Sermon by Matt Kennedy
text: Mark 1:35-39
Sunday May 13th, 2012

Mark is the shortest gospel but the more you study, the more you find that what the other gospels tell us directly Mark embeds in his storyline.

We’re going to see that very clearly this morning in Mark 1:35-39 but first - to help us do that - we need to take a few steps back to Mark 1:112-13 where we find Mark’s temptation account. Go ahead and turn there if you will.

How long is it? 2 verses.

Okay now turn to Matthew 4. How long is that? 11 verses. If we were to turn to Luke’s version in Luke 4 we’d find that he has 12 verses.

There’s no contradiction here. Mark simply chooses not to give as much detail upfront as Luke and Matthew do. There is a reason for that as we’ll see.

Now look’s take a closer at Matthew’s version before we turn back to Mark 1:35-39 - and please stick with me here even though it may seem like we’re taking a detour. We’re not. What we’re doing here in Matthew will help us understand our text in Mark.

Alright let’s look at all three temptations in Matt 4

Jesus’ first temptation(v.3) is to use his power to satisfy and justify himself: “You’re the Son of God, why should you be hungry? Why not make bread right now…that is, if you’re really the son of God.”

Jesus answers, “The scriptures are my nourishment.”

Now, some might say: “Well, that’s easy for Jesus - he’s God.”

That is to misunderstand Jesus’ mission.

Yes, Jesus is God but that’s not how he resists temptation.

In Romans 5:12 Paul compares Jesus to Adam.

They share something in common. What is it? Both Jesus and Adam were created free of sin.

You and I are not. We have what has come to be called a “sin nature”. Our hearts, minds, desires are from conception oriented away from God and toward the self. If you have children, by the way, this is no newsflash. I want what pleases me and not what pleases God. I have a heart oriented toward sin.

But human beings were not originally created with sin natures. God created Adam free from sin. And - this is so important to keep in the forefront of your mind - God made Jesus of Nazareth to be like Adam (Heb 4:15) without a sin nature.

Why?

Adam was called to trust God in all things. When he turned away, the entire cosmos came tumbling down…death, disease, entered in. Our sin natures flow directly from Adam.
God the Father sent his Son to undo what Adam did; to face the temptations Adam faced - in the way he faced them - without falling - and thereby, to do for us, as our substitute, what Adam would not do and what we cannot do for ourselves. 

To be a true substitute, Jesus had to face temptation just as Adam did - to stand in his place and undo his works. And, likewise, he had to endure the temptations we endure daily and come out of each victorious on our behalf.

For this reason Jesus, when faced with temptation, did not lean on his divinity to master it. He certainly depended utterly upon his Father for stregth and power to resist sin…but he did so in his humanity, like we do.

An example of how this worked out in Jesus’ life might help:

A sick woman touches his robe, Jesus asks, “who touched me?”(Mk5:30). Was Jesus lying? Did he really know who touched him and just decided to pretend not to? No he really didn’t know.

He tells his disciples, I don’t know when I’ll return (Mk13:32). Was he lying? No. If so he would not be the sinless lamb. In his divinity he is omniscient, but he did not access his divine power during his earthly ministry to know all things…but left it to his Father to reveal all that he needed to know.

He asks his Father in Gethsemane if there’s another way to redeem the cosmos apart from his bearing the eternal weight of sin on the cross (Mk14:36). Why did he ask that? Well, it was a horrifying thing to consider but also, Jesus truly wondered whether there might be another way to accomplish the Father’s purpose.

Part of being human is not knowing how things turn out. That’s why we worry. That’s why we fret. And that “not knowing” plays a central role in the trial and temptation of being human. Faithfulness requires trusting and obeying God when obedience seems the worst possible choice. The choice, after all, that the serpent held out to Adam was to “know” what God had not revealed to him (the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil)

Jesus had to walk that walk - to live faithfully in the midst of uncertainty - but how could he if he just fell back on his divinity?

So when Jesus answers Satan: ‘Man lives on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ He’s hungry, he’s tired, he’s a man, truly leaning on scripture for his strength.

Next (vv.5-6) Satan tempts Jesus to distrust God’s goodness. “Is God really for you? If so why drive you out here, hungry and alone? Let’s find out if you can trust him. Take a leap, see if he catches you.”
Jesus answers, essentially,  “To, this suffering is good for me because my Father led me here.”
Finally Satan tempts Jesus with immediate gratification vv9-10. “Why should you suffer before getting what’s rightfully yours? You’re David’s heir! Take your kingdom now. No cross, no pain. Your best life now.”
Jesus says, “I already have the best life has to offer. I have my Father. He is better than all the kingdoms of the world. I will worship him alone.”

Now these three temptations - to satisfy/justify himself, to distrust his Father, and immediate gratification - don’t show up in one episode in Mark but everywhere. And they are all found in Mark 1:35-39.
Turn back now to Mark1. It’s Sunday morning. Overnight, people arrive in Capernaum from surrounding villages - word of Jesus’ miraculous power travels fast.

But there’s a problem. Jesus isn’t there.

Where is he?
Verse 35, “rising very early in the morning…still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.”

The word for “desolate place” there is “eremos” - it means “wilderness”. Mark uses eremos in verse 12 - the Spirit drives Jesus into the ‘eremos’. And in v4: John appears baptising in the ‘eremos’.

But eremos is a strange choice here. The region is heavily populated, thoroughly cultivated, dotted with cities and villages. There’s no eremos near Capernaum. Why use that word?

After dividing the Red Sea, God drives Israel into the eremos - there, shorn of everything else, he teaches them, through trial, suffering and heartbreak, to trust him. Subsequently, eremos comes to symbolize a place of trial and utter dependence upon God. That’s why John baptized in the eremos. That’s why God sent Jesus to the eremos to be tempted.

And that’s why Mark uses eremos in v.35. In the massing crowds, Jesus faces a trial. His name is exalted. His works renowned. People crave his his presence, his power.

It’s human nature to please to other people. It’s why polls are taken. Polls don’t just reflect popular mood. They shape it. When you hear: “most Americans think X”, if you think X already you’re likely to consider those who think Y weird, bigoted, or stupid.

If you think Y, you’ll be discouraged, maybe change your mind, or be very quiet.

Knowing the majority opinion is an opportunity and a threat.  On one side lies approval on the other alienation. For Public figures opinion is crucial - If you know what people want you can say pleasing words and become “the voice of the people.” But if not, you risk losing everything.

Jesus faces a pressure we all know and every leader lives with. The kingdoms of the earth lie before him - represented by the crowds. How easy to take everything now, to fill his stomach with bread, to turn from his Father’s plan, to take the crown without the cross.

Jesus gets up early and sets out for the eremos.

He tears himself away to lay himself bare, to offer up his emotions, his temptations, before his Father.
Jesus’ life is a model for us but especially his life of prayer.

1.He gets up early, he makes time, purposefully setting a place and time to be alone with God.

2.He prays before acting. He doesn’t act and ask God to bless.

3.He’s not self-reliant. He needs his Father. If Jesus leans on his Father - how much more should we?

How deep I can get into a problem, how long I can worry, how enmeshed in anguish I can get, before I think - I should pray about this. 

Meanwhile, Jesus disciples panic. “Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37and they found him and said to him, “Everyone’s looking for you.”
“Everyone’s looking for you”  is a rebuke. It’s what you’d say if you go to your friend’s birthday party and he spends the entire time in his room. “Everyone’s looking for you.”

The disciples have an agenda. Jesus isn’t getting it. As they survey the massing crowd they think - this is it. This is how it begins. If Jesus gives the people what they came for, the world is our oyster. If he doesn’t, they’ll leave and we’ll have nothing.

The desire to please people is poison for disciples. It leads to tentative, careful, moderate, safe, speech and action. It makes us cowards.

Here’s how it works in the church. To be crass for a moment: full pews translate into cash. Cash = survival. If you leave, or stop giving Good Shepherd dies. There is a lot of temptation for me in that.

On top of that, for pastors, a big church means success, influence, glory. You go to any pastors’ conference and sooner or later in almost every conversation someone will ask: “so, how many people do you have on a Sunday morning?”
It’s tempting to shape the music, the liturgy, the sermon in a way calculated to please the most people - to steer away from difficult topics, skip hard passages, to mold my words to fit what I believe most want to hear.
8 years ago a former prominent leader here said: “You’ll know my opinion of your sermon by where I sit. If I’m bored or I don’t like what I hear, I’ll go sit in the stairwell.”

We were small then and couldn’t afford to lose anyone. So when he’d do that I’d freak out.

I had to decide - and it’s not past tense, I still struggle with this - I have to decide every week, who do I serve? If my goal is to keep the numbers up, then there are passages I’ll never preach, texts I’ll de-fang, soften or twist, true things I’ll never say.

But if my goal is to be your pastor - to love you by explaining God’s word and applying it, then sometimes I’ll be unpopular, sometimes you won’t like me. I’ll say things you wish I didn’t. There will be times when people leave because of what I say.

The struggle is not just mine. Christians, are citizens of another country. Our loyalty lies with a king who rules a city far above any earthly city. And he said “a servant is not above his master. If they hated me, they’ll hate you.” If your words and deeds are mine, then no matter how gentle and loving you are, some people won’t like you.

It’s so tempting to buckle, to back down, to not say that. To go back to Capernaum and be the man of the people. So how does Jesus handle this temptation?

“38he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.”

In Capernaum Jesus preached, healed, and cast out demons. In verse 32, you see the popular desire - Healing and deliverance. But in verse 38 you see what the Father called Jesus to do. Why did he “come out?” To Preach. Jesus does his Father’s will.

Now that text might seem strange to some of us. Really? Preaching? What about saving us from our sins?

Well, let me ask you: What if Jesus’d been mute? He lives, dies, rises again but says nothing

What would change?

Everything.

The only reason we know the eternal effects of Jesus life death and resurrection, because he preached. He told us who he was, what he was going to do and what we must do in response.

Without his preaching we’d have thrilling, heart pounding experiences of Jesus but no idea what they mean or why they matter. But through preaching, God reveals the purpose of his works, and teaches us how to respond. “Faith,” Paul says, “comes by hearing and hearing through the word of God.”(Rom10:17)

Jesus came to preach in Capernaum, Galilee, in Judea because his word preached was the seed God’s Spirit used to bring dead souls to saving faith and it was the water he used to make a motley collection of immature, self focused men Apostles.
And and it still is.

That’s why Paul writes to the pastor Timothy:

2 Tim 4, “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”

Preaching is hard on the modern mind. We live in an experience/entertainment culture. We’re been conditioned to judge everything by its effect on our emotions: is this stirring me?

But preaching is God’s way of appealing to and changing heart by way of the mind. Through it he fastens the mind on his nature and character, the meaning of his word, the purpose of his works.

Without it our experience of God be meaningless. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus explained the scriptures before he revealed himself. The apostles reasoned from the scriptures. Paul reasoned from the scriptures.

Why? Because our hearts will not rest where our minds are insecure. God uses preaching to anchor the soul in his truth - and the heart follows.
Preach the word, that’s my job - and, believe it or not, that is your job too. Maybe not behind the pulpit, you’re called to preach and teach the word of God - wives and husbands to each other, parents to children, bible study and mission group leaders, Sunday school teachers, to friends, family, work people - both to Christians for building them up and to non-Christians for planting seeds.

This is what God called Jesus to do. For him and for us it meant being willing to risk losing a crowd to create a church.

Application

Prayer

In my experience many North American Episcopalians/Anglicans, even from very good orthodox churches, have only a rudimentary concept of what lies between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 - and, worse, little desire to learn. Here are seven reasons (among many) why we are the way we are:

1. Many life-long Anglicans/Episcopalians have grown up with short devotional/poetic homilies only tangentially related to a biblical text rather than biblical exposition. This has bred a passionless, incurious, passive approach to giving and listening to sermons, engaging in bible study, and reading the bible.

2. Driven by the charismatic renewal movement in the late sixties and the growing severity of doctrinal disputes in the Episcopal Church, many Episcopal leaders began to focus on creating a “spiritual experience” to the exclusion of teaching biblical doctrine and ensuring that people understand what Christians believe and why. This created feeling-focused congregations hungry for mountain-top experiences, too impatient for the long slow work of reading, marking and inwardly digesting the word of God.

3. Many Anglican/Episcopal priests distrust the sufficiency of the word of God for the growth (Mk 4:1-20), health (2 Tim 3:16) and sanctification of the church (Jn 17:17), depending rather exclusively on the liturgy and the sacraments to do the work Jesus assigns to the word. This distrust carries the added benefit of making Sunday morning very easy on the priest. Just go through the liturgy and you’re done. This has created many congregations that consider themselves “eucharistically centered” but in reality have no interest in or desire for God’s self revelation in scripture. The readings and sermon are a prelude to the really important part of worship.

4. Many Anglican/Episcopal leaders and people are “recovering” from very rigid fundamentalist pasts where their heads where packed with lots of scripture but their hearts were left cold. The Anglican/Episcopal church is perceived as a place where these “mature” Christians might go to convalesce. These leaders and people often nurse along a reactionary distaste for exposition, doctrine, and adult Christian education - associating all these things negatively with “fundamentalism”. This has created congregations in which new disciples starve for the lack of milk while those who might nourish and feed them pride themselves on their sophistication and spiritual depth. It is also true that many who believe they learned everything there is to know about scripture while sitting between their parents in a “fundamentalist” church are as ignorant as the converts.

5. In many Episcopal Churches, Sunday school is largely seen as something for children to do while the adults are quaffing coffee and downing powdered donuts in the parish hall. Having gone through Sunday school themselves they imagine that they know all there is to know. This has created a culture in which many Baptized, Confirmed, church-going Anglicans are innoculated against the intellectual demands of continuing in the Apostles’ teaching.

6. Children’s Sunday school (not to mention youth ministry) has been largely reduced to teaching kids to be good and make good life decisions. “Jesus was nice and came to model niceness. Here are some nice things he did. So now let’s all go out and be nice.” This has produced little deists who know some of the more popular bible stories but know nothing of redemption history and see nothing unique about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

7. Many Anglican/Episcopalian priests entered the priesthood because it seemed a good way to “care for people”, entertaining a soft hazy therapeutic vision of their role. This has created a culture in which many priests love their people and many people love their priests but also one in which the prophetic role - preaching repentance, sacrifice, and fidelity to Christ and his word - cannot be embraced without “breaking up the family”. Soft words have created hard hearts. Caring and sharing has left no room for exhortation.

These factors (and others) created an environment ripe for revisionist take-over. By the late 90s Anglicans/Episcopalians had largely lost the ability to measure new ideas biblically. This made it very easy for revisionist sophists to wrest the words “love” and “grace” from their biblical moorings and use them to support non-celibate homosexual ministers and same sex blessings, all the while “sounding” Christian to the untrained ears of many priests behind the pulpit and people in the pews.

Now many Anglicans are moving into a new post-Episcopalian era, rebuilding our congregations after losing property and people to the Anglican wars. But we need to rebuild on much firmer foundations or history will repeat itself. The only way to prevent that from happening is to begin the often painful process of re-catechizing the church from square one.

That will necessarily involve hard work for pastors. In many cases it will mean re-learning the gospel, rediscovering scripture, embracing the hard study exposition demands. It will mean creating adult education programs, teaching bible studies and training bible study leaders, training people to actively listen and engage with scripture as it is preached and rather than waiting to be swept up or entertained from the pulpit. All of this means sacrifice and sweat.

And it will be divisive work because it will mean demanding a lot from people unused to seeing church as anything more than a comfortable and comforting place to go on a Sunday morning. It will be difficult work because we as leaders have lazily floated along with the tide and have become fearful of making demands on ourselves or the people in our care. Some people will leave because they will not want to go where we lead them. Let them go. Some priests will balk. That’s too bad.  But if we carry the same deathly, vigor-sapping, know-nothing, sacerdotal, “its-all-a-mystery” DNA into the future we can expect desolation and ruin.

Sermon by Matt Kennedy
Text: Mark 1:29-31
Sunday April 29th, 2012

Capernaum was more than a fishing village in its day. It was the center of the region’s fishing industry - a prosperous and wealthy town, one of the two most populous cities in the region. It was the place to be if you wanted to be in the heart of the action in Galilee.

Jesus wanted to be where lots of people lived and worked, where people would hear him and see him- so he moved very early to Capernaum.

Reading the gospels you sense (v.35), that Jesus preferred solitude, that if he could do anything in the world, he would want to be alone with his father.

But, of course, he can do anything in the world - and he chooses again and again to surrender his quiet, to allow his peaceful moments to be interrupted, to set himself down in frenetic, needy, busy, bustling, callous places - places where he might be heard, seen, considered, rejected or received, by the most people. He could live anywhere and do anything, but Jesus choose, freely, to give himself up, not just to death on a cross, but to a thousand small deaths before that - because he took his Father’s will and purposes and made them his own.

If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? I’d live in Texas…not in a city but in the hill country far far from people. When I retire I want to escape from urban corruption.

But every time I read the gospels I’m struck by Jesus’ willingness to fling himself into the throng, exhaust himself to bring the Kingdom of God to bear.

And I’m uncomfortably reminded that as his follower, I’m called to be willing to forsake the comforts of this world and devote myself to him and his kingdom. That often means putting ourselves in the dirt and grime and crime and corruption of a city - busy chaotic places where the gospel has the greatest potential for impact.

Jesus’ mission, from the Father, was and is to roll back veil of sin, death and Satan - to bring his light to bear in the present darkness. He gave everything to accomplish that mission - that’s why he moved to Capernaum.
This mission, as we saw last week, means confrontation with every power that rebels against God - visible and invisible.

It also means - and this is what we’ll begin to see today - dealing decisively with the the consequences of that rebellion. What are some of the consequences of sin on the earth? death, disease, disfigurement, poverty, alienation, chaos in the natural world.

These consequences are not only earthly, the gospel - the good news that the kingdom of God has come in Jesus - is that they are temporary.
One day, he will undo every mark of the fall, every twist of nature, every plague and illness and deformity. Not only sin, Satan and death, but sickness has had its day. Its power is broken because in Jesus Christ, Kingdom of God is at hand. That’s what healing is - every healing in the gospels is a foretaste of the banquet, the feast he’s preparing for us at the resurrection.

Let’s turn to Mark 1, picking up in v. 29. I

“And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.”(29)

The 1st century synagogue in Capernaum no longer stands. Its foundations do. 40 feet away from those archeologists have found the remains of the first century home where Peter and Andrew lived with their families.

Exhausted after preaching, teaching and his confrontation with the possessed man, Jesus had only a short walk to Simon and Andrew’s house.

“Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.”(30)

Peter had a mother-in-law. What does that tell us about Peter? He was married. This is a great text for our Roman Catholic friends.

But not only does Peter have a mother in law, she’s living with him. Peter and Andrew support not only their wives and possibly children but also an extended family.

These are not men with nothing to lose. Their decision to follow Jesus beyond Capernaum will mean sacrifice not only for the two men, but for their families.

My family is the best thing in my life. I thank God for Anne whom I love more than any other human being on the planet. I desperately love my kids.

But Jesus calls Peter and Andrew not only to trust him with their own lives but to trust him with their families. Pragmatically, practically, from the world’s perspective Peter and Andrew were stupid to leave the fishing business and go traipsing around Israel with Jesus. But they did it.

Now Don’t think that Peter and Andrew just abandoned their families. 20 years later, Paul writes in 1 Cor 9:5 “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?” Peter’s still married. And, despite what must have seemed to many in Capernaum a foolish decision to follow Jesus and leave the fishing business…God took care of Peter’s family. 20 years later, they’re spreading the gospel together. Jesus didn’t just love the fishermen and call them to be his disciples…he called their families too.

God’s a far better caretaker and decision-maker for my family than I am. Setting his call, his gospel, him first is always to do what’s best for Anne and my kids. Every time I set the demands of family against discipleship, I go wrong. But seeking Jesus first and his righteousness all things are given to us.

In one sense that means when I’m troubled, I seek my comfort from him first. When in conflict with someone here or elsewhere I tell him about it. He’s the source of my joy and satisfaction and protection and providence. I don’t seek those things in Anne - she can’t give them to me.

In another sense it means that when considering where to live, how to live, what job to take, the gospel comes before what I perceive to be practical considerations. Where would Jesus have us go? What would Jesus have us do? That kind of consideration is precisely why we came here.

It’s this sort of thinking that led Peter and Andrew, fisherman, not rabbis or pastors - and their families - to make the sacrifices necessary so that they could follow Jesus .
So Peter’s mother in law has a fever. To us fevers are not that big of a deal. In the first century they could easily lead to death.

At the same time it’s not the kind of story you’d expect to see if someone were making a highlight film of Jesus’ ministry. You’d expect to see the blind, the lepers, the deaf - not a mother in law’s fever. In the grand scheme of biblical miracles- to the wider story of the cosmic redemption - healing a fever seems inconsequential

I wish I could count the times I’ve heard people say, “this is such a small thing compared to all the other problems in the world, why would God care about it. Isn’t it selfish of me to fret about my migrane or my knee or whether my grandson plays well in the soccer game when there are people starving around the world? Why bother God with my selfish concerns?”
But the God we serve is not pressed for time. He exists fully and completely at all times and in all places. His attention to you takes nothing away from his care for anyone or anything else. He’s not limited in any way. He doesn’t have to balance his time - juggle his calendar - struggle to keep all his balls in the air.

So Peter and Andrew tell Jesus about the mother in law. Notice, there’s no request here. They may’ve merely wanted to warn Jesus that someone was sick in the house. Maybe they knew he was tired and were afraid to ask him to do anything. Whatever the case, they don’t ask for a healing.

But when Jesus heard that she was sick, “he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”(31)

1. Sometimes I get worried that if I forget to pray about this thing or that thing that the Lord won’t help me. Like he’s a coin operated deity who won’t move unless I ask him. But do you refuse to feed your kids lunch unless they make a formal request. What about clothing do you wait for them to realise that they’re growing out of their clothes. No - we see a need and we take care of it because we love them. Your Father in Heaven loves you infinitely more than any parent could ever love any child and he knows your needs before you need them. You are his child in Jesus Christ, he takes care of you even when you don’t ask. 

2. Some focus on the last phrase, “and she began to serve them” and criticize the apparent sexism of the account. “Ah so the poor old woman just recovering from a fever has to get up and serve these young men. Why don’t they serve themselves - because they’re sexist pigs that’s why”

But you have to strain hard to miss the real point. How do you feel after your fever breaks? I feel a lot better but I’m also tired. I don’t feel like leaping up and serving anyone.

But here’s this woman who 5 seconds ago was in bed with a raging fever who now, after Jesus takes her hand and raises her up, is not only well, but she’s got the energy to bustle around and serve.

Jesus heals completely. He doesn’t just cure the illness - he wipes away the ravages of it. We’ll see this in all the healings in the Gospels…He doesn’t leave anyone a little sick, a little bit leprous. Or half - dead.

At the beginning I said that healing is a sign and symbol of his ultimate purpose with the cosmos and with you too. Jesus did not just come to forgive sin. That’s huge. But he also came to break the chains of sin - to make you like him - without a hint or trace of sin - fully and completely healed,

3. I mentioned already that Peter and Andrew don’t ask Jesus to heal. The mother in law doesn’t either. She’s perhaps too feverish to think at all, much less ask for healing or believe that Jesus can do it. So she’s not there believing that Jesus is going to work a miracle in her life. Jesus doesn’t heal Peter’s mother in law because she believed that he would or could. He just does it because he loves her and he wants her to live.

There are times when faced with unbelief Jesus decides not heal. That’s not because his healing depends on the power of human belief. He raises dead people. Corpses can’t have too much faith. Let me illustrate what I think is happening when he links healing to faith. When I’m really in trouble I cry out to God, help me. Please get me out of this. When he does, sometimes not only do I forget to be thankful but I say to myself, whew, how awesome am I? So sometimes when he directly answers my prayer…even I, believer in Jesus, attribute his work to my brilliance. Now think about the effect of a miracle on someone who doesn’t’ believe that Jesus is who he says he is. Miracles among those who don’t believe sometimes harden rather than soften hearts. Whew got out of that one. So sometimes Jesus does not heal where there is no faith because he knows that healing the body would only harden the heart. But that’s not because he “can’t”. Jesus’ power to heal never depends on the exertion of human belief.

Finally, notice her work and her service to Jesus follows rather than precedes Jesus’ touch. She doesn’t serve him so that he’ll heal her. She can’t, in fact, serve him at all, until he heals her. But after Jesus touches her, then she can serve with all the might and health he gives her. Her service flows out of gratitude for the work Jesus has already done for her…she doesn’t earn her healing, she receives it and it changes her life.

In the same way there is nothing you or I can do to earn God’s favor or Jesus’ love. He gives it to you as a free gift. Faith is not a work, it is merely receiving the work he’s done on your behalf and accepting the hand that he holds out to you. Then you rise and serve him. Not because you hope desperately to be with him forever, you want healing, you want freedom, you want salvation, but precisely because Jesus has given you all these things freely because he loves you.

Listen to or download the mp3 version here The audio kicks in after about 30 seconds…

Sermon by Matt Kennedy
Mark 1:21-26
Sunday April 22, 2012

I went to a high school that gave each student 7 excused absences per period per semester. There were 6 class periods each day. I could skip 42 classes per semester, 84 per year. And I did.

I loved high school. I hated the school part…not because I was too smart—some people hate high school academics because they’re brilliant and therefore bored. I hated academics because I was lazy. I was satisfied with b’s and c’s.

At the end of my junior year, my girlfriend, who’d let me cheat off of her chemistry exams meanly told me the good times were over.  “You may not be stupid” she said, “but, how can I know? You never try. I don’t want to be with a stupid guy so I hope you apply yourself next year.”

That same summer, my dad sat me down, looked me in the eye and said, “Son, you’re lazy, irresponsible, and immature. I’m disappointed in you.” I got very angry. Where’s the unconditional love and acceptance?

Embedded in my father’s and my girlfriends hard words were as you can probably see, wisdom and love and, even worse, truth.

Sometimes the truth about yourself hurts too much to acknowledge but those who love you will never hide it. The question with which we often struggle is: How do we respond to the truth about ourselves?

Jesus loves you. He loved the people of Galilee. Beginning in chapter Mark 1:21 Jesus rolls into Galilee like a ball of fire - people respond to him with fear and rejection or surrender and discipleship - no one seems to take a “meh” attitude. To see why let’s glance back to Mark’s two part summary of his preaching in v.15.

The first part is: “The time is fulfilled,and the kingdom of God is at hand”

Jesus doesn’t, like the prophets, say: the kingdom of God is coming. He says, it’s at hand. The end isn’t near. It’s here. 

And he doesn’t point beyond himself to some other sign to back that up. The time is fulfilled,and the kingdom of God is at hand…and he’s standing before you.

Jesus doesn’t preach: turn to YHWH and await the kingdom because he is YHWH and in him the Kingdom is embodied.  That’s the good news.

The second part is: “repent and believe in the gospel”

To “believe”  “pistis” is not simply agreeing intellectually with Jesus’ propositions. It means staking your life on it, staking your future, your present, your family, your job, your money, your relationship everything you have on and in Jesus—and that necessarily entails repentance.

The only bad news in Jesus’ message is found in the command to repent

Repent, metanioa, means turn around. Which means: right now, you’re not okay.

Jesus never said to anyone (as was popular in the 70’s sometimes even from the pulpit) “I’m okay, you’re okay.”

His message was: I’m okay you’re messed up.

No one wants to hear that. Last night Chris Jones and I had the privelege to speak in a Mormon church. As ministers of the gospel, we had to say to them: “The system of belief, the world view, the authorities upon which you’ve built your life will lead you to destruction.”

Mormons - not unlike many church people - believe the gospel is something like: “Jesus came to show us how to live right. So we live right.” We had to say, if you trust in your own ability to attain the kingdom of God through your own effort you’re going to fail. You’re not good enough. You’re not “okay” and you won’t be okay until you leave all of that behind trust in the work of Jesus Christ alone.

Jesus would’ve made much the same point in Capernaum because many within 1st century Judaism had come to see the law as a means by which they might attain righteousness, goodness, acceptability before God. Jesus would have had to turn the people from trust in themselves, self reliance, to trust in him, in his work, in his person.

When we read in v. 21 “ immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and was teaching.” this is what he was teaching.
Imagine yourself a devout Jew, following the law, following the tradition of the elders, maybe even baptized by John, waiting for the kingdom of God. In comes this young rabbi as guest speaker.

But his message isn’t the usual rabbinical lesson. It’s not, here’s how rabbi Hillel says we’re to keep the Sabbath, or Rabbi Gamaliel says we’re to keep this law.

Jesus cites no authority, appeals to no tradition, falls back on the learning of no scribe. He looks straight through the eyes into each soul says you think you’re okay but your sins have set you in a precarious place. You are neither good nor holy. Don’t lie to yourself. You cannot do the law. YHWH has come to save you. He’s staring you in the face. Turn from yourself and follow me.

“22 And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”
 
Last night, I asked the Mormons to open their bibles while I spoke so they could see whether or not I was making stuff up. That’s why I want you to open your bibles. If I stand up here and give you Matt Kennedy’s thoughts on the Afghan war or morality or parenting, you should say: Who’s Matt Kennedy? But if what I say flows directly from what scripture says, it carries authority.

Jesus speaks without appealing to any authority beyond himself. He doesn’t open a dialog,  or enter into a conversation, he doesn’t seek to persuade the congregation to come around to his opinion by appealing to this authority or that. Jesus speaks in Capernaum as the Torah, not merely as an expositor of scripture, as scripture.

As such he sets his hearers into a dangerous place. You either believe his claims about himself and your life radically changes or you disbelieve him and go your own way. But your eternity hangs in the balance and there’s no middle ground - if you believe that he is YHWY, then there’s no escape from the authority of his words.

So I was talking to a parishioner who was having a hard time considering forgiving a family member. We opened the bible and we looked at Jesus’ commands to forgive. This person believes that Jesus is God, believes that every word of scripture is infallibly true. But this person looked at me and said: I’m just not sure I agree. That’s not an option Jesus gives us. If he is God, he’s right. And disagreement is rebellion.

The North won the civil war. But there are still southerners down there who refuse to surrender. There are parts of us, likewise, that refuse to surrender. Faced with a clear cut command that hits you where you struggle most - we seek refuge, escape, self-preservation in various obstacles we construct by the misuse of our reason. I shouldn’t have to forgive this person. I was right to say what I said. I shouldn’t submit to anyone or anything. I can do what I want. Why shouldn’t I take a bite out of that fruit?

These little rebellions in you are dying vestiges of a much greater cosmic rebellion with which you were once allied.

You see that cosmic-wide rebellion surface in our text this morning.

“And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out”
Paul describes the basic state of humanity in his letter to the Ephesian church chapter 2:1-2,

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.”

The prince of the power of the air is the Serpent. Satan. When our first parents chose to listen to the serpent and seek, like him, to become little gods we fell under his sway.

Sin, Paul points out, is an act of discipleship, we “follow” the prince of the power of the air.

Later in the same book Paul writes:

“we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12)

These powers want to be gods, they hate all counterclaims. They want to tear YHWH off his throne, destroy his son, corrupt his cosmos, ruin his creatures. So they whisper lies designed to tap into our deepest desires and longings, coaxing us, step by step, decision by decision to follow their lord to hell.

In some cases, they even indwell or “possess” people - they desecrate the temple of God.

There are many ways this happens. Religion/spirituality one of his favorites. And here it is important to remember that “spirituality” is not inherently good. In Anne’s village certain men seek possession by spirits they call fetishes. This is a dangerous sort of spirituality Few would have done such things in Galilee but was a very religious place and we will see that the serpent had wormed his way into the hearts of some. Many followed the religion of the elders. But religion was no refuge.

Paul tells us in 1 Cor 10:20, “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.”

The word “pagan” there refers to all spiritual beliefs and practices that do not look to, conform to, and flow from Jesus.

To devote yourself to them is to come, unwittingly, under the sway of demons and risk possession. I’m not saying, and please hear me, that those who follow other faiths are possessed. I am saying the way is open for possession through non-Christian spiritual and religious practices while Christians, indwelt by the Holy Spirit have nothing to fear.

I’m not saying that there is not goodness and truth in other faiths…there most certainly is…but truth is present in other religions like wine in Hamlet’s goblet.

Following any other religion, entering the occult, wicca, tarot, ouija boards, seances, even something as harmless as a horoscope opens the human soul to the powers of hell.

Before the coming of Christ, the cosmos was occupied territory and humanity in general was under the serpent’s thrall.

But now Hell trembles. There are few episodes demonic possession in the OT. But -when Jesus speaks, when the apostles preach - demons come out of the woodwork. The demons know Jesus very well. They know his voice - and their response is abject horror.

The demon in verse 24, hears Jesus voice and he hears the voice of doom. “What have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”

The “us” could be the congregation. The demon could be trying to turn the crowd, already unsettled by his preaching, against Jesus. What you’re saying is blasphemous! Are you trying to destroy us?

Hell’s work is always to divide you from Jesus - he wants you to feel personally offended by Jesus. He wants you to be upset when you hear things you don’t like…especially when they’re true. He wants you to be indignant - to go off in a huff. He especially wants you to hold on to hurts you’ve received in the church. He speaks soft words to nurse your hurts, to make you feel the victim.

He wants you focused on self esteem, self regard, self-respect, your needs, your feelings - and lead you to resent the demands of the gospel to peal you away from Jesus and peal you away from the body of Christ.

The Serpent’s voice, his whisper, is seductive and sweet…After all you’ve done how can they treat you that way? No one pays any attention to you and your work, your contribution.

All of that kind of talk is from hell. The Holy Spirit will never say that. He’ll say “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant.” (Phil 2:3-7)

Bearing with others failings, setting others above ourselves, not expecting other people to conform to us but rather seeking to conform to Christ - Satan and his demons hate that and he is more powerful, crafty, intelligent, and persistent than any man or women will ever be save one.

“25Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26 And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him.”(Mk 1:25-26)

No spell of deliverance. No incantation. No dancing and incense no special potion or ritual. A command and its over—The demon screams and convulses but he is a creature and Jesus is his Creator and Lord.

The world is unused to this kind of authority. We are, or at least we should be. Daily Christ speaks truth to us in his word, through his Holy Spirit, through the church. And daily we, as believers, are confronted with the choice: rebellion or surrender; denial or discipleship. We can follow the way of the spirit of the power of the air or follow the Lord and remain with him in his Kingdom

The essence of the Christian life, is day by day, coming face to face with the uncomfortable authority of Christ and relinquishing, surrendering. You are right, I am wrong. save me from myself.

Application

Prayer

Sermon by Ife Ojetayo
Mark 1:14-20, Luke 14:25, 26
Sunday April 15th, 2012

Last week we did the unthinkable, we skipped to the end of the story and we did it without even giving a spoiler alert. So I’m glad that you’ve all showed up to church this morning to continue in the gospel of Mark even though you know how the story ends. So with the resurrection in mind, let’s go back to the beginning of the proclamation of this good news in verse 14 of chapter 1.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.

This was after John had baptised Jesus and after 40 days of trial by Satan in the wilderness. Mark has revealed to us so far that Jesus is the Son of God, and we’ve seen in his baptism the empowering of His mission by the Holy Spirit and the affirming of it by His Father. Jesus has shown his authority over Satan in the wilderness and now He is showing his authority over sin and sinners in the proclamation of the gospel and in the calling of his disciples.

What is the nature of this gospel that Jesus has come to proclaim? Whose gospel is it? And under what conditions is it to be received? Remember that Mark starts of his letter saying ‘the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’. He has co-opted the political terms of his day which was used to announce the birth of an emperor or the victory in battle of an emperor to describe the mission of Jesus on earth. We are all familiar with the term gospel, evangelion, and we know it to be uniquely referring to Jesus and His good news. But Mark’s first audience knows the term evangelion as news referring to Caesar. So the whole of Mark’s gospel was structured as a coronation biography, it was a story about the reign, rule and triumph of Jesus, and it was a clear subversion of Rome and the power structure in which his audience live in. But the Gospel of Mark isn’t just satire, in fact what he is revealing to us is the reality of who Jesus is. He’s showing us, here is the true King with true authority and power and He is the One who can truly save. All other claims outside of His claim to sovereignty are false. And the claim is indeed good news, evangelion, because it is a story of how the King comes to His people and saves them from destruction and wins for them victory over sin and death. That’s what easter is all about. But Mark isn’t inventing this word to just be clever, in fact he is reclaiming it and attributing it in the proper context. Jesus himself proclaims it in verse 15. Jesus’ proclamation was this, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel.

The time is fulfilled, this shows that this gospel is real, it is revealed in space, time and real history. It isn’t a myth or legend a la Greek and Roman gods that was fabricated and created by men. It isn’t given in seclusion to a man and relayed by a third party in the style of Mohammed or Joseph Smith. It was enfleshed in a person, it was lived out in real time and space. It was proclaimed by God himself to his people. So Jesus is saying the time is fulfilled, the historic moment is here and the kingdom of God is at hand. In other words the kingdom of God is near not chronologically in terms of the clock, but “at hand” physically. The kingdom is near to people in the person of Jesus, the Messiah, the revealed Son of God.

And so the call to repent is of utmost importance. The call to repent represents a crisis or point of decision for mankind. This good news isn’t something we can attain by ourselves it is something that God does in us. No one is ready for this kingdom, all of us are tainted by sin so the call to turn away from sin and death, which is our old way, to life in Christ Jesus is necessary. What does this look like? Note that the call is to repent and believe. One follows the other. Turn from your old ways and turn to Jesus, put your trust in him, believe in His gospel.  The danger when we hear the gospel is to turn from our old ways and be remorseful and beat ourselves up over our inability to please God, but we forget to turn towards God. Access to God’s kingdom is gained by faith in Jesus and his work for you and I on the cross and not in anything else.

From there Jesus calls Peter and Andrew and James and John to be his disciples. Mark doesn’t tell us how long Jesus proclaimed the gospel before he calls the four disciples here. But it is entirely possible that they have already heard about Jesus. Luke 5 recounts this encounter with more detail. But what is obvious here was the authority with which Jesus calls them. Firstly, Rabbi’s (which is what the disciples call Jesus) do not go around recruiting disciples, it is the other way around. Students that want to study under a famous rabbi like Hillel or Gamaliel would seek them out and they must be well qualified and prove their qualification for in order to be accepted. Here Jesus goes to Galilee, which is on the outskirts of Jewish religious life and calls out fishermen to be his disciples. And they responding to his authority left everything and followed.
It’s easy to assume they didn’t have much to leave behind but that will be wrong. The Sea of Galilee was a highly productive area. Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian describe the sea as “the pride of nature”. And fishing for these men was an industry, they were exporting fish to other countries. So these weren’t desperate men who are willing to try anything and follow anyone. They have a livelihood, we know that Peter had an extended family he was providing for and James and John were working with their father in a business that was lucrative enough to have hired servants. So these men were not barely making ends meet, they were making a good living at a job they were trained to do. Yet when Jesus called them they left it all and followed him.

Imagine being Zebedee, you’ve been a good father and left a good business for your sons and the minute some strange rabbi comes along they take off. All those years of pouring into them and training and grooming them to take over the family business wasted. 
This is what Jesus means in Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus is saying to be my disciple you must love me above all else and willing to let go of all things that you hold dear for me, that if the world were to see your love for me it will seem like hate in comparison to your love and devotion to me.
The call isn’t unique to the twelve, God calls us in the same manner. First, he calls us, he searches us out and calls us to himself. The calling is his doing, no one comes to him unless he opens their hearts to receive him. But the promise is there along with the call, He will make us fishers of men. For Peter and Andrew, leaving their nets to follow Jesus couldn’t have been easy, it requires faith and trust in the One who called them. For James and John leaving their father couldn’t have been easy, to cut that bond with their father to follow Jesus was hard. For a 1st-century Jew their whole identity is tied up in the bond with their family, especially between father and son. And we know that they weren’t especially brilliant men or virtuous, the whole gospel account is packed full of their shortcomings. Yet, these same men who couldn’t get their acts together were empowered by God to carry the gospel all over the world, and to charge other in doing the same.

Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer in NYC says this about following Jesus,  “Jesus is saying I want you to follow me so fully, so comprehensively, so supremely, so emotionally that all other attachments in your life look like hate in comparison. If you say to Him, ‘I’ll follow you if…’ whatever is on the other side of that ‘if’ is your real master and goal.

Sermon by Matt Kennedy
Text: John 13:1-11
Maundy Thursday 2012

It’s Passover. Normally, Jesus and his disciples would be joined by others but this Passover Jesus shares with the 12 alone, an intimate feast with the men who’ve been with him day and night for three years. Jesus knows the time to die is drawing near. He’s done more than hint about that.

A year earlier, Jesus asked the 12: “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

From that moment, Matthew tells us, “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must…suffer many things…and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (16:21).

Jesus knew his purpose.

His disciples didn’t. In Luke 18, after Jesus repeats this prophecy, Luke tells us, “[the disciples] understood none of these things.”

That explains a lot about John 13.

Jesus is preparing mentally, spiritually, both to die a horrific physical death and to suffer spiritually the eternal torments of hell. His disciples are preparing for a lamb roast and a coronation.

Jesus’ state of mind is given in vv.1-3:

“before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

Banish any image of Jesus as the victim of the powers that be. Jesus went to Jerusalem to die a death he planned and purposed to die before the creation of the cosmos.

It’s the a culminating act of love for his own.

In Isaiah 6, The prophet Isaiah in a vision entered the Temple. He saw the Lord seated high on his throne flanke by six winged angels called Seraphim singing “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of hosts.” To recite an adjective thrice in Hebrew is like our superlative “most”. The angels sing to not a holy God, not a very holy God, but the most Holy God.

What happened to Isaiah? He felt himself “coming undone”. His very being began to unravel. Why? He said: “I’m a man of unclean lips.” I’m a sinner. And sinners cannot survive in the presence of the most Holy God.
Isaiah speaks for all of us. You and I have unclean lips—our thoughts, words, deeds condemn us. To stand before God’s throne of judgment in your sin is to enter into an eternity of unraveling of coming undone.

But God sends his angel to touch Isaiah’s lips with coal, to “cleanse” him. The Lord wants Isaiah to remain in the Temple with him.

That’s a picture for us of what Jesus is preparing to do. He’s both the one seated on the throne and the one sent from the throne to cleanse. He wants you and I to remain with him, to be in his dwelling place forever. But first we must be made clean.

Jesus loves his own to the end by giving himself as a burnt offering, as our substitute, so that the coal from the altar of his sacrifice might touch our lips and make us clean. 

But this act is for “his own.” There’s a delineation here. He loves his own to the end. His sacrifice cleanses those who are his. Are you his? Then this act of love is for you. If you’re not his, you can be. Turn to him this evening, he will love you to the end, he will cleanse you. But if not you’ll come undone before his throne. 

V.2 would’ve surprised the disciples but not Jesus. “2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him,”

How many have heard people say: without evil there can be no good? That’s a Taoist idea—the yin and the yang—equal opposite forces. And it’s a lie. Satan is not God’s equal. He’s a creature, once a beautiful and holy angel. So beautiful and holy that he became proud. He ultimately led a rebellion in heaven. He was defeated, cast down, and will be, according to Revelation 22, ultimately cast into a lake of fire. In the meantime, he works to destroy and corrupt what God loves. That was his purpose with Adam and Eve. That’s his purpose with Judas.

Why didn’t God cast Satan into the fiery lake in the first place? We see the answer here. God uses Satan’s hatred to defeat him. Judas’ betrayal Luke tells us in Acts 2:23, is part of “the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”
Jesus’ death will be Satan’s defeat and God’s victory. John sandwiches v.2 between vv.1-3 to show that everything Satan does to destroy and corrupt, despite his best efforts, only furthers the saving purposes of God.
The description of Jesus’ state of mind continues…vv3-4a

“Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4rose from supper…”

Later that evening - their Messiah, arrested, on trial, facing execution - it must’ve seemed to the disciples that the world was spinning out of control. But no. The Father “had given all things into his hands.” Jesus holds all authority in heaven and on earth at the supper. At the arrest. At the trial, at the crucifixion. All things are in his hands.

How often do you wonder, where’s God? How can he let this happen? When you do remember how his disciples must have felt that night. Remember that this Jesus, who holds all authority, carves his path back to the Father through the valley of the shadow of death. And following him means this is our path too. But he’s gone first. And he’s with you. And he’s been given all things. And his purpose for his own is good, it’s a saving purpose, a cleansing and redeeming purpose.

So Jesus, having all authority, all power—what does he do?

He rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
Vv.4-5 tell us that something very different has been going on in the minds of the disciples.

First century Jews would’ve been shocked - not just because the Rabbi is washing feet but also because in v.2 we’re told supper has begun and the feet are still unwashed. This was unthinkable. 1st century streets were polluted with waste, rotting food, grimy nasty things.

And everyone wore sandals.

And for formal feasts people reclined around a u shaped table with their feet away from the table but close enough to other people’s faces and the food that it’d be pretty gross. So feet were washed before dinner.

It was a repulsive task—so much so that male Jewish servants we forbidden to wash feet. The task usually fell to children. If no children, then women. If no women, then lowest ranking male in the household was expected, not forced, to volunteer.

This is why we think the women weren’t at the last supper. The feet would’ve already been washed.

So what’s going on? We’ve already said that the disciples still expect a coronation not a crucifixion.

That assumption lies at the heart of the problem. Luke 22 deals with the events of the last supper. In 22:24 we read:

“A dispute arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest.”

That question matters if you think Jesus is getting ready to set up a new government. No one gets up to wash feet because doing so would mean taking the position of the lowest male. So imagine them all sitting there, feet stinking up the place. Sullen. Proud. Angry. Each rehearsing arguments for why he shouldn’t have to wash feet.

What a shock it must have been when Jesus got up.

This is what authority looks like in the Kingdom of God. It’s not looking to be first. It’s not making sure everyone knows how much you give, how much you know, how much you pray, how much you sacrifice, how much you clean. To be first is to be last. Leadership means putting yourself last for the love of Jesus and the love of others.

Jesus models both leadership and humility in one act.

But this is about much more than a good example. When you ask some people why Jesus came they’ll say: “To be an example.” Partly true. But if that’s all—then you’re in trouble because you can’t follow the example he sets. Neither can I.

But he came to do far more.

“He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?”(6)

Peter’s got an agenda for Jesus that doesn’t involve death. It certainly doesn’t involve washing feet.

If Jesus were merely giving a humility lesson he’d say something like: “Peter I’m trying to teach you how to be humble. You’re ruining it.”

Instead he says: “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you’ll understand.”

Peter, still not getting it, says:  “You’ll never wash my feet.”

Then Jesus says: “If I don’t wash you, you’ve no share with me.”

What does that mean? It means Jesus is telling a far deeper story.

He takes the most repulsive and filthy parts of his disciples’ bodies into his hands and bathes them. Don’t miss the tenderness. Jesus moves from man to man, personally cleaning away the muck. He doesn’t spray them from a distance. He doesn’t tell them to go wash off and come back. He knows that they cannot and will not clean themselves. They’re too proud. Too vain. The only way they’ll ever be clean is if Jesus cleans them himself. Jesus, of course isn’t just talking about feet.

Peter’s reaction sounds humble but it’s not. To have a part with Jesus Peter must let Jesus see, take and wash the most unclean, humiliating parts of himself.  He must acknowledge that he has not and will not and cannot clean himself. The temptation here is to withhold from Jesus—to try to wash yourself. But Jesus says:  unless you let me wash you, you’ll have no part of me.”

You cannot make yourself acceptable before God. You don’t have what it takes. That’s why Jesus came, to take your heart, mind, soul caked with the grime that comes from walking in the world and tenderly wash you with his blood and make us clean. But you must let him do it.

Finally, Peter gets it.

“Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.”

Jesus here is speaking specifically of “his own” again. If you take a shower in the morning, you only need to wash your hands before dinner. Jesus makes a crucial distinction that Christians often forget. The moment you commit to life to Christ Jesus, his blood cleanses you of all your sins, past present and future. And he clothes you with his own righteousness. So that the Father sees you as possessing the purity, goodness, rightouesness of his Son. He’s bathed you. You are clean. But you walk in the world. And so the disciple will always, day by day, return to Jesus, confess his sins, open his heart, offer his feet, and seek the cleansing that only the Lord can give.

Application

Prayer