that they don’t believe, they don’t want to believe. They don’t want Jesus to be Lord.

In Mark 9, following the Transfiguration (I’m going to preach on the Transfiguration Friday night) Jesus encounters the man with the demonized boy. In the course of their conversation, Jesus makes the famous statement, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” The father responds by saying, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” You can see from this that faith springs from the heart and the volition. You can choose to believe. You can say to Jesus, “Lord, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.” Once you enact your will to believe the Word of God and act on your faith, all things are possible!

Day 15

I gave this day the title “Mega Faith” when I originally but this together because my attention was drawn to the Syro-Phoenician woman of whom Jesus said (in Matthew) her faith was “mega.” But as I was with Jesus in Mark 6 and 7 today it was other things that caught my attention. If I were to give this passage a title today I would call it…

Miracles, Tragedy, Conflict and Pressure

Mark 6 and 7 are full of miracles. The Feeding of the Five Thousand. Jesus walking on water. Multitudes healed in Gennesaret just by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment. A demon cast out the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter. A deaf mute healed in the region of Decapolis.

When we imagine what it would have been like to have been with Jesus during His three years of ministry, we tend to think, “My, it would have been a lot of fun to see Jesus do all those miracles.” No doubt there was tremendous excitement generated by Jesus’ miracle ministry, but we should not ignore the reality that there was always the pressure of conflict and the constant specter of danger. Being with Jesus during His ministry years was not some sort of idyllic utopia where every day is better than the day before. There was always a certain pressure present and some days there was even tragedy. How else could the death of John the Baptist been viewed but as a tragedy?

Remember, Peter is the primary source for Mark’s Gospel. Peter’s brother Andrew had been a disciple of John the Baptist before becoming a disciple of Jesus. (see John 1:35-40) The amount of space that Mark gives to recording the murder of John the Baptist is evidence that this made a big impression on Peter and the rest of the disciples. Jesus even seeks to take the Twelve on a recuperative retreat after hearing the news of John’s death.

Think about how the disciples viewed John’s murder. They did not see it from the vantage point of history that we have, they were caught up in the events in real time. John the Baptist had been arrested for condemning Herod’s illicit marriage to his brother’s wife. While drunk at a debauched birthday party, Herod was manipulated into having John unceremoniously beheaded in prison. The great preacher and prophet John the Baptist was dead before the age of thirty-one.

From our vantage point we have a better perspective to judge the life of John the Baptist and we think only of him fulfilling his ministry and being the great forerunner of Christ — but to the disciples of Jesus, some of whom had been disciples of John the Baptist, it must have come as a bitter blow. I can’t help but wonder if Judas possibly picked up an offense over this issue. At times of tragedy people often take up offenses in an effort to affix blame on someone. Did Judas think, “Why didn’t Jesus do something before John got his head cut off in prison?”? I wonder.

Jesus tried to take the Twelve away for a time of rest and recuperation, but it was not to be. The multitudes discovered where Jesus and His disciples were going and they followed them there. So Jesus taught them, healed them and fed them.

When Jesus came back into Galilee, the Pharisees were there to find fault. This is what Pharisees do best: Find fault. Refuse to be a fault finding Pharisee! The world doesn’t need anymore fault finding Pharisees. The contentiousness of the Pharisees inspired Jesus to preach a rebuttal sermon on the Word of God versus the tradition of men. It is so easy to allow religious tradition to rule our lives and turn us into fault finding Pharisees. So Jesus confronted the malady of legalism and religiosity head on with a very straight sermon.

It seems there was always an atmosphere of conflict surrounding Jesus. Such things are wearisome. When the disciples questioned Jesus in private about the teaching he had given that day, you can sense Jesus’ frustration when He says to His disciples…

“Are you being willfully stupid? Don’t you see that what you swallow can’t contaminate you? It doesn’t enter your heart but your stomach, works its way through your intestines and is finally flushed.” (The Message)

Mark then adds this commentary: “Thus He declared all foods clean.”

Dietary laws have no place in Christianity. Health issues are one thing, but there are no dietary laws under the New Covenant. Can somebody say, “Pass the pork chops, please.”?

When Jesus returned to Galilee He was asked to heal a deaf-mute. Notice carefully what Mark records…

“Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, ‘Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began to speak plainly.”

Did you notice the sigh? Jesus sighed deeply. Try it yourself…sigh deeply. *sigh* What mood does that evoke? Is there not a kind of weariness in it?

What am I saying? That the ministry of Jesus was not always a picnic. His miracle ministry occurred amidst conflict and tragedy and the constant pressure of multitudes demanding His attention. Remember we are in a real battle. And if at times you feel the pressure, remember Jesus felt it too. It’s part of being human and being a Christian doesn’t automatically exempt us from it. But we have the promise that we can cast our cares upon the Lord because He cares for us.

Thank you, Jesus.

Day 14

Chicago

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be receiving so many wonderful reports from people on this two month journey who tell me they are really discovering Jesus in a new way. Every day I receive many testimonies of how people are gaining new passion for the “Unvarnished Jesus.” YES! I was talking on the phone today with my good friend Georgian Banov; I told him what was going on and he asked me, “Is it revival?” I said, “Well, people are excited about Jesus.” Georgian said, “That’s revival!” He’s right. This is another late night post (past 1:30 AM) — so I’m going to keep it short.

“Seed” seems to be Jesus’ favorite metaphor in His parables about the Kingdom. Nothing about the seed process is instantaneous. In the American Charismatic culture we love the instantaneous but despise the process. Yet almost everything pertaining to the Kingdom happens by process. If you expect things to be instant that can only occur according to process, you will become discouraged, abandon the process and miss out altogether. Don’t despise the process — the best things that God will ever do in your life, will be accomplished through the means of process. Consider the Parable of the Growing Seed in Mark 4…

The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

You don’t have to know how seed grows for seed to grow. If you get good seed in good soil, it will grow whether you know anything about how it works or not. This is true in our lives as we sow the Word of God into our own heart and it’s true as we sow the Word of God in the heart’s of others. Don’t expect every person to immediately become a Christian in the same instant that you give them the Gospel. This almost never happens. Sow the Word, go to bed, get up in the morning and go about life. As the seed finds good soil and the process of time does its work, the day will come when the sickle can be put in. Of course we are always tempted to rush it along, but when we try to do that, we usually just mess things up. Allow the Word of God and the God of the Word time to work in a person’s life. Let things ripen. I have the privilege every week to “put in the sickle” and see people respond to an invitation to receive Jesus as their Savior; but with those who really meet Jesus, there is almost always a long complex story of how God has been at work in their life to bring them to the point where they make faith decision for Jesus. So learn to be content to sow the Word, go to bed at night and allow time to do what only time can do.

Now I’m going to follow Jesus’ advise…and go to bed.

Well my heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam
That’s where I’ll be when I get called home
The wind, it whispers to the buckeyed trees in rhyme
Well my heart’s in the Highland,
I can only get there one step at a time.

Day 13

Chicago

It’s going on 1:00 A.M. Because of storms across the Midwest I got into Chicago four hours late. The building dedication I was speaking at began at 7:00 and I didn’t get the church until 8:30. I went directly from O’Hare to the church, threw on my suit in a conference room and went straight to the platform. The people were understanding and hungry for the word. The Lord blessed it. After the meeting the pastor took me out to dinner and we talked about the spiritual condition of Europe and the need for effective spiritual warfare. The pastor is from Ireland (and his name is Patrick!) I got into my hotel room a little before midnight, but I wanted begin my journey through the Gospel of Mark before I go to bed. Here are a few late night rambling thoughts

Last week we were with Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. This week we’re going to be with Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. Everything in Mark happens fast, there is a sense of urgency in this Gospel. Mark is in a hurry to get the news out. In the first three chapters, Mark uses the word “immediately” twelve times. I like Mark. I’m like Mark. I like for things to happen fast, preferably immediately.

Mark’s Gospel was the first Gospel written (somewhere between ten to twenty years after the resurrection). Mark was an assistant and traveling companion to the Apostle Peter. Peter is Mark’s primary source for his Gospel. In some ways you can think of the Gospel of Mark as Peter’s memoirs of his three years with Jesus. I can imagine Mark with quill in hand intently listening to Peter as he reminisces about his adventures with Jesus.

Mark says nothing about the birth of Jesus (possibly because this was not something Peter would reminisce about). Mark begins with a hasty account of the ministry of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus and the wilderness temptation. All of this is covered in just thirteen verses. Mark’s first detailed account comes when Jesus begins preaching in Galilee.

And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fisherman. Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

Of course this is where Peter’s reminiscing of his life with Jesus would begin. With the Call. Did Peter make some comment to Mark? Did Peter say, “Mark, the greatest thing that ever happened to me was when Jesus saw me and said, ‘Follow Me.'”? Did Peter say, “Mark, the best decision I ever made in my life was also the craziest thing I ever did — I left my nets and followed Him.”? Did Peter say something like that to Mark? I wonder.

I know for sure the greatest thing of all is the Call.

I’m still astounded that thirty years ago Jesus called a long-haired teenager nicknamed Fry to follow Him. When I made the crazy decision to really go for it and follow Jesus, it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Thank you, Jesus. I want to say it again, I want to say it anew…I will follow You.

Goodnight, my friends.

Day 12

The resurrection of Jesus is everything. Christianity rises or falls on whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead. Without the resurrection, Jesus is just another sage or mystic offering another brand of ethics or spirituality. Take it or leave it. But if Jesus really did rise from the dead, then He must be who He claimed to be: The Way, the Truth and the Life. The only way to the Father.

The resurrection of Jesus is a fact. A historical fact. The greatest fact in history. I’ll have something to say about this on Easter Sunday.

The resurrection happened in a garden. The fall of man happened in a garden. The recovery of man happened in a garden. Adam lost the garden for us. Jesus recovered the garden for us.

One of the things that strike me about the Gospel accounts of the resurrection is the sparing and stark manner in which they report it. There is no hyperbole, no attempt at sensationalism. It’s as if they were written by Sergeant Joe Friday. “Just the facts, ma’am.” Matthew, Mark, Luke and John didn’t attempt to corroborate their stories. That’s why each account is somewhat different. No one person who was a witness of the events surrounding the resurrection saw it all. All the Gospel writers could do was record what witnesses told them, and each witness had only their own perspective.

But the thing that stands out the most to me as I read the resurrection accounts is the sheer surprise of it all. Despite the fact that Jesus had specifically told His disciples that He would rise from the dead, no one expected the resurrection. Our God is a God full of surprises, and the resurrection was His greatest surprise.

Matthew begins his resurrection account with these words: “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn.” Matthew is simply relating the facts in a straight forward manner. But I want to say, a whole lot more than the first day of a new week was beginning to dawn! It was a new world that was dawning! It was man’s redemption that was dawning! It was the Kingdom of Heaven that was dawning!

What I love about reading the resurrection accounts is that if you allow yourself, you can be swept away in the wonder, the awe, the surprise, the joy and even the fear that surrounded the resurrection. I want to live in the wonder of the resurrection. I choose to live in the wonder of the resurrection.

JESUS IS RISEN!

That is the never ending surprise of joy.

Day 11

Today I walked on holy ground. I followed Jesus from the home of Simon in Bethany to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. I witnessed the passion of the Christ. Conspiracy. Violence. Injustice. Humiliation. Pain. Agony. Death. Burial. That’s what I saw. I saw my salvation. It was not cheap. It was costly. I walked on holy ground and I saw the passion of my Savior. His passion to save Me. These are the words which leapt to life as I followed my Savior in His Passion.

The Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified…plotted to take Jesus… she did it for My burial…thirty pieces of silver…betray Him…My time is at hand…this is My body…this is My blood…I will strike the Shepherd…you will deny Me three times…Gethsemane…My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death…let this cup pass from Me…My betrayer is at hand…swords and clubs… kiss…seize Him…Caiaphas…false testimony…blasphemy!…spat in His face…beat Him…struck Him…I do not know the Man…rooster crowed… bound Him…Pontius Pilate…Barabbas…let Him be crucified…washed his hands…scourged…crown of thorns…mocked…spat on Him…struck Him…
led Him away…
CROSS…
Golgotha…
crucified…
cast lots …blasphemed… reviled… darkness…
Eli, Eli lama sabachthani!…
sour wine…yielded up His spirit…the earth quaked…
the body…tomb…stone…guard.

Day 10

The Olivet Discourse. On Tuesday of the Holy Week Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem and gave His disciples a prophetic teaching pertaining to the siege of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple, the events of the last days and the promise of His return. Some of the events Jesus prophesied have already happened long ago. The siege of Jerusalem and the desecration and destruction of the Temple occurred in A.D. 70. Other events are yet to happen…possibly soon.

But the purpose of Jesus’ discourse upon Olivet was not to fuel endless speculation about dates, but to give us the blessed hope of His glorious return and inspire us to live in a state of readiness. The four parables that Jesus gave immediately following the Olivet Discourse (the Servant, the Virgins, the Talents, the Sheep and Goats) are all about being ready for the coming of the Lord. The important thing is not to get it right — the minutia of eschatological speculation — the important thing is to get us right. So I’m not sure that the Bible prophecy expert who’s been married four times really gets it.

But we do live in a time pregnant with anticipation, there’s no denying that. People simply have a feeling that big things are on the horizon. It’s part of the mood of our age. This global mood oscillates between hopeful expectation and dark foreboding, but nearly everyone is expecting big things to happen.

Big things are afoot. Jesus is on the move. And the coming of the Lord is the great hope of the church…and humanity. If it weren’t for the hope I have of Jesus returning to reign I would be an incorrigible pessimist.

PAROUSIA . It’s a Greek word meaning coming or presence used throughout the New Testament to refer to the event of Jesus’ return. The blessed hope is not we’re going, but, Jesus is coming! The parousia is the blessed hope. Parousia is used 16 times in the New Testament to refer to the coming of the Lord. It’s used by Jesus, Paul, James, Peter and John. It’s used for the first time here in Matthew 24.

Jesus is coming.

Come Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Day 9

If I were doing Two months of Discovery: The Unvarnished Jesus all by myself as a personal spiritual exercise, it would be wonderful. But the idea that there are a couple of thousand of us on this journey together just blows my mind. Everybody’s talking about it and the momentum is building. Stay on board. This train is picking up speed. The Unvarnished Express. Running nonstop from Mediocreville to Revelation City.

Today it was Palm Sunday. During the course of our Two Months of Discovery we will experience Palm Sunday five times. I don’t know what it is about the Triumphal Entry, but whenever I think about it, it makes me happy. It’s one of the easiest events from the life of Jesus for me to imagine. I have walked the route of the Triumphal Entry from the top of the Mount of Olives to the city of Jerusalem numerous times. Even though many things change over time, the topography doesn’t really change and I have a vivid picture in my mind of what Palm Sunday was like. I can hear the hosannas and I can see the waving of the palms. In some ways the Triumphal Entry may be the most joyful event in the ministry of Jesus. For just a moment it was a brief foreshadowing of what it will be like when Jesus returns as King to take up His thrown. Hosanna! Maranatha! I have an icon of the Triumphal Entry that Peri gave me for Christmas a few years ago in my study. It reminds me that the King has come and the King will return.

The Triumphal Entry is a moment of great joy, but as soon as Jesus arrives in Jerusalem He is on a collision course with the chief priests — the purveyors of dead religion. Jesus cleanses the temple and denounces them for replacing the sacred ideals of worship with the crassness of commercialism. The next morning as Jesus returns to Jerusalem to teach in the Temple He curses a barren fig tree — an apt symbol of the spiritual condition of Israel. As soon as He arrives at the Temple Jesus is challenged by the chief priests concerning His authority to do these things. Jesus then gives two parables aimed at the priests. The meaning of these parables is summed up when Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, the Kingdom of Heaven will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”

In chapter 22, first the party of the Pharisees tries to trap Jesus in a political question about paying taxes and then the party of the Sadducees tries to trap Jesus in a theological question about the resurrection. I love the way Jesus brilliantly defeats the Pharisees and Sadducees in just a few words. They learn the lesson: Don’t debate with Jesus.

Next an expert in religious law asks Jesus a profound question, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus response is the foundation for Christian morality and ethics:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

And these were precisely the two commandments the Pharisees and the Sadducees in their legal religion did not keep. With its myriad of manmade laws, religious legalism always fails to produce authentic love for God and altruistic love for people. Other than that legal religion is just great.

Then in chapter 23 Jesus launches into the most scathing rebuke of His ministry. Jesus no longer holds back, but explodes with holy fury. He rebukes the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy, greed and religious pretense. He lambastes them as blind guides who strain a gnat and swallow a camel (Somebody in the crowd had to laugh at that one.) He calls them serpents, vipers and whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men’s bones. He calls their proselytes sons of hell. Jesus lays woe upon woe upon these legalistic priests of dead religion.

The die was cast and men with long beards and longer faces were plotting murder.

At the close of the chapter Jesus laments the spiritual blindness of Jerusalem. But His lament is tempered with the promise that the day will come when Jerusalem again says, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Hosanna. Maranatha.

Day 8

Jesus taught a wisdom not of this world and a wisdom that is often contradictory to the conventional wisdom of this world. In Matthew 19 you see people constantly having trouble understanding or accepting the transcendent wisdom of Jesus.

The Pharisees didn’t understand the nature of marriage. Today we live in a society that is increasingly confused about what is marriage. In Matthew 19:3-5, Jesus makes it quite clear.

The disciples didn’t understand the nature of celibacy. Jesus taught there are those called to celibacy for the Kingdom’s sake.

The disciples didn’t understand the relationship between children and the Kingdom. Jesus taught that the Kingdom must be encountered as a child. G.K. Chesterton wrote,

“The exaltation of childhood is something we really do understand; but it was by no means a thing that was then in that sense understood. The pagan world, as such, would not have understood any such thing as a serious suggestion that a child is higher or holier than a man.” (The Everlasting Man, p. 199)

I’m thinking of this line:

Everybody’s wearing a disguise
To hide what they’ve got left behind their eyes
But me, I can’t cover what I am
Wherever the children are, I follow them

The rich young ruler didn’t understand how to obtain eternal life. Do you understand how to obtain eternal life? Jesus’ answer is simple: “Come, follow Me.”

The disciples didn’t understand how people could be saved. Jesus explained it is impossible for men to save themselves, but with God all things are possible.

Peter didn’t understand the nature of reward in the Kingdom. No sacrifice for the Kingdom will ever be left unrewarded.

And we all have trouble understanding the nature of greatness in the Kingdom. Many who are regarded as first now will come in last and many who are overlooked now will come in first. When the Kingdom comes in fullness, things will change!

The line it is drawn and the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’

Chapter 20 opens with one of Jesus’ most enigmatic parables. There are still plenty of things from the wisdom of Jesus we find hard to understand. Let me just make this one comment: Those hired first negotiated for a day’s wage (a denarius). Those hired later went to work with only the promise of “whatever is right I will give you.” Those who trust in the grace of God will not be disappointed.

Matthew 20:17-20 marks a change in the story. From this point on Jesus is heading resolutely to Jerusalem and to the cross. Jesus will not return to Galilee until after His suffering, death and resurrection.

But the disciples didn’t really understand this either.

James and John didn’t understand the reality of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the cup of suffering. They would later.

And Jesus had to again teach His disciples concerning the nature of greatness in the Kingdom.

Chapter 20 concludes with Jesus healing two blind men in Jericho before He heads up to Jerusalem.

Notice that Jesus healed two blind men in Jericho and remember that Jesus healed two demonized men in the country of the Gadarenes. I’ll have something to say about this when we get to Mark’s account of these events.

Jesus, help us to humble ourselves, serve one another and become like children that we might discover true greatness in Your Kingdom. Amen